VOS IZ A KONSTITUIRENDE FERZAMLUNG װאס איז א קאנסטיטואירענדע פערזאמלונג
Zhenev [Geneva]: Aroysgegeben fun Algemaynem Idishen arbayterbund in Lita, Poylen un Rusland [Bund], 1905. Item #43539
First edition. Original color paper wrappers, 8vo, 39 pages. 18 cm. In Yiddish. Title translates as “What Is a Constitutional Assembly?”
Essay on governmental organization by Boris Benski-Levinson, published by the Bund in during the 1905 Russian Revolution, during which it was a dominant revolutionary force and “the largest socialist group in the Russian Empire” (Mendes, Philip. The Rise and Fall of the Jewish Labor Bund jewishcurrents.org, November 30, 2013).
“Levinson-Benski (ca. 1880–1923) “was born in Lepel (Lepiel), Vitebsk district, Byelorussia, into a poor family….he studied at the Vilna Yiddish teachers’ institute and after graduation was (1900-1901) the administrator of a Talmud Torah in Great Tokmak, southern Russia….While still in the teachers’ institute, he joined the Bund…
In 1905 the central committee of the Bund summoned him from abroad to Vilna to work with the newly established, legal organ of the party Der Veker (The Awakener) and later Di Folkstsaytung (The People’s Newspaper). During Passover in 1907, he played a major role at the illegal conference of Jewish teachers in Vilna, which ended with the arrest of all the participants.
His principal interest lay in the nationality issue and its ramifications in various parts of the Bundist program. He was an adherent of ethnic trade unions of workers, wrote articles on national-cultural autonomy, Jewish education, and the Yiddish language, and about the Jewish community, among other topics, in Bundist dailies as well as in Bundist anthologies…Over the years 1917-1920, he contributed to the Bundist press in Petrograd, Minsk, and Kiev” (Leksikon fun der Nayer Yidisher Literatur).
SUBJECT(S): Socialism. Jewish socialists. OCLC: 19313587. OCLC locates only 4 copies in North America (YIVO, UCal, LOC, Harvard).
Minimal institutional marks, uncut pages. Very Good Condition, attractive. Scarce and important (PSB-1-26-XX).
Price: $350.00