NOKHUM KANTOROVITSH

NOKHUM KANTOROVITSH (April 8, 1897-May 29, 1977)

            He was born in Minsk.  He graduated from senior high school there and went on to study at the Riga polytechnical institute.  For many years he lived in Warsaw and was a leading Labor Zionist in Poland.  From 1941 he was in New York, and there he worked for a Holocaust-related project for YIVO and Yad Vashem.  He began his journalistic career with the Minsk daily newspaper Farn folk (For the people) (1919-1920).  In 1921 he was editorial board secretary of the Vilna daily Unzer fraynd (Our friend).  He edited the weekly newspaper Bafrayung (Liberation) (1922-1933) and co-edited the daily Dos vort (The word)—both in Warsaw.  He contributed to Morgn-zhurnal (Morning journal) and from time to time to Idisher kemfer (Jewish fighter)—both in New York.  In addition to journalistic articles, he wrote historical works about the Holocaust and the Zionist labor movement.  His works include: Der sotsyaler kamf fun di yidishe arbeter-masn (The social struggle of the Jewish laboring masses) (Warsaw, 1922), 30 pp.; Farshvundene yidishe yishuvim (Jewish communities that have disappeared) (Buenos Aires, 1963), 353 pp.; Di yidishe vidershtand-bavegung in poyln beysn 2tn velt-krig (The Jewish resistance movement during WWII) (New York, 1967), 460 pp.; Aryer fun moyshes gloybn (Aryan of Moses’ beliefs) (New York, 1968), 4 pp.; Di tsienistishe arbeter-bavegung in poyln (The Zionist labor movement in Poland) (New York, 1969), 128.  He translated Fritz Brügel, Der internatsyonaler (The international [original: Der Weg der Internationale (The way of the international)]) (Warsaw, 1932?), 39 pp.  He died in New York.

Sources: Fun noentn over (New York) 3 (1957), p. 288; Yankev Glatshteyn, in Idisher kemfer (New York) (June 12, 1964); B. Ts. Goldberg, in Tog-morgn-zhurnal (New York) (December 2, 1967); Yeshurin archive, YIVO (New York).

Berl Cohen