ALEKSANDER (SANDER, SERGEY) ZELDOV-NYEMANSKI (ZELDOV-NIEMANSKY)

ALEKSANDER (SANDER, SERGEY) ZELDOV-NYEMANSKI (ZELDOV-NIEMANSKY) (1873-August 18, 1924)

            He was born in Vilkomir (Ukmergė), Lithuania.  He attended religious primary school, studied Talmud until age eighteen, and then became a follower of the Jewish Enlightenment movement and shortly thereafter a socialist.  While still in the city of his birth he joined an illegal circle which included important leaders of the Bund and the Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party (RSDWP).  In 1894 he met for the first time the pioneers of the Jewish labor movement in Vilna, where he began to contribute to the mixed Bundist “Group of Jewish Social Democrats.”  He described that period in his “Bletlekh zikhroynes” (Pages of memories), published in the jubilee number (45) of the revived Arbayter-shtime (Voice of labor) in Petrograd (September 27, 1917) and reprinted in Yugnt-veker (Youth alarm) in Warsaw 20 (56) (1927).  In 1897 he was already well known among the leading Jewish socialists in Vilna, thanks to his folksy style and writing ability in Yiddish (people would read his papers and pamphlets out loud in their circles of colleagues, and he already by this point excelled as a translator from Russian and German into Yiddish); and this brought him to a historic event in the history of the Bund and in the history of the Yiddish press generally.  When a small group of Jewish social democrats, led by Yisroel-Mikhl Kaplinski (“Langzam”), conceived of putting out (without the knowledge of the larger “Group”) a published workers’ newspaper in Yiddish, they turned to Zeldov as an expert to edit the newspaper.  And thus it emerged that he became the editor (with Kaplinski formally also on the editorial board) and practically all by himself wrote from the first issue (and the subsequently issues) of Di arbayter shtime (The voice of labor); the first number appeared in August 1897, and beginning with issue six (October 17, 1897) it was published as the official organ of the Bund until September 1905 when they set to replace it with the legal daily newspaper, Der veker (The alarm).  Concerning the viewpoint of Di arbayter shtime, Zeldov published a very interesting memoir in Di hofnung (The hope) 14 (October 8, 1907) in Vilna and—in Russian—in the first volume of the Russian Jewish collection Perezhitoie (The past) (St. Petersburg, 1908), pp. 264-75; and the same piece in Arbeter luekh (Worker’s calendar) (Warsaw: Di velt, 1922), pp. 101-9.  He was a delegate to the second, third, and fourth conferences of the Bund, and was also at these events elected onto the central committee of the party.  In 1900 he settled in St. Petersburg, worked as a dentist (thus enabling him to acquire residential rights in the Russian capital), and at the same time took an active part in the Russian social democratic movement.  He was a member of the local committee of the RSDWP and contributed to its organ, Rabochaia mysl’ (Workers’ ideas).  In March 1902 he served as a delegate to the Bialystok conference of the RSDWP and, after returning to St. Petersburg, he was arrested and sent to Moscow, and from there one year later he was exiled to the Yenisey region in eastern Siberia for six years; at the end of 1903, however, he escaped abroad and until June 1905 lived in Berne, Switzerland where he administered the central committee of the Bund group outside Russia.  In those two years he undertook a major role in the intensive literary activities of the foreign committee of the Bund, translated numerous important pamphlets from Russian and German into Yiddish, and published (under the name A. Nyemanski) his most important work: Di geshikhte fun der parizer komune (The history of the Paris Commune), later republished legally by “Di velt” in Vilna.  In June 1906 he returned to Russia, settled in Vilna, where he was until 1908 editor of the publishing house “Di velt” (The world).  In 1908 he once again settled in St. Petersburg, and there he remained until the end of his life.  For a time he withdrew from active political work and was a plenipotentiary for Yekopo (Yevreyskiy komitet pomoshchi zhertvam voyny—“Jewish Relief Committee for War Victims”) during WWI.  After the February-March Revolution of 1917, he returned to party work, was a member of the editorial board of a revived Di arbayter shtime in Petrograd, co-edited Dos profesyonele lebn (The trade union life), the supplement to Di arbayter shtime, and wrote articles for both newspapers.  After the Bolsheviks’ October uprising, he withdrew once more from active political work.  He died in Leningrad.

            In book and pamphlet form, he published: Di parizer komune (The Paris Commune) (Geneva: Bund, October 1905), 123 pp., on extremely thin paper, later reprinted under the title Ertseylungen fun der frantsoyzisher geshikhte, di parizer komune (Stories from French history, the Paris Commune) (Warsaw: Di velt, 1906), 186 pp.; Di religye iz a privat-zakh (Religion is a private matter) (Vilna: Di velt, 1906), 15 pp., the first publication of “Di velt”; Profesyonele fereynen un zeyere oyfgaben (Trade unions and their publications) (Vilna: Di velt, 1906), 80 pp.; Tsu der geshikhte fun der belgisher arbayter-bavegung (On the history of the Belgian labor movement) (Vilna: Di velt, 1906), 79 pp.; Vemen darf men oysklaybn in gosud. dume (Whom we should choose for the state Duma) (Vilna: Di velt, 1906), 12 pp.; Neytrale oder parteyishe profesyonele fereynen un an enṭfer d. koltsov (Neutral or partisan trade unions? And a reply to D. Koltsov) (Vilna: Di velt, 1907), 44 pp.; Di befrayungs-bevegung in rusland (The liberation movement in Russia) (Vilna: Di velt, 1907), 32 pp., “translated from the German, with a postface, by A. Nemanski” [original by Karl Kautsky].

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 1 (with a bibliography); Ben-Hilel (Dr. K. Forenberg), in Tsukunft (New York) (August 1906), p. 61; Royte pinkes (Warsaw) 2 (1924), pp. 181-82; Arkadi, zamlbukh tsum ondenk fun grinder fun “bund,” arkadi kremer (1865-1935) (Arkadi, anthology in memory of the founder of the Bund, Arkadi Kremer, 1865-1935) (New York, 1942), see index; John Mill, Pyonern un boyer (Pioneers and builders) vols. 1 and 2 (New York, 1946, 1949), see indexes; F. Kurski, in Der veker (New York) (September 27, 1924); Kurski, Gezamlte shriftn (Collected writings) (New York, 1952), see index; Y. Sh. Herts, in Doyres bundistn (Generation of Bundists), vol. 1 (New York, 1956), pp. 192-95 (with a longer bibliography).

Yitskhok Kharlash