Friday 12 August 2016

K. ZAYDEL

K. ZAYDEL (1879-May 9, 1953)
            The pen name of Zaydel Kagan, he was born in Bialystok, Russian Poland, into a workers’ family.  He attended religious primary school, and later on his own he studied secular knowledge and foreign languages.  From the years of his youth, he was an active, revolutionary fighter against the Tsarist government in Russia and became known as “Zaydel the anarchist.”  He led his own faction in the anarchist camp.  Persecuted by the police, he lived illegally and later escaped from Poland to France, Spain, England, and from there to the United States after WWI.  He settled in Philadelphia and became one of the most active in the anarchist Jewish labor movement.  He was a leader of the shoemakers’ union.  He wrote articles for Arbayter fraynd (Workers’ friend) in London, and he later published articles, memoirs, and chapters from the history of the Jewish anarchist movement in: Fraye arbeter-shtime (Free voice of labor), Forverts (Forward), Byalistoker shtime (Voice of Bialystok), and Idishe bekers shtime (Voice of Jewish bakers)—in New York.  He was also for many years a contributor to: Di idishe velt (The Jewish world) in Philadelphia; Der idisher kuryer (The Jewish courier) in Chicago; and other serials.  He died in the Bialystok Old Age Home in New York.

Sources: Fraye arbeter-shtime (New York) (May 22, 1953); information from Dovid Sohn in New York.
Khayim Leyb Fuks


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