MAKS RUBINSHTEYN

MAKS RUBINSHTEYN (b. January 23, 1876)

            He was born near Volkovisk (Wołkowysk), Grodno district.  Until age twenty he studied in the yeshivas of Zabludove (Zabłudów) and Eyshishok (Eišiškės).  He was later in Warsaw where he grew close to the Bund, later still becoming active in the Polish Socialist Party (PPS).  He spent two years in the Warsaw Citadel for his political activity.  Over the years 1901-1907, he lived in Cracow, London, Lemberg, and again back in Warsaw, from whence he was forced to flee to the United States.  In 1902 he edited Yiddish-language organs of the PPS in London: Der arbayter (The worker) and Di proletarishe velt (The proletarian world).  He translated and compiled (using the pen name R. Mikhelzon) a great deal from Polish, such as: Heshel der shnayder (Heschel the tailor) (London, 1903), 16 pp.; and Vegn der frantsoyzisher revolutsyon, tadeush kostsyushko (On the French Revolution, Tadeusz Kościuszko) (London, 1904), 52 pp.  In 1903 he was editing Di yudishe folkstsaytung (The Jewish people’s newspaper), organ of the Polish Social Democratic Party in Lemberg; and 1904-1906, the PPS’s Der arbayter and Di yudishe arbayter-tsaytung (The Jewish workers’ newspaper) in Cracow, as well as the PPS organ Di proletarishe velt (initially in Vilna and later in Warsaw).  In Cracow he contributed to all twelve issues of Avrom Reyzen’s Dos yudishe vort (The Yiddish word) in 1904.  In the United States, he placed work in Tsukunft (Future), Reyzen’s Dos naye land (The new country), Chaim Zhitlovsky’s Dos naye lebn (The new life), Yoysef Shlosberg’s Der arbayter, Karl Fornberg’s Literatur un lebn (Literature and life), and Fraye arbeter shtime (Free voice of labor).  In 1917 he withdrew from literary work.  In book form: Vegn toyres moyshe, a kritishe iberblik (On the Torah of Moses, a critical overview) (Warsaw: A. Bresler, 1908), 104 pp.  He is not to be confused with M. Rubinshteyn.

Source: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 4.

Berl Cohen