RUVN KENZHERSKI

RUVN KENZHERSKI (b. February 27, 1887)

            He was born into a laboring family in the Russian empire.  In his youth he moved to London and worked in a tailor’s shop.  He was one of the first Labor Zionists; later, on its left wing.  He lived in the United States for several years.  In 1916 he issued a demand—in Chicago’s Der nayer veg (The new pathway)—to introduce Yiddish as a subject into municipal schools in Jewish neighborhoods in Chicago.  In 1917 he left for Russia and in 1920 was back in America.  He wrote mainly for party publications: Unzer shtime (Our voice) in London (1910), also its editor; the daily Dos naye leben (The new life) in Odessa (1917-1918) and Kiev (1919); Dos naye vort (The new word) in Moscow (1918-1920); Idish-sotsyalistishe monatshrift (Jewish socialist monthly writing) in New York (1922); and Yugent (Youth) in New York (1922).  He also wrote for New York’s Dos naye leben.  In pamphlet form: Di grundlagen fun poyle-tsienizm (The bases of Labor Zionism) (New York: Jewish Social-Democratic Association, 1915), 31 pp.

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 3; Chone Shmeruk, comp., Pirsumim yehudiim babrit-hamoatsot, 1917-1961 (Jewish publications in the Soviet Union, 1917-1961) (Jerusalem, 1961), index; Geshikhte fun der tsienistisher arbeter-bavegung in tsofn-amerike (History of the Zionist workers’ movement in North America), 2 vols. (New York, 1955), see index.

Yekhezkl Lifshits