KHANANEL SHOTAN

KHANANEL SHOTAN (1884-May 14, 1963)

            An anarchist journalist, he was born in Blashki (Błaszki), Poland.[1]  In 1890s his family moved to Kalish (Kalisz).  He studied Tanakh and Talmud until age fourteen, before becoming a follower of the Jewish Enlightenment.  In Berlin he was Ruvn Brainin’s secretary.  In 1911 he received his doctoral degree in chemistry from the University of Geneva.  From 1922 he was living in Paris.  He wrote articles on political philosophy for: Fraye arbeter shtime (Free voice of labor) in New York, Frayer gedank (Free thought), Parizer tsaytshrift (Parisian periodical), and foreign-language anarchist serials.  In book form: Filosofishe un ideologishe stires (Philosophical and ideological contradictions) (Buenos Aires: Dovid Edelshtat, 1959), 142 pp.  He translated: Estienne de La Boétie, Frayvilike shklaferay (Voluntary servitude [original: De la servitude volontaire]) (Paris: Farlag frayer gedank, 1951), 79 pp.  He died in Paris.  His brother, YOYSEF SHOTAN (b. 1890), was the author of Aforizmen (Aphorisms) (Lodz: Vort, 1926), 62 pp., and Di fon (The banner) (Lodz).

Sources: Literarishe bleter (Warsaw) 2 (1924); Hersh Fenster, in Arbeter vort (Paris) (June 14, 1963); Rivke Kope, in Fraye arbeter shtime (New York) (July 1, 1963); Khayim Leyb Fuks, Lodzh shel mayle, dos yidishe gaystiḳe un derhoybene lodzh, 100 yor yidishe un oykh hebreishe literatur un kultur in lodzh un in di arumiḳe shtet un shtetlekh (Lodz on high, the Jewish spiritual and elevated Lodz, 100 years of Yiddish and also Hebrew literature and culture in Lodz and in the surrounding cities and towns) (Tel Aviv: Perets Publ., 1972), p. 153.

Beyle Gottesman

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[1] Another source gives his birthplace as Varte (Warta) (also known in Yiddish as Dvurt).