LEON VASHILEVSKI (WASILEWSKI)

LEON VASHILEVSKI (WASILEWSKI) (1870-1936)

            He was a Polish politician, ethnographer, journalist, and writer.  He co-founded the Jewish section of the Polish Socialist Party (PPS [Polska Partia Socjalistyczna]) in the late 1890s.  Between the world wars, he was the Polish minister and ambassador in Latvia.  He was the author of a series of works, such as: Die Judenfrage in Kongress-Polen, ihre Schwierigkeiten und ihre Lösung (The Jewish question in Congress Poland, difficulties and solution) (Vienna, 1915), 45 pp.  During party activities, he mastered speaking and reading Yiddish.  He contributed to: Der arbayter (The laborer), Yiddish organ of the PPS (London-Cracow-Warsaw, 1898-1906), and he edited issues 2, 3, 4, and 5; and Di proletarishe velt (The proletarian world) (London, 1902), and he edited its October issue.  He died in Warsaw.

Sources: P. Shvarts, Yuzef Pilsudski, zayn batsiung tsu der yidn-frage, un zayn kamf kegn “Bund” (1893-1905) (Józef Piłsudski, his connection to the Jewish question and his struggle against the Bund, 1893-1905) (Warsaw, 1936), see index; Zamlbukh lekoved dem tsveyhundert un fuftsikstn yoyvl fun der yidisher prese, 1686-1936 (Anthology in honor of the 250^th jubilee of the Yiddish press, 1686-1936), ed. Dr. Y. Shatski (New York, 1937), p. 325; Shtern (Kiev) (September 25, 1940); Buletin fun bund-arkhiv (New York) 1 (January 1960), p. 6.

Khayim Leyb Fuks