Numbers in parentheses—in addition to the dates—indicate chaper where the item first appears in the text.
Abramovich, Raphael Rein (1880–1963) (8): A member of the Bund and a leader of the Menshevik wing of the Russian Social-Democratic Workers Party (RSDRP).
Alter, Viktor (or Wictor) (1890–1943) (52): One of the two beloved Bund leaders in the interwar period in Poland (the other being Henryk Erlich). An engineer by profession, active in the Polish Bund starting in 1913, exiled to Siberia, escaped to England where he was a conscientious objector during World War I, went to Russia after the February Revolution, came back to Poland where he served on the Central Committee of the Bund and rose to prominence. Executed by the Stalinist regime in the 1940s.
Ansky (Shloyme Zanvl Rappoport) (1863–1920), (27): Author of “the Oath,” the Bund anthem, and the famous Yiddish play, The Dybbuk.
Arbeter Vinkl (52): Workers Corner. A kind of tea café, where workers could come in the evening and have a cup of tea, eat a piece of bread and herring, and read a newspaper. In one of the rooms, a reading room was created with newspapers and journals (mounted on wooden sticks, as was the custom in Polish coffee houses.
bibke (50): A small, intimate get-together of friends and acquaintances, with refreshments, at a home.
Blum, Abrasza (1905–1943) (46): A leader of the wartime underground Bund and young hero of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. By profession, a structural engineer. Beginning in 1930, a director of the Folkstsaytung. In September 1939, participated in the defense of Warsaw, helping to organize all-Jewish detachments. When Warsaw fell, most of the Bund’s senior leadership evacuated the city: they were too well-known; the leadership of the party fell to the Youth-Bund Tsukunftists. Abrasza worked in the ghetto brush factory, 1942–1943. He was Bund representative to the Jewish Fighting Organization (ZOB). Escaped the burning ghetto through the sewers, hiding in the apartment of the Bund courier, Władka. The janitor reported him to the Gestapo. Abrasza escaped through the window on a rope made from bedsheets but broke his legs in the fall from the third story; captured and murdered by the Gestapo in 1943.
Brisk (54): Yiddish name for Brześć or Brześć Litewski or Brześć nad Bugiem (Polish) or Brest-Litovsk (English). Now part of Belarus. Once a center of Jewish scholarship: followers of the famous Brisk Solveitchik family of rabbis were called “Briskers.”
Chanin, Nathan (1885–1965) (61): Bundist from an early age, active in various strikes and assassination attempts; arrested several times; almost executed by firing squad in 1905: his fiery and impassioned speech talked the soldiers out of firing; put in irons and sent to Siberia for an eight-year sentence; escaped; arrived in New York in 1912; became a cap maker, joined their union, and became Vice President. During World War I, joined the Jewish Socialist Federation; in 1921; in opposition to the Comintern, joined the Jewish Socialist Farband of the Socialist Party of America, becoming its General Secretary. Led the fight against Communist takeovers in the Workmen’s Circle in the twenties, in the Cap and Millinery Workers Union, in the ILGWU Cloakmakers Union, in the Furriers Union, House Painters Union, Leather Workers Union, etc. Delegate to the International Socialist Congress in Brussels, 1928. From 1936–1952, Educational Director of the Workmen’s Circle. Elected General Secretary of the Workmen’s Circle in 1952. Publishes many articles in Folkstsaytung, Veker, Forverts, Fraynd, Undzer Shul, Kultur un Dertsiyung, Tsukunft, Kinder-Tsaytung. Published many books, among them, Sovyet Rusland: Vi Ikh Hob Zi Gezen; A Rayze Iber Tsentral un Dorem Amerike; Berele.
Di Shvue (27): “The Oath,” the Bund’s anthem, written by S. Rappaport (Ansky), author of the famous Yiddish play, The Dybbuk. The lyrics in Yiddish and English translation of the first two stanzas and refrain:
Brider un shvester fun arbet un noyt,
Brothers and sisters of toil and of poverty
Ale vos zaynen tsezeyt un tseshprey,
All who are scattered and dispersed,
Tsuzamen, Tsuzamen,
Together, together,
Di fon zi iz greyt,
The flag is ready,
Zi flatert fun tsorn,
It flutters with rage,
Fun blut iz zi royt
With blood it is red,
A shvue, shvue,
An oath, an oath,
On our lives, on our deaths.
(refrain)Himl un erd vet unz oyshern,
Heaven and earth will hear us out,
Eydes vet zayn di likhtike shtern,
The bright stars will bear witness
A shvue fun blut, a shvue fun trern,
An oath of blood an oath of tears,
Mir shvern, mir shvern,
We swear, we swear,
Mir shvern tsu kemfn far frayhayt un rekht,
We swear to fight for freedom and right
Mit ale tiranen un zeyere knekht,
With all tyrants and their slaves,
Tsebrekhn, tsebrekhn di finstere makht,
To smash, to smash the dark power,
Oder mit heldnsmut tsu faln in shlakht.
Or to die in battle with the courage of heroes.
(refrain)
Himl un erd.
din toyre (46): Lawsuits brought before a rabbinic court.
droshky (46): A low, four-wheeled, horse-drawn carriage.
Dubnow-Erlich, Sophia (1885–1986) (51): The daughter of the historian Simon Dubnow, wife of the preeminent Bundist leader, Henryk Erlich, and mother-in-law of Shoshke Erlich. In addition to her Bundist activism, she was a poet, critic, translator, biographer, and memoirist.
Endek (15): Fascist antisemitic National Democratic party of Poland (“Endek” from the name of the letter N, the initial letter of the first word of this party’s name, Narodowa Demokracja + -dek (from the d and k in Demokracja).
Erlich (or Ehrlich), Henryk (1882–1942) (52): A lawyer by profession, the other of these two beloved leaders of the Polish Bund between the wars. He was a member of the 1917 Petrograd Soviet, then later in Poland, a member of the Warsaw City Council and a member of the Executive Committee of the Second International. Perished in Stalinist imprisonment in the 1940s.
Fareynikte or Uniteds (1): Fareynikte Yidishe Sotsyalistishe Arbeter Partey—United Jewish Socialist Workers Party, a unification (fareynikung) in 1917 of the Zionist Socialist Workers Party and the Jewish Socialist Workers Party. The Uniteds, like the Bund, believed in fighting for civil rights and cultural autonomy in Poland and the Ukraine, but also, unlike the Bund, in seeking to create a Jewish state in any available territory (not necessarily in Palestine).
Fayranter (23): Overtime hours. In several trades the established custom was that the fully employed workers would give up their overtime hours to their unemployed comrades; it was an especially old tradition among the bakers.
Leon Feiner (1885–1945) (42): A lawyer and Bund activist. While living as a Pole on the “Aryan” side of Warsaw under the assumed name “Berezowski,” was a leading figure in the Jewish underground, meeting with couriers, distributing funds, acquiring arms for the uprising, finding hiding places for Jews on the “Aryan” side, etc. He was the author of most of the communiqués of the Bund from Poland to the Western allies, in which he described the Nazi terror, brutality, and genocide. Served as a guide for the Polish courier Jan Karski inside the Warsaw Ghetto (they both crossed into the ghetto through the Warsaw sewers). Survived the war and the uprising; died of throat cancer in Lublin in 1945.
Folkstsaytung (21): “People’s Newspaper,” the Bund’s daily newspaper.
Forverts (72): The first issue of Forverts (“Forward”) appeared on April 22, 1897, in New York City. The paper’s name, as well as its political orientation, was borrowed from the German Social-Democratic Party and its organ Vorwärts (it should be noted here that the standard Yiddish term for “forward” is foroys; forverts is nonstandard, considered a Germanism (daytshmerish)). By 1912 its circulation was 120,000, and by the late 1920s, the Forward was a leading US metropolitan daily with considerable influence and a nationwide circulation of more than 275,000, the largest daily Yiddish newspaper in the world.
FRAC (20): PPS-Revolutionary Faction (FRACcja), a breakaway party from the PPS, formed in 1906 by Pilsudski, who wanted a more militant nationalism (including a war of liberation against Russia), a position rejected by the 1906 PPS Congress.
Frydrich, Zalmen (1911–1943) (36): Member of the Bund and the Jewish Fighting Organization (ZOB) in the Warsaw ghetto. World War II drafted into the Polish army, fought the Germans and fell prisoner. After his release, returned to Warsaw, where he got involved in underground activities. In early August 1942, during the Great Aktion (mass deportations from the Warsaw ghetto) he went on a mission for the Bund to follow up on the deportees to Treblinka to find out exactly what was happening there. He brought the information back to the Warsaw ghetto. On September 20, 1942, the Bund’s underground newspaper Oyf Der Vakh (On Watch) published an article, “The Jews of Warsaw are Being Murdered in Treblinka,” based on his testimony. During the Warsaw ghetto uprising, Friedrich served as a courier between the fighters and ZOB Headquarters. On April 30, 1943 he escaped the burning ghetto via the sewers to the “Aryan” side of the city. In May, while accompanying a group of fighters to a village hiding place, he fell in combat.
Gabai (27): Title of the administrative manager of a synagogue; overseer; trustee.
Gilinsky, Shloyme (1888–1961) (66): Educator, founder of secular Yiddish schools, author of textbooks in Yiddish; later, Director of the Medem Sanitarium; Bundist, Warsaw city councilman.
Grosser, Bronisław (1883–1912) (69): A Bundist writer and theorist on Jewish nationalism. A lawyer by profession, he was recognized as one of the party’s most articulate defenders of Jewish national-cultural autonomy. Defining himself as a Polish-Jewish Socialist whose task it was to defend the interests of the Jewish workers in Poland, he became a Bundist legend, with several cultural, educational, and health institutions established in his name in interwar Poland, including the renowned Bronislaw Grosser Library in Warsaw.
Grosser Library (78): The Grosser Library, named after Bundist theoretician Bronislaw Grosser, became a part of the Kultur-Lige (Culture League). Herman Kruk became its director and he began an energetic campaign to broaden its activities. The library burgeoned, containing tens of thousands of books. It then rented its own space on Leszno 13 where a study room was set up along with a large reading room with hundreds of journals and newspapers from all over the world. The library was free to all. It was the largest lending library in Warsaw and deserves an honorable place in a history of the cultural life of Warsaw Jewry.
gymnasium (17): European secondary school at about the level of the American community college.
Haller, Jozef (1873–1960) (5): Polish general, military hero; member of Polish parliament, 1922–1927. Because of his nationalist views, considered one of those responsible for the antisemitic riots in Czestochowa, 1919.
Hallertchikes (5): Soldiers in General Haller’s army.
Hashomer Hatzair (42): Hebrew for “The Youth Guard,” a Socialist-Zionist, secular Jewish youth movement founded in 1913 in Austro-Hungary. By 1939, it had 70,000 members worldwide, with its membership base in Eastern Europe. In contradistinction to the Bund, Hashomer Hatzair believed the liberation of Jewish youth could be accomplished by immigration to Palestine and living in kibbutzim.
Hasidism (22): A mystical branch of Orthodox Judaism, stressing joy, dance, song, drink, and festivity. It arose around 1700 among Ukrainian Jews, spreading in great numbers among the Jews of Eastern Europe. Various sects of Hasidism, usually named after their town of origin, owe fervent allegiance to their particular founding rabbi and, often, to his descendants. In its beginnings, it was bitterly and actively opposed by the misnagdim, traditional, orthodox Jews who believe in the deep study and mastery of holy texts and commentaries, as opposed to the joyful and mystical excesses of the Hasidim and their wonder-working rabbis.
Hazomir (22): Founded in the early 1900s by the classic Yiddish writer, I. L. Peretz, to replace the Yiddish Literary Society banned by the Czarist government. Chaired by Peretz, it became an important cultural center in Warsaw, featuring his readings, speeches, and his famous “question-and-answer-box” evenings.
Ispolkom (chapter 1): Ispolnitelniy Komitet—Executive Committee.
Janek Jankliewicz (1887–1920): Typesetter. Led illegal typesetting, printing, and distributing of Bund underground press. Member of Central Committee. Selected as delegate to the Bund’s planned 8th convention in Vienna in 1914. Executive Secretary of the Central Bureau of the 20-craft association of trade unions (1915). Arrested by Germans in 1916. 20,000 Jewish workers attended his Warsaw funeral.
Jewish Labor Committee (69): Formed in 1934 by Yiddish-speaking immigrant trade union leaders and leaders of the Bund and Workmen’s Circle in response to the rise of Nazism in Germany. Its first president was the Bundist, Baruch Charney Vladeck. Bundist influence was significant, especially in the organization’s early period. The JLC worked to support Jewish labor institutions in European countries, cooperate with American organized labor, assist the anti-Nazi underground movement, and combat antisemitism. After the outbreak of World War II, the emphasis was on efforts to save Jewish cultural and political figures, as well as Jewish and non-Jewish labor and Socialist leaders facing certain death at the hands of the Nazis. The Committee succeeded in bringing over a thousand of such individuals to the United States, or to temporary shelter elsewhere.
Joint Distribution Committee (“Joint”) (77): The largest nonpolitical organization dedicated to helping Jews in distress all over the world. Founded in 1914, it was generally known as the JDC or “Joint” and headquartered in New York. The Joint began its work in Warsaw in 1919. The JDC Overseas Unit in Warsaw was staffed by dozens of American experts. They organized urgently needed sanitary and medical aid, as well as childcare. The JDC’s appropriations for the relief of Polish Jewry in 1920 alone totaled almost $5 million.
Kahan, Borukh Mordkhe (Virgili), (1883–1936); beloved Bundist activist, labor leader; also active in organizing and supporting the Yiddish secular school movement; 20,000 Jewish workers attended his funeral in Vilnius.
Kehilla (21): Official Jewish Community Council.
kest (13): The old traditional Jewish custom of the parents of the bride supporting a newlywed couple for several years.
khale (22): Braided, holiday bread, also transliterated as challah or hallah.
khesedl (51): khesedl, diminutive of khesed, literally means, “favor, mercy, clemency, grace;” the Yiddish expression mit khesed means, “it could be worse”; street vendors.
Klepfisz, Mikhl (58): Young Bundist; Warsaw Ghetto Uprising hero; an engineer who manufactured grenades, bottle bombs, and mines for the fighters and died a heroic death during the fighting by throwing himself on a German machine gun to save his comrades. His then little daughter, Irena Klepfisz, survived and is now an acclaimed poet in America.
Kremer, Arkady (79) (1865–1935): Known as the “father” of the Bund. In September 1897, Kremer and his comrades founded the General Jewish Workers Union (Bund) in Vilnius. Kremer was one of three members of its first Central Committee and was widely respected as the Bund’s leader. Just a few months after the Bund’s founding, Kremer was also one of the main organizers of the Founding Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP), which would later (in 1903) split into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. His death in 1935 was commemorated with massive marches and heroic obituaries in the Bund’s party press.
Kruk, Herman (42) (1897–1944): Director of the library in the Vilnius Ghetto; chronicler and author of The Last Days of the Jerusalem of Lithuania: Chronicles from the Vilnius Ghetto and the Camps, 1939–1944 (New Haven, 2002). He buried his journal on September 17, 1944, a day before he and almost all the other prisoners in a Nazi concentration camp in Estonia were forced to carry logs to a pile, spread them in a layer, and lie down naked on them so they could be executed and burned in a massive pyre.
Kultur-lige (42): “Culture League.” Founded in Kiev in 1918 and supported by various Yiddishist parties, it encompassed all spheres of culture: drama, music, lectures, libraries, concerts, press, books, periodicals, education (playing an active role in TYSYSHO), as well as hiking and camping. In Poland in 1925, the leadership of the Kultur-lige was taken over by the Bund and became its “cultural section.”
Landrat (16): Jewish Trade Union National Council.
Lebns-Fragn (2): “Issues Affecting Our Lives,” the Bund’s daily newspaper.
Literary Club (1916–1939) (31): Fareyn fun Yidishe Literatn un Zhurnalistn in Varshe: Association of Yiddish Writers and Journalists in Warsaw, a trade union, advocacy group, and social meeting venue for writers. Its initial location was at 13 Tłomackie Street, an address associated with the Yiddish secular cultural movement. The premises functioned as a social meeting place not only for members, but also for actors, artists, teachers, guests from abroad, and others who were interested in Yiddish secular culture. In addition, the Association offered a large variety of literary and other activities, both for its members and for the general public.
Masuvke, First of May (53): “Meetings to prepare,” that is, the pre-First of May meetings.
Matse (4): Usually rendered as matzoh—unleavened flat bread eaten during Passover, tothe exclusion of ordinary bread with leavening.
Medem, Vladimir (1879–1923) (5): The main theorist of the Bund and its most famous and celebrated leader, revered and beloved by Bundists.
Medem Sanitarium (44): Founded in 1926 in Międzeszyn near Warsaw, it was an educational and clinical facility for children and young adults at risk for tuberculosis. Named after the Bundist leader Vladimir Medem, it was the pride of the Bund. Until World War II, it was recognized internationally for its reformist pedagogical approach and its social-democratic, secular orientation. On August 22, 1942, over 100 of its children, their teachers, and staff were brutally rounded up by the Germans, taken to Treblinka, and gassed to death.
Mendelson, Shloyme (1896–1948) (22): Well-known Bundist leader, writer, speaker, and public intellectual; member of the Polish Bund’s Central Committee; “A kind of spiritual leader inside the movement … elected to the Warsaw City Council in 1938 … considered by his colleagues an inspiring orator and prolific writer … a giant in the movement … thousands attended his funeral in New York City, demonstrating how popular and influential a figure he was” (David Slucki, 180).
Henoch Mendelsund (1911–1994) (35): Worked as a mechanic and attended Warsaw University. Arrived in the US in 1941 as one of 1,500 Bundist labor leaders and intellectuals rescued from the Nazis through the efforts of the ILGWU and the Jewish Labor Committee. Joined the ILGWU as a sewing machine operator. While working in the shop during the day, attended the New School for Social Research at night, earning a master’s degree in economics and sociology. Served as a member of the National Coat and Suit Recovery Board staff, and in 1949 became secretary of Cloak Finishers Local 9. In 1953 became assistant general manager of the ILGWU New York Cloak Joint Board, and then general manager in September 1959, a post he held until 1973. Also served as ILGWU Vice President and director of the International Relations Department from 1968–1980.
Michalewicz, Bejnisz (1876–1928) (53): One of the most important Bund theoreticians in the 1920s. Forty thousand Jewish workers marched in his funeral profession. Three hundred and thirty-nine wreaths were laid at his bier on behalf of various labor and social-democratic delegations, both foreign and domestic. The national idea of the Bund, he wrote, was that every nation does not necessarily need a separate state and that every state does not necessarily need to be inhabited by one nation. A state of nations was the way of the Bund—a large, open state, accommodating diverse nationalities.
Mir Kumen On (46): “We Are On Our Way,” a documentary directed by Aleksander Ford, one of Poland’s leading young directors in the thirties, with a script by the well-known Polish novelist, Wanda Wasilewska, produced 1935 by the Bund and the Medem Sanitarium. Banned by the Polish government and not permitted to be shown in Poland, it was screened in Paris, Brussels, and New York. It is now available in DVD format with the title Children Must Laugh from the National Center for Jewish Film, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA.
Mizrachi (18): Religious Zionist organization founded in 1902 in Vilnius that believed the Torah should be at the center of Zionism.
Morgnshtern (36): “Morningstar,” the Bund’s sports organizations, the largest such organization in all of Poland, Jewish or Polish.
Narovtses (50): Members of the virulently antisemitic, Fascistic party, the ONR (Obóz Narodowo-Radykalny or National Radical Camp).
Nowogrodzki, Emanuel (1891–1967): General Secretary of the Polish Bund’s Central Committee. In America by chance in 1939 when the war broke out. Founded the Bund Representation and the Bund Coordinating Committee in America. Editor and writer for the Bund’s monthly in New York, Undzer Tsayt. Author of The Ghetto Speaks (Warsaw, 1936?), Individual, Rank and File, and Leader (Warsaw, 1934), Henryk Erlich and Victor Alter (1951), and The Jewish Labor Bund in Poland 1915–1939 (2001), later translated into Polish as Żydowska partia robotnica Bund w Polsce 1915–1939 (2005).
Noyekh (sometimes also known as Jozef), Yekusiel Portnoy (1872–1941), leader of the Bund in Poland, a charismatic paternal figure with enormous moral authority.
Oenerowcy (57): Members of the ONR (which see).
Ogniwo (58): See Ringen.
ONR (56): A virulently antisemitic, Fascist party, the ONR (Obóz Narodowo-Radykalny or National Radical Camp), its members usually referred to as Narovtses or as Oenerowcy.
ORT (22): Obshchestvo Remeslennago i Zemledelecheskago Truda Sredi Evreev v Rossii (The Society for Handicraft and Agricultural Work among the Jews of Russia: ORT). Established in 1880 in Russia to support craft education in schools and workshops to encourage Jews to become artisans and agriculturalists. Branches were active in almost every Russian city having a substantial Jewish population. After World War I, ORT began to work outside of Russia.
Orzech, Maurycy (1891–1943) (55) (70): Polish-Jewish economist, journalist, politician, and leader of the Bund in interwar Poland; one of the Bund’s commanders during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Captured and murdered by the Nazis.
Pasharnyes (3): Farms where chickens were raised for shipment to Warsaw.
Peretz, I. L. (1852–1915) (31): Considered the “father” of modern Yiddish literature, one of the three great founders of modern Yiddish literature whose home in Warsaw drew many new young Yiddish writers seeking his imprimatur.
Petliura, Vasylyovych (1879–1926) (1): Publicist, writer, journalist, Ukrainian politician, statesman of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, and national leader who led Ukraine’s struggle for independence (1918–1921) following the Russian Revolution of 1917. On May 25, 1926, Petliura was slain with five shots from a handgun in broad daylight in the center of Paris by the Jewish-Russian anarchist, Sholem Schwartzbard, to avenge Ukranian pogroms against the Jews.
pletsl (48): Little plaza or square.
Po’ale Tsiyon (81): Labor Zionist.
Pomocniki (23): Bakers assistants.
PPS (3): Polska Partia Socjalistyczna—Polish Socialist Party.
Red Falcons (55): The name of various Socialist children’s organizations, popular in Europe and the United States, emerging during the First and Second World Wars; the first such group was founded by Anton Tesarek, an Austrian Socialist educator.
Ringen (58): “Links,” as in a chain; a Bundist organization for Jewish university students (Polish name, Ogniwo).
RM’O (8): Acronymn (pronounced “Ramu”) for Rabbi Moses (Moyshe) Isserlis, 1520–1572), Talmudist, famous for his decisions in Jewish law; renowned author of ha-Mapah, a commentary on Jewish law.
Robotnik (32): Worker, the PPS newspaper and central organ of the party.
Schutzbund (55): In full, Republikanischer Schutzbund (German: “Republican Defense League”), paramilitary Socialist organization active in Austria between World War I and 1934.
SDKPiL (3): Socjaldemokracja Królestwa Polskiego i Litwy (Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania); founded in 1893; originally the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland (SDKP); Marxist; in 1918 merged into the Communist Workers Party of Poland; Rosa Luxemburg most famous member.
Sejmowiec (15) or Sejmist: A member of SERP (the Jewish Socialist Workers Party), which called for the establishment of an extraterritorial Jewish diet for all of Russian Jewry, with national, political, and cultural autonomy.
shtadtlan (46): Traditionally, a public intercessor for the Jews with the authorities; has acquired pejorative implications.
shtibl (52): A small Hasidic place of prayer, often an apartment in a building.
Shulman, Victor (1876–1951) (7): Noted journalist, leading figure of the Bund, joining in his early youth. Exiled to Siberia. Escaped. From 1915, resided in Warsaw where he was managing editor of the Folkstsaytung. During Nazi invasion, escaped to Lithuania and, in 1940, among a handful of political refugees permitted to enter the United States.
Shvue, Di (27): “The Oath,” the Bund anthem, written by Ansky, author of the famous Yiddish play, The Dybbuk.
Shvues (27): In Sephardic Hebrew, Shavuot, a Jewish holiday celebrated seven weeks after Passover, to commemorate the giving of the Torah at Mt. Sinai.
SKIF (50): Sotsyalistishe Kinder Farband: Socialist Children’s Union, the Bund’s organization with programs for children, founded in 1926.
SKRA (55): Robotniczy Klub Sportowy—Workers Sports Club, the PPS’s labor sports association.
Socialist Zionists (17): Founded in Odessa in 1905 as the Zionist Socialist Workers Party and committed to territorialism (the idea that Jews should seek to found a state anywhere in the world it might be possible to do so).
SRs (13): Revolutionary Party, or Party of Socialist Revolutionaries (the SRs, or “Esers”), a major political party in early 20th century Russia and a key player in the Russian Revolution.
Tabaczinski, Benyomin (1896–1967) (42): Active Bundist in Białystok. Emigrated to America in 1938 where he became Executive Secretary of the Jewish Labor Committee and a leading figure in the World Yiddish Culture Congress, YIVO, and Workmen’s Circle; also a member of the Bund’s Representation to Poland and the World Coordinating Committee of the Bund.
TOZ (36): Towarzystwo Ochrony Zdrowia Ludności Żydowskiej Society for Safeguarding the Health of the Jewish Population. Established in Warsaw in 1921; by 1939 in charge of 368 clinics and institutes in 72 towns, employing 1,000 physicians, nurses, and residents.
Tsayt (23): Pre-World War I Bundist newspaper in St. Petersburg.
Tsholnt (23): A special dish (meat, potatoes, legumes) for the Sabbath meal, prepared the day before and stored Friday night in Bakers’ ovens so it could be picked up and served warm on the Sabbath, when no cooking is allowed.
Tsukunft or Yugnt-Bund Tsukunft in Poyln (3): “The Future” or “Youth-Bund Future in Poland,” the Bund’s youth organization.
TSYSHO (8): Acronym for Tsentrale Yidishe Shul Organizatsye—Central Yiddish School Organization, which created and administered a network of secular Yiddish schools under Socialist auspices, led primarily by the Bund and the Left Po’ale Tsiyon (Labor Zionists).
TUR (72): Towarzystwo Uniwer-sytetow Robotniczych, Workers University Association, the youth organization of the PPS.
United Hebrew Trades (61): Founded by Yiddish Branch 8 of the Socialist Labor Party and some Jewish unions in 1888, Morris Hillquit one of its founding members. By 1910 it had 106 unions and 150,000 workers, growing to 200,000 by 1922, and to 250,000 by 1938. It joined with other unions and organizations in 1934 to form the Jewish Labor Committee, which was heavily influenced by the Bund, electing Bundist Baruch Charney Vladek as its first president.
Uniteds or United Jewish Socialist Workers Party (1): See Fareynikte.
Weinreich, Max (1894–1969) (56): Born in Kuldiga, Latvia, then part of Russia; completed his doctorate in linguistics in 1923 at Marburg University; Yiddish linguist, literary scholar, public intellectual, the driving force behind YIVO; the impetus behind an impressive series of academic publications in Yiddish by himself and others; author of a monumental History of the Yiddish Language in Yiddish; member of the Bund.
YAF (51): Yidishe Arbeter Froy—Jewish Working Woman, a special division of the Bund to conduct political agitation among Jewish women and to provide them with counseling and cultural enrichment.
YIVO (48): Acronym for Yidisher Visnshaftlekher Institut (Yiddish Scientific Institute). Founded in 1925, it became the leading institution for scholarship in Yiddish and about the history and culture of East European Jews and their emigrant communities. Now in New York, renamed the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.
Yugnt-Veker (38): “Youth Awakener,” Bund periodical for youth.
ZNMS (58): Związek Niezależnej Młodzieży Socjalistycznej, Independent Union of Socialist Youth, the PPS’s university student organization.
ZOB (36): Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa; in Yiddish, Yidishe Kamf Organizatsye (Jewish Fighting Organization), underground Jewish military group established in the Warsaw Ghetto to resist deportations of Jews to extermination camps. The ZOB was formed on July 28, 1942, during a two-month wave of deportations to Treblinka. During the deportations of the summer of 1942, the ZOB appealed to the ghetto’s Jews to resist. However, the Jews did not heed their call. In addition, the ZOB was made up of different political factions who had trouble cooperating, and the group did not have enough weapons. Thus, the ZOB was unable to execute any effective attacks at that time. When the deportations ended, ZOB members saw that they needed to settle their differences and shape up in order to be of any help to the Jews of the ghetto. Many new members joined under the leadership of Mordecai Anielewicz, who became head of a revitalized ZOB in November 1942. They prepared for the next onslaught by the Germans, and executed those Jews in the ghetto who had helped the Nazis carry out the deportations. In January 1943, they resisted Nazi attempts to round up Jews. The ZOB then organized the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and when the revolt broke out in April 1943, ZOB members fought heroically to the bitter end.—Shoah Resource Center, The International School for Holocaust Studies.
Zygielbojm, Shmuel-Mordkhe (1895–1943) (10): Party name “Artur.” In 1924 elected to the Central Committee of the Bund in Poland, serving in that capacity until leaving Warsaw in 1940. Chairman of several leading Bundist institutions and trade unions of Polish-Jewish workers. City Councilman in Warsaw (1924–1936) and in Lodz (1936–1939). Participated in the defense of Warsaw against German invaders in 1939, helping to organize the Jewish fighting battalions and acting as a member of the general Warsaw Defense Committee. Volunteered to be one of 12 hostages demanded by the Germans in 1939, later becoming a member of the Judenrat. Member of the first Warsaw committee of the underground Bund. Only member of Judenrat to urge the Judenrat to defy the German order for the Jews to enter a walled ghetto. He followed this with a speech to a mass of Jews outside the Judenrat building, calling on them to refuse to go voluntarily into the ghetto. The Bund leadership, in January 1940, asked Comrade Artur to smuggle himself out of Poland to the free world and to tell them what was happeining to the Jews of Poland. He made his way across Nazi Germany and occupied Europe to America and finally to England, where he became a member of the Polish Government in Exile representing the Bund. Failing to arouse the free world to come in any way to the aid of the Jews of Poland, on May 11, 1943 (after the heroic Warsaw Ghetto Uprising), he committed suicide, leaving a letter in which he stated that perhaps with his death he would succeed in arousing the free world to the plight of the Polish Jews when he was unable to do that while living. The note said, among many other things, “I cannot live while the remnants of the Jewish people in Poland, whom I represent, continue to be liquidated.”