ARN-ELIMEYLEKH GOLDBERG

ARN-ELIMEYLEKH GOLDBERG (b. November 16, 1892)

            He was born in Petrikov (Pietrykaŭ), Lodz region, Poland, into a religious, merchant household.  He studied in religious primary school and in a synagogue study hall.  At age fourteen he became a craftsman, and later he lived in Lodz where he was active in the Bund.  During the strike at Nayes morgenblat (New morning newspaper), he was arrested, and he spent eight months in prison.  In 1913 he left Poland and lived in Copenhagen and later in London.  In 1917 he returned to Russia and was active until 1922 in the Jewish workers’ movement and cultural work.  Still later, he settled in London.  He began writing poetry on labor themes in 1908 and first published in Kopenhager vokhnblat (Copenhagen weekly newspaper) in 1914.  He contributed as well to Arbeter fraynd (Friend of labor), Di tsayt (The times) in London, and to a number of Yiddish serials in Russia over the years 1917-1919.  He also published under the pen names: Ben-Yitskhok, Fon, and A. N., among others.

Source: Avrom Reyzen archive at YIVO.

AVROM GOLDBERG

AVROM GOLDBERG (October 18, 1881-October 24, 1933)

            The older brother of Menahem Boraisho (Menakhem Boreysho), he was born in Brisk (Brest), Lithuania.  He father was one of the most prominent followers of the Jewish Enlightenment in Ḥoveve-Tsiyon (Lovers of Zion), a Hebrew teacher, and a writer.  He received both a Jewish and general education, initially with his father and later at a Talmud-Torah.  For a time he was an external student in Odessa.  From his early youth he was occupied with Zionist activities, and spent a year in the Kibbutz “Perushim” (Pharisees) in Malch.  He was one of the leading Jewish personalities in Poland between the two world wars.  He was a member of the central committee of the Zionist Organization and one of the founders of its “Al hamishmar” (On guard) faction.  He was a close friend and ideological comrade of Yitskhok Grinboym, and helped him in all of his political election work, so as to gain a strong Zionist representation in the Polish parliament (Sejm) and also to form a radical fighting movement both in opposition to Jewish assimilation and against Orthodoxy in the Jewish middle class.  For a time he was president of the Jewish division of the journalists’ syndicate in Warsaw, and there he fought so that Jewish journalists would take on greater responsibility for their work, which would make them worthy of the function and leadership of the Jewish community of some three million in Poland.  He began to write articles about Jewish national issues in Hatsfira (The siren) and Hamelits (The advocate), and from that time on he attached his personal life to journalism.  In 1902 he became a technical contributor to Hatsofe (The spectator).  In 1905 he switched to Yiddish and published his first works in Shmuel Yankev Yatskan’s humorous newspaper, Di bin (The bee), Mortkhe Spektor’s Fraytog (Friday) in Warsaw, and the first Yiddish one-kopek newspaper in Warsaw, Idishes tageblat (Jewish daily newspaper).  Goldberg excelled at being a journalist and columnist.  He reacted to the daily events in his own style and commentary, with an emphasis on the fight for Jewish rights and Zionist ties to the issues at hand.  With the founding of Haynt (Today) in Warsaw (1908), he became one of its regular, most distinguished contributors and its editorial secretary.  In the summer of 1912, on behalf of Haynt, he traveled to Western Europe and carried out interviews with the Russian spiritual and community elite among the émigrés concerning the Jewish question in Russia.  He also influenced them to come out against Tsarist persecutions of Jews and to protest against the Beilis trial in Kiev.  When Haynt became a cooperative venture, Goldberg was selected to serve as editor-in-chief.  His attracting the best representatives of Jewish literature and journalism as contributors to Haynt enabled him to convert the newspaper into an important vehicle for fighting on behalf of Jewish national rights in Poland.  He introduced the weekly literature page and the section entitled “Fun bikher-tish” (From the book table), which helped enhance the position of the Yiddish book market.  He strove to make the Yiddish press aware of the nationally conscious and struggling Jewish masses.  He also contributed to Frishman’s Haboker (This morning) and to the Russian-Jewish Voskhod (Sunrise) and Rech’ (Speech) in St. Petersburg, for which he wrote his reports on the Beilis trial.  For many years he was the Warsaw correspondent for Tog (Day) in New York and Tsayt (Times) in London.  He was editor of the newspaper Morgnblat (Morning newspaper) and Letste post (Last mail) in Warsaw (1906-1907).  He wrote under the pseudonyms: Ibrahim and A. Meshoyrer.  He died in Warsaw.

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 1; Dr. L. Zhitnitski, Yoyvl-numer haynt (Jubilee issue of Haynt) (Warsaw, 1928); Z. Zilbertsvayg, Leksikon fun yidishn teater (Handbook of the Yiddish theater), vol. 1; N. Finkelshteyn, Yoyvl-bukh fun haynt, 1908-1938 (Jubilee volume for Haynt, 1908-1938) (Warsaw, 1938); M. Ravitsh, Mayn leksikon (My lexicon), vol. 2 (Montreal, 1947); Y. Grinboym, in Entsiklopediya shel galiut, brisk (Encyclopedia of the diaspora, Brisk) (Jerusalem-Tel Aviv, 1953); Sh. L. Shneyderman, in Moment (Brazil) (May 1, 1956); B. Shefner, in Forverts (New York) (December 1, 1956); Kh. Finkelshteyn, in Fun noentn over (New York, 1956); Moshe Run, in Davar (Adar, 1956); Y. Sh. Goldshteyn, “A yid tsu yidn” (A Jew for Jews), Forverts (November 15, 1957).
                                                                                                                     Khayim Leyb Fuks

AB. (AVROM, ABRAHAM) GOLDBERG

AB. (AVROM, ABRAHAM) GOLDBERG (February 3, 1883-June 5, 1942)

            He was born in Yarmolinets, Podolia.  His father, Nokhum Lishitsman, died early, and he was raised by his stepfather (surname: Goldberg), a scholar and Hassid who would take him along to visit his rebbe.  Until age thirteen he studied Talmud and the commentators, and later he surreptitiously began to study Russian, read Hebrew and Yiddish books, and he was thus compelled to leave the family home.  At age sixteen he traveled to Berdichev where he supported himself giving lessons.  In 1901 he moved on to Czernowitz and from there to New York where for a certain period of time he worked in a sweatshop and later also delivered newspapers.  At the same time he studied law (for three years) at New York University and gave lessons in English.  He was among the first members of the Socialist Territorialist Party, later becoming a member (1903) of the Poale-Tsiyon Party in the United States.  He was subsequently president of the Zionist Organization in America, director of the Land of Israel department, and a member of the action committee and of the American Jewish Congress.  He also chaired the Zionist Labor Federation.  He traveled across Europe, Israel, and the Americas several times.  He served as a delegate to Zionist Congresses and other Jewish conferences.

            Goldberg wrote in Yiddish, Hebrew, and English.  He published poems, sketches, critical essays, and feature pieces.  He began writing in Yiddish in 1903 for Fraye arbeter shtime (Free voice of labor) in New York.  He later published in: the Territorialist weekly Dos folk (The people), Varheyt (Truth), Yidishes tageblat (Jewish daily newspaper), Morgn-zhurnal (Morning journal), and Amerikaner (American), among others.  He served on the editorial board of Dr. Nokhum Sirkin’s monthly Dos folk and was the editor of the official organ of the Zionist Organization in America, Dos yidishe folk (The Jewish people).  He also edited: Yubileum-oysgabe dos idishe folk (Jubilee publication of Dos yidishe folk) (New York, 1915), 160 pp.; Tsienistish-literaturishes zaml-bukh (Zionist literary anthology) (New York, 1915), 64 pp.; Vardi-yoelit teater, studyo bletlekh (Vardi Yoelit Theater, studio pages) 1 (1929); Poylisher yid (Polish Jew), “Yearbook in honor of the convention of the American Federation of Polish Jews” (New York, 1940, 1941, 1942).  Among his own books and brochures: Gezamlte shriftn (Selected writings), “first volume, compositions and author” (New York, 1913), 253 pp.; Der idisher kongres (The Jewish congress) (New York, 1915), 16 pp.; Tsienistishe redes (Zionist speeches) (New York, 1916), 103 pp.; Hebreizm un idishizm (Hebreism and Yiddishism) (New York, 1918), 31 pp.; Grenetsn, eseys (Boundaries, essays) (New York, 1924), 300 pp.; Fuftsen yor tsienizm (Fifty years of Zionism) (New York, n.d.), 32 pp.; Nokhum sokolov, zayn biografye un kharakteristik (Nahum Sokolov, his biography and characteristics) (Warsaw, 1912), 32 pp.; A yudenshtat in a teyl fun erets-yirsroel (A Jewish state in a part of Palestine) (New York, n.d.), 18 pp.; Unzer tsayt kumt (Our time has come) (New York, 1941), 263 pp.; Der gaystike tsenter in poyln un der nayer gaystiker tsenter in amerike (The spiritual center in Poland and the new spiritual center in America) (New York, 1941), 80 pp.  In Hebrew he published in Hashiloaḥ (The shiloah), Hazman (The times), and Haolam (The world).  He was the editor of Hatoren (The mast).  He published three volumes of Hebrew-language writings and a book in English concerning Yiddish and Hebrew works, entitled Pioneers and Builders: Biographical Studies and Essays (New York, 1943), 469 pp.  On his fiftieth birthday, there appeared in print: Sefer hayovel (Jubilee volume) in Yiddish, Hebrew, and English (New York, 1934), 127 pp.  After his death, a Hebrew volume, Sefer avraham goldberg (The book of Avrom Goldberg) (New York, 1945), 221 pp.  He died in New York.

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 1; D. Perski, in Luaḥ aḥiasef (New York) 1 (1918), pp. 63-83; K. Vaytman, Sefer hayovel shel hadoar (Jubilee volume of Hadoar) (New York, 1926), pp. 142-45; A. Koralnik, in Tog (New York) (April 24, 1931); D. Aydelsberg, in Morgn-zhurnal (June 12, 1932); special number of Hadoar (New York) on Goldberg’s fiftieth birthday (March 23, 1934), with articles by M. Ribalov, Dr. Sh. Bernshteyn, and Daniel Perski; H. Ehrenreich, in Idisher kemfer (June 12, 1942); Geshikhte fun der tsienistisher arbeter bavegung in tsofn amerike (History of the Zionist labor movement in North America) (New York, 1955), see index; Ts. Y. Kahan, “Der geburt fun idishn kemfer” (The birth of Idisher kemfer), Idisher kemfer (March 23, 1956); American Jewish Year Book (Philadelphia, 1942).

YANKEV-KOPL GOLDBLUM (JACOB KOPPEL GOLDBLOOM)

YANKEV-KOPL GOLDBLUM (JACOB KOPPEL GOLDBLOOM) (October 30, 1872-1961)

            He was born in Kletsk (Klieck), Russia.  In 1893 he emigrated to England.  He was a rabbi and Zionist leader, a founder of Jewish educational institutions in London.  He was also a delegate to Zionist Congresses and a member of the Zionist action committee.  He contributed to the Yiddish, Hebrew, and Anglo-Jewish press in England.  He wrote for Di tsayt (The times) and Di yidishe shtime (The Jewish voice) in London.  In 1955-1956, he published Bleter fun mayn lebn (Pages from my life), which contained much information on the history of Jewish life in England and is intertwined with various popular and timely songs.  He also wrote: Ḥag habikurim beerets yisrael (Festival of first fruits in Israel) (London).

Sources: Di yidishe shtime (London) (January 7, 1955); A. Alperin, in Amerikaner (New York) (December 13, 1957); Who’s Who in World Jewry (New York, 1955), p. 263.

KHAYIM GOLDBLUM

KHAYIM GOLDBLUM (1865-May 8, 1936)

            This was the adopted name of Khayim Kishinevski.  He was born in Ostre, Wolhynia.  His father Arn-Leyb was—as he described it in his memoirs—“a women’s tailor, but a scholarly Jew and a very pious one.”  Until age ten he studied in religious primary school, thereafter in synagogue study hall under the guidance of scholars and rabbis.  Later, he prepared to become a ritual slaughterer.  At that time he became acquainted with writings of the Jewish Enlightenment.  He was therefore driven out of the synagogue study hall, and his parents threw him out of the house.  He diligently began to study worldly subject matter, and in 1888 he went to study in Berlin with the assistance of a stipend from the Odessa “Khevre mefitse haskole” (Society for the promotion of enlightenment [among the Jews of Russia]).  He was a free auditor at university and studied in the Breslau seminary.  For a time he lived in Belz, Bessarabia.  In 1897 he returned to Odessa, and he passed the teacher’s examination.  He took part in the revolutionary movement (1905), and in 1906 he emigrated to the United States.  He worked in a sweatshop in New York.  In 1908, together with the two teachers Shabtai Lerner and A. Shleger, he conceived a plan to open a modern secular Jewish school.  The three of them worked out a program, published it in several hundred copies, distributed these twelve-page brochures themselves to Jewish homes, and thus founded the first secular Jewish school in Brownsville, New York City.  In 1919 he became secretary of Sholem-Aleykhem School Number Five in New York.  Around this time he began writing and his first publication was a Passover story in the first issue of Kinder-zhurnal (Children’s magazine), and thereafter he was a frequent contributor.  In 1929 he moved to Los Angeles, California, where he worked as a teacher.  He published stories and tales in Kalifornyer idishe shtime (Jewish voice of California) and ran a “children’s corner” in Idishe teglekhe prese (Jewish daily press), edited by L. Blank.  He was also a campaigner for vegetarianism.  His published books include: Vegetarizm (Vegetarianism) (New York, 1913), 14 pp.; Murashkes (Ants), stories (New York: Matones, 1925), 62 double-columned pp.; Legendn un mayselekh (Legends and stories) (Los Angeles, 1935), 224 pp.; and his Yiddish translations of Tolstoy’s In shlakht hoyz (In the slaughter house [original: Na boinye]) (Chicago, 1915), 15 pp.; and of Elisée Reclus’s Vegetarizm (original: On Vegetarianism) (New York, 1921), 40 pp.  In 1921, with Yitskhok Horovits, he edited the monthly Di vegetarishe velt (The vegetarian world), and in November 1935, together with Dr. Ostrovski, he published Vegetarisher gedank (The vegetarian idea) in Los Angeles (altogether four numbers appeared).  He died in Los Angeles.

Sources: Kh. Goldblum, “Abisele zikhroynes” (A few memories), in Legendn un mayselekh (Los Angeles, 1935), pp. 5-23; obituary notice in Kinder-zhurnal (New York) (May 1936); Y. Sh. Naumov, “Di yidishe prese in kalifornye” (The Yiddish press in California), Heshbn 5 (Los Angeles) (1954); Y. Lamed, “Pyoner fun progresivn gedank in los andzheles” (Pioneer of progressive thinking in Los Angeles), Heshbn 5 (Los Angeles) (1954).

Zaynvl Diamant

DOVID GOLDBLAT (DAVID GOLDBLATT)

DOVID GOLDBLAT (DAVID GOLDBLATT) (1866-December 10, 1945)

            He was born in Radom, Poland.  His father Ruvn died when he was only a few months old.  His mother Khane-Nekhame descended from a Hassidic line (the name Dovid came from the rebbe of Shidlovits [Szydłowiec], R. Dovidl).  He was raised under the supervision of R. Shmuel Mohilever, who was then the rabbi of Radom.  As he grew up, he worked in various trades and devoted his evenings to studying.  He lived for a time in Warsaw, later in Berlin and in London where, while studying at the British Museum, he came to know Pyotr Kropotkin, William Morris, Sergey Stepnyak-Kravchinsky, Eleanor Marx (Aveling), and other well-known revolutionaries.  He would come to the Berner Street Club [International Working Men’s Educational Club] where he was inspired by Morris Wintchevsky.  His first publication appeared in Arbayter fraynd (Worker’s friend) in London.  In 1898 he left English for South Africa where he arrived in Cape Town just after General Jameson’s ambush at Johannesburg (early in the Boer War).  In Cape Town he happened to meet the first pioneer of Yiddish printing and newspapers in South Africa, Nehemia Dov Hoffmann, who was publishing the Yiddish weekly Haor (The light) there and who also lured him to the newspaper.  Goldblat did not work with Hoffmann for long, and in 1899—between October 16 and December 13—he himself brought out forty issues of Dos krigs shtafet (The war’s herald), the first Yiddish-language daily newspaper in South Africa.  It was a small paper which only handled news of the war.  He later worked with Hoffmann in jointly publishing the weekly Der telegraf (The telegraph).  Between 1903 and 1906, together with the well-known Cape Town community leader and member of Parliament, the lawyer Morris Alexander, he led a courageous and stubborn campaign for public recognition of Yiddish as a European language.  According to the South African immigration law of 1902, each immigrant when coming to the country (in the provinces of Cape Colony and Natal) had to sit for an examination in a European language; Goldblat fought so that Yiddish might be considered one such language, and thus Jewish immigrants would be able to enter the country.  To this end, he (having already by this point written in English as well) published in 1905 the English pamphlet Yiddish, Is It a European Language?, with seven short but clear chapters (Cape Town, 23 pp., with a preface by Morris Alexander), and he succeeded in influencing the deputies in parliament who in 1906 decided that: (1) Yiddish was a European language; (2) Yiddish was an intellectual language; and (3) Yiddish was the language of the Jewish people.  He described this battle and victory in the weekly Der yidisher advokat (The Jewish lawyer), which he had been publishing in Cape Town from 1904 and which he devotedly maintained until 1914.  For his newspaper he brought the first linotype to South Africa from afar and taught a Gentile typesetter to operate the machine.  Goldblat explained in his autobiography that he had affiliated his newspaper with the Bund in Geneva, and that through the newspaper he ran propaganda and collected money for the Bund.  For a long period of time, he also worked with the Cape Town English-language newspaper Cape Argus and took an active role in the political life of the country.

            In 1914 Goldblat left South Africa with the aim of coming to the United States to realize his lifelong interest of thirty years: publishing an encyclopedia in Yiddish.  After having lived in Cape Town, he had already published the first twelve sections of the projected encyclopedia, and on the way to America he stopped off in England and in other Western European countries, where he carried out public relations for the encyclopedia and received the assent of the head British rabbi, Dr. Hertz, Dr. Moses Gaster, Dr. Ludwig Geiger, Dr. Chaim Weizmann, Israel Zangwill, and others.  Arriving in New York in 1916, he and Dr. K. Forenberg founded the Advanced Encyclopedia Corporation, and there published the Algemeyne ilustrirte enstiklopedye (General illustrated encyclopedia), “embracing all wings of Jewish and Gentile philosophy, art, science, literature, history, biography, geography, and popular knowledge of the entire world, at all times” (vol. 1, א-או: 1920, 1000 pp.; vol. 2, או-אי: 1923, 880 pp.).  Not only did Goldblat compile these two volumes alone, but he also set the type by himself in the linotype.  Despite the enormous amount of work invested in the encyclopedia, the two volumes emerged thinner in value (dilettantish approach, inaccuracies, poor use of language).  The first volume had only just appeared in print when a sharp critique of it was articulated in the Jewish press—Goldblat answered with an unbridled pamphlet, entitled Eyn entfer tsu ale mayne kritiker (An answer to all of my critics) (New York, 1920, 15 pp.).  Ultimately, Goldblat could do no more than attempt to publish subsequent volumes of the planned twenty-volume encyclopedia.  At the time he was engaged in a heated polemic on behalf of Yiddish in the Yiddish- and English-language Jewish press in New York: a series of articles, “Tsu der farteydikung fun der idisher shprakh” (In defense of the Yiddish language), Idisher kemfer (Jewish fighter) in 1918; articles on behalf of Yiddish in The Jewish Tribune (July 1921 and late 1923), where he engaged in a polemic with Louis Marshall on Yiddish as a foundation of Jewish education; and an article in The Jewish Forum (April 1924), in which he, incidentally, depicted the struggle for Yiddish in South Africa.  His book In kamf far der yidisher shprakh (In battle for the Yiddish language), “collected writings by Dovid Goldblat,” appeared (9 + 244 pp.) in New York in 1942.  This volume included a collection of articles that he wrote between 1910 and 1925 in Yiddish and in English, and a short autobiography in which the author corrected many inaccuracies that had been published about him.  In these same years he wrote two longer treatises in English: Is the Jewish Race Pure? (New York, 1933), 352 pp.; and The Jew and His Language Problem (New York, 1943), 202 pp.  The latter volume consisted of nine chapters—such as: “Is Yiddish a Language?”; “Protecting the Yiddish Language”; “Why I Stick up for Yiddish”—with a preface by the writer Albert Eydlin-Tromer, Goldblat’s close friend, concerning Goldblat and his book.

            In his last years, Goldblat became deeply interested in medicine.  He even tried to practice it.  His entire family remained in South Africa, where his son was a well-known lawyer, and his daughter a writer in English and in Afrikaans.  He died in New York.

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 1 (Vilna, 1926), columns 472-74 and 776 (see the biography for N. Hoffmann); Shiye-Leyb Radun, Zikhroynes, yohanesburg (Memoirs, Johannesburg) (South Africa, 1936); L. Feldman, Yidn in dorem-afrike (Jews in South Africa) (Johannesburg-Vilna, 1937), p. 67; M. Sh. Shklyarski, in Yorbukh (New York, 1942); obituary notice in Hadoar (New York) (December 14, 1945); “In der yidisher un hebreyisher literatur” (In Yiddish and Hebrew literature), Tsukunft (New York) (January 1946); Professor L. Y. Rabinovitsh, Rosh-hashone-yorbukh (Rosh Hashanah yearbook, 1949-1950) (Johannesburg) (September 1949).

Yitskhok Kharlash

ARN GOLDBLAT

ARN GOLDBLAT (February 22, 1897-November 9, 1973)

            He was born in Kovno, Lithuania.  He studied in religious primary school and in a yeshiva.  During WWI, he was evacuated with his parents to the Crimea.  He returned to Kovno in 1922, and the following year he published poems for the first time in the periodical Vispe (Islet) in Kovno.  In 1929 he moved to France.  He published poems in Yidishe shtime (Jewish voice) in Kovno, in Di vokh (The week) and Literarishe bleter (Literary leaves) in Warsaw, and in Kiem (Survival) in Paris.  Among his books: Vortslen (Roots), poems (Kovno, 1927); A zang tsvishn zangn, poetry (A song among songs, poetry) (Paris, 1966), 123 pp.  He was living in France until 1967 when he moved to Israel.  He died in Petaḥ Tikva.

Sources: N. Grinblat, in Yidishe shtime (Kovno, 1927); Sh. Z., in Literarishe bleter (Kovno, 1927); N. Y. Gotlib, in Zamlbukh lite (Anthology Lithuania), vol. 1 (New York, 1951), pp. 1101, 1103-4.

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 132.]