From the Pages of Yedies

by ROBERTA NEWMAN

I have often marveled at the almost unbelievable accomplishments of the Jewish activists of yore. Dr. Tsemach Szabad (1864-1935), for example, the legendary cultural leader and doctor from Vilna. Playing a leading role in the founding of YIVO in 1925 was only one of his projects in the period between the two world wars. He co-founded a political party, the Folkspartei, established a magazine, Folksgezund (Popular Health), created evening schools for women, founded a public library, and served on the boards of numerous cultural, health, and educational institutions, all while maintaining an active medical practice. In 1928, he was elected to the Polish Senate. I remember reading in Yulian I. Rafes’ Doctor Tsemakh Shabad: A Great Citizen of the Jewish Diaspora (Baltimore, 1999) that he also answered 5,000 pieces of correspondence a year.

Apparently, Szabad was not the only Yiddish activist of his time with preternatural reserves of energy. This item from August – October 1937 edition of Yedies reports on the departure of Yiddish writer Melech Ravitch (1893-1976) from Melbourne, Australia (where he had settled after leaving Warsaw) for South America, where he was planning a fundraising tour on behalf of YIVO, as well as the publication of an anthology about Jewish agricultural settlements in Argentina and other countries. He was bid a fond farewell by Di oystralishe yidishe nayes (The Australian Jewish News), which reported on his many accomplishments during his two-year sojourne in Australia: the creation of Yiddish afternoon course and a comprehensive course in Yiddish literature for adults in which he had introduced local Jews to the work of younger generations of Yiddish writers;  and the launch of a Yiddish almanac. Ravitch, the article noted, “had connected the Jewish community of Australia with the Jewish world at large, and introduced the best of Jewish world culture into local Jewish life… Ravitch spent two years altogether among us and it’s hard to believe that a person could accomplish so much in such a short time.”