YOYSEF LEZMAN

YOYSEF LEZMAN (b. 1904)

            He was a current events author and community leader, born in Berdichev, Ukraine, into a working-class family. He later lived in Kiev and Moscow. He graduated from the Jewish section of the Communist University of Ethnic Minorities of the West (Mayrevke) in Moscow. He was a candidate in “historical science.” He was an active leader in the Jewish section of the organizations “Pyonir” (Pioneer) and “Komyug” ([Jewish] Communist youth association), as well as in “Gezerd” (All-Union Association for the Agricultural Settlement of Jewish Workers in the USSR). He was secretary (1927-1929) of the central bureau of the Jewish section of the central committee of Komyug. He began writing for and editing the Berdichev newspaper for youth Yugnt-glokn (Youth bells) in 1921 and later was one of the editors of Yungvald (Young forest) in Moscow (1926-1928). He was a member of the editorial board of the children’s magazine Pyonir in Moscow (1925-1928), Yung gvardye (Young guard) in Kharkov (1924-1936), and Yunger boy-klang (Young sound of construction) in Kharkov (1927-1928). In the 1920s, he contributed pieces as well to: Der emes (The truth), the central newspaper in Moscow; Der shtern (The star) and Di royte velt (The red world) in Kharkov; and elsewhere. He subsequently played a managerial role in the ethnic Jewish district of Kalinindorf. He was at the front during WWII, and thereafter he lived in Kharkov.

He was the author of: Der komyug in der idisher svive (The Communist youth association in the Jewish environment) (Moscow, 1927), 86 pp.; Dos muz visn yeder komyugist (Every member of Komyug must know this) (Moscow: Shul un bukh, 1928), 73 pp.; Fun sayde-menukhe biz kalinindorf (From Sayde-menukhe to Kalinindorf), images of life on Jewish collective farms (Kiev, 1932), 124 pp. (published earlier in separate features pieces in Der emes and other newspapers). Together with Shneur Golubitski and Arn Yerusalimski, he compiled the reader Polit-alef-beys farn komyugist (Political alphabet for the Komyugist) (Moscow: Central People’s Publishers, USSR, 1925), 186 pp.

Sources: A. Kirzhnits, Di yidishe prese in ratnfarband, 1917-1927 (The Yiddish press in the Soviet Union, 1917-1927) (Minsk, 1928), nos. 275, 294; Biblyografishe yorbikher fun yivo (Bibliographic yearbooks from YIVO) (Warsaw, 1928), see index; N. Rubinshteyn, Dos yidishe bukh in sovetnfarband in 1932 (The Yiddish book in the Soviet Union in 1932), (Kiev, 1932), no. 186; Chone Shmeruk, comp., Pirsumim yehudiim babrit-hamoatsot, 1917-1961 (Jewish publications in the Soviet Union, 1917-1961) (Jerusalem, 1961), see index.

Khayim Leyb Fuks

[Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 350; Chaim Beider, Leksikon fun yidishe shrayber in ratn-farband (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers in the Soviet Union), ed. Boris Sandler and Gennady Estraikh (New York: Congress for Jewish Culture, Inc., 2011), p. 219.]