SHOLEM SHVARTS

SHOLEM SHVARTS (December 22, 1886-February 4, 1965)

            He was a Hebrew-Yiddish journalist, born in Balte (Balta), Podolia.  His literary and adopted given name was Ben-Borekh (Ben Barukh).  He attended religious primary school, and secular schools, and he studied philology at Odessa University.  From his youth he was an active Zionist.  In 1920 he made his way to the land of Israel.  He began his journalistic work in 1906 in Russian—Evreiskaia Mysl’ (Jewish thought) and Odeskaia Novosti (Odessa news).  He later published primarily in the Hebrew press: Hazman (The times), Hatsfira (The siren), Haolam (The world), Haarets (The land), and Haboker (This morning), among others; and he published mostly Hebrew-language books.  He wrote about Zionism, foreign politics, and literary critical articles—about Mendele, Sholem-Aleichem, Shimen Frug, Sholem Asch, and Perets Hirshbeyn.  He contributed to the Odessa daily newspapers, Gut-morgen (Good morning) and Unzer leben (Our life) which he co-edited for a short time, and for a lengthy period of time he was the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (ITA) correspondent in Israel.  His work also appeared in: Shmuel Rozhanski, ed., Ven a folk dervakht, medines yisroel, 1948-1968, antologye (When a people awakens, the state of Israel, 1948-1968, anthology) (Buenos Aires, 1968).  His pamphlet-length works include: Der shekel (The shekel) (Odessa: Zionist kopek library, no. 5, 1907/1908), 12 pp., later editions (Warsaw, 1916/1917), 24 pp., (Kishinev, 1923/1924); Di tsienistishe organizatsye (The Zionist Organization) (Odessa, 1909/1910), 16 pp., later edition (Kishinev: Zionist people’s library, 1923/1924).  In 1968 there was published Kovets zikaron, muḳdash lezekher hasofer ṿehaitonai shalom ben barukh (Memory compilation, dedicated to the memory of writer and journalist Shalom Ben Baruch) (Jerusalem), 123 pp.  He died in Jerusalem.

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 4; Getzel Kressel, Leksikon hasifrut haivrit (Handbook of Hebrew literature), vol. 2 (Merḥavya, 1967); D. Tidhar, in Entsiklopedyah leḥalutse hayishuv uvonav (Encyclopedia of the pioneers and builders of the yishuv), vol. 1 (Tel Aviv, 1947), p. 266, vol. 13 (1963), pp. 4360, 4577; Pinkhes Rudoy, in Tog-morgn-zhurnal (New York) (May 9, 1965).

Ruvn Goldberg