Yaakov Zrubavel ( Hebrew יעקב זרובבל , birth name Jacob-Israel Vitkin; January 14 ( 26 ), 1886 , Poltava , Russian Empire - June 2, 1967 , Tel Aviv , Israel ) - worker of Zionism , publicist and writer, one of the founders and leaders of the movement " Poalei Zion ", and later - the Israeli party MAPAM . Member of the leadership of the World Zionist Organization and the Jewish Agency .
| Yaakov Zrubavel | |
|---|---|
| Heb. יעקב זרובבל | |
| Birth name | Jacob-Israel Witkin |
| Date of Birth | |
| Place of Birth | |
| Date of death | |
| Place of death | |
| Occupation | , |
| The consignment | Poalei Zion / MAPAM |
| Main ideas | socialist zionism |
Content
Biography
Jacob-Israel Vitkin was born in 1886 in Poltava. His father Efraim Aron Vitkin, whose age was approaching 60 years by this time, was a Sofer and melamad famous in the city, and his mother was engaged in baking bread. In the early years, the boy received private education from the best local teachers, but after the death of his father, at the age of 12, he continued his studies at a public school, where the teaching of general subjects was conducted in Russian. After leaving school, his mother was going to give Jacob to the yeshiva , but he insisted on getting a working profession and studied for four years as a carpenter [1] .
At age 17, Jacob began to help his older brother, who painted signs and inscribed on tombstones. At the same time, he joined the Poalei Zion movement, which at that time was forming in Poltava under the leadership of Isaak Shimshelevich (hereinafter known as Yitzhak Ben-Zvi ). When during the days of the revolution of 1905-1907 a wave of pogroms swept across the Russian Empire, Vitkin and Shimshelevich set about creating Jewish self-defense units in Poltava, for which Vitkin smuggled 40 pistols from the German border; as a result, Jewish pogroms in Poltava were prevented. In the same days, Jacob took the underground pseudonym Zrubavel, which over time became his literary pseudonym, and then the official name [2] .
Vitkin, who was fond of literature from childhood and composed works of art in Russian and Yiddish , became one of the speakers of the Poalei Zion movement, speaking on key topics in Yiddish. In 1905, he took part in the work of the regional congress "Poalei Zion" in Poltava, and then at the constituent congress of the movement, where he was elected to its central committee. Together with Ber Borokhov, he began to publish the illegal newspaper Poalei Zion in Russian, but soon part of the leadership of the movement and the newspaper’s editorial staff was arrested. Vitkin escaped arrest because he did not sleep at home that day. Together with other members of the Central Committee, he moved to Vilna [2] . Since 1906, Der Hamer publishing house [3] began to operate under the leadership of Zrubawel.
The underground activities of Zrubavel in Vilna repeatedly led to his arrests [4] ; in total, in 1907-1908 he spent in pre-trial detention a year and a half, but was acquitted in court [3] . After his release, Zrubavel published the monthly Di Di Jugendstim (Voice of the Youth) [2] in Vilna, but in 1908 he was forced to emigrate [4] .
Having settled in Galicia (at that time as part of Austria-Hungary), Zrubavel participated in the publication of the Der Yidischer Arbeter newspapers in Yiddish and Dos Frie Worth in Russian and gave lectures in various cities, conducting Zionist agitation. When he was offered the choice to continue party activities in Argentina or in Palestine , Zrubavel preferred the second and arrived there in 1910 [2] .
In Palestine, from October 1910, Zrubavel was deputy Yitzhak Ben-Zvi in the leadership of the Poalei Zion movement, and at the congress in April 1911 he was elected secretary of the party’s Central Committee and editor-in-chief of the Ha-Ahdut (Unity) party newspaper; however, over the next few years, party controversy led to the fact that Zrubavel was virtually pushed aside from the leadership of “Poalei Zion”, where David Ben-Gurion began to play the main role [4] . After the outbreak of World War II, Zrubawel made harsh publications criticizing the policy of the Turkish authorities towards the Jews of Palestine, and was arrested. He managed to escape from prison, after which he was sentenced in absentia to 15 years of hard labor [3] .
For several months, Zrubavel, officially having Turkish citizenship, led an underground lifestyle in Palestine, using fake documents in various names. Later he got to Beirut, where, using a fake passport, he sailed on an American warship to New York, reaching there at the end of 1915 [5] . In the USA, Zrubavel again began publishing the Poale Zion print organ, Der Idisher Kemfer [3] , and after the February Revolution , he returned to Russia with Borokhov. After the death of Borokhov, Zrubavel moved from Petrograd to Kiev, where he led the work of Zionist organizations and was arrested by the German army that entered the city . After his release, he went to Moscow, where he held talks on the situation of Russian Jews with the People’s Commissar , seeking the creation of separate Jewish workers councils in spite of the opposition of the Eusection . He led organizational activities and Zionist agitation in Ukraine under the leadership of Skoropadsky , in Minsk he was elected to the local council from Poalei Zion and fought with representatives of the Bund [5] .
After the retreat of the German army and the formation of the borders of independent Poland, Zrubavel remained in it and spent 18 years there [5] . He was one of the leaders of the regional branch of “Poalei Zion,” and after the split in the party in 1920, “Left Poalei Zion,” holding the post of chairman of the Central Committee and editor-in-chief of the party newspaper [4] . During these years, he married school teacher Frida Leselboim. Zrubavel visited Mandatory Palestine several times during these years, but could not obtain permission for permanent residence [5] .
Permanent residence in Palestine was only allowed to Zrubavel in 1935. In Palestine, he began publishing newspapers and magazines in Yiddish. [3] Since 1937, he was a member of the leadership of the Histadrut , and in 1939 took part in the work of the XXI Zionist Congress . Zrubavel was elected to the executive committee of the World Zionist Organization , as well as to the board of Asefat ha-Nivkharim (Assembly of Deputies, the highest elected body of Palestinian Yishuv ) [4] .
In 1948, Zrubavel was elected a member of the board of the Jewish Agency . His efforts played a prominent role in uniting the “Left Poalei Zion” and the Ahdut Ha-Avoda party, and then the Hashomer ha-tzair movement, which formed the basis for the creation of the MAPAM party [4] . He took an active part in the work of the Society of Israeli-Soviet Friendship and the Union of Israeli Writers in Yiddish, continued to publish media in Russian and Yiddish and fought for the recognition of the Yiddish language as official in the State of Israel [3] . Yaakov Zrubavel died in 1967 in Tel Aviv [6] .
Notes
- ↑ Tidhar, 1952 , p. 2298.
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 Tidhar, 1952 , p. 2299.
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 5 6 Rude Ya'akov - article from the Electronic Jewish Encyclopedia
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 5 6 Jacob Zrubawel (Hebrew) on the website of the Israeli Labor Movement
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 Tidhar, 1952 , p. 2300.
- ↑ David Tidhar. Yaakov Zrubavel // Encyclopedia of pioneers and builders of Yishuv = אנציקלופדיה לחלוצי הישוב ובוניו. - 1967. - T. 16. - S. 5006.
Literature
- David Tidhar. Yaakov Zrubavel // Encyclopedia of pioneers and builders of Yishuv = אנציקלופדיה לחלוצי הישוב ובוניו. - 1952. - T. 5. - S. 2298-2301.
Links
- Rude Ya'akov - article from the Electronic Jewish Encyclopedia
- Yaakov Zrubavel (Hebrew) on the website of the Israeli Labor Movement