NOYEKH KATSOVITSH

NOYEKH KATSOVITSH (May 24, 1862-May 5, 1936)

            He was born in Slonim.  He studied in Slonim and Minsk yeshivas.  Although a “Ḥovev-tsiyon” (Lover of Zion), he became very interested in Jewish colonization in Argentina, and in 1895 he settled in the Mozesville colony.  There he devoted many years to farming.  He helped establish the local Jewish cultural institutions and a good agrarian cooperative.  He contributed articles—the majority on colonization and cooperative topics—to Buenos Aires’s Habime (The stage), Tog (Day), Idishe tsaytung (Jewish newspaper), Handels-vokh (Business week), Kolonist-kooperator (Colonist-cooperative member), Mozesviler tribune (Mozesville tribune), and Mozesviler leben (Mozesville life), among others.  In book form: Mozesviler breyshes (Mozesville’s beginning) (Buenos Aires: YIVO, 1947), 229 pp.  The introduction by the editors states that Katsovitsh “noted in his memoirs a great deal of important material on the history of the celebrated colony of Mozesville.”  He died in Mozesville.

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 3; D. Goldman, Di yudn in argentine (The Jews of Argentina), vol. 1 (Buenos Aires, 1914), p. 193; M. Turkov, Di letste fun a groysn dor (The last of a great generation) (Buenos Aires, 1954), see index; B. Hoykhman, in Kolonist-kooperator (August 1969); Yeshurin archive, YIVO (New York).

Yoysef Horn