47 Facts About Chaim Zhitlowsky

Chaim Zhitlowsky was a Jewish socialist, philosopher, social and political thinker, writer and literary critic born in Ushachy, Vitebsk Governorate, Russian Empire.

Chaim Zhitlowsky was a founding member of the Union of Russian Socialist Revolutionaries; a founding member and theoretician of the Socialist Revolutionary Party in Russia, and a key promoter of Yiddishism and Jewish Diaspora nationalism, which influenced the Jewish territorialist and nationalist movements.

Chaim Zhitlowsky was born in 1865, in the small town of Ushachy, in the province of Vitebsk Governorate, the Russian Empire.

Chaim Zhitlowsky moved to a richer, more exclusive section of the city and kept an open house.

Soon Chaim Zhitlowsky became friendly with high school students of his neighbourhood and began to read Russian literature.

On his 13th birthday Chaim made the acquaintance of Shloyme Rappaport, who was later to become S Ansky, the famous author of The Dybuk.

On entering the third grade of the Russian Gymnasium in 1879, Chaim Zhitlowsky came into contact with revolutionary circles, and, for a time, was estranged from Yiddish and other matters of Jewish interest, advocating for assimilation into Russian culture.

Chaim Zhitlowsky left the gymnasium, and went to Tula in 1881, and there was engaged in spreading Socialist Revolutionary propaganda.

Chaim Zhitlowsky turned, instead, to advocating for Jewish equality, and aligned with beliefs in the Diaspora Nationalist movement.

Chaim Zhitlowsky was inspired by the vision of the Jewish colonies and a Jewish peasantry, but the religious character of that Zionism did not appeal to him.

In 1885, Chaim Zhitlowsky tried to found a Jewish section of the illegal Narodnya Volya party, but those in the central committee of the Narodnya Volya who believed in cosmopolitanism and assimilation defeated the Chaim Zhitlowsky project.

Chaim Zhitlowsky's grandfather consoled him, pointing out the revolutionary character of the prophets, and of the great Jewish intellects of the later times.

Chaim Zhitlowsky soon established contact with a St Petersburg group of the Narodnaya Volya.

Chaim Zhitlowsky returned to Vitebsk for a short time, from there he went to Galicia, where it was much easier to preach Socialist doctrines among the Jewish masses.

Chaim Zhitlowsky became acquainted with a group of Jewish revolutionists from Zurich, who were engaged in disseminating radical literature in Yiddish.

Chaim Zhitlowsky went to Berlin in 1888 and resumed his study of Jewish history, Marxism and philosophy.

Chaim Zhitlowsky was expelled from Germany under the anti-Socialist law, and moved to Zurich.

Chaim Zhitlowsky immediately became active, founding the non-partisan "Verein fur Wissenschaft und Leben des Judischen Volkes," for the purpose of inculcating nationalism and socialism among the Jewish masses.

Chaim Zhitlowsky engaged in debates between the orthodox and the adherents of the Narodnaya Volya.

Chaim Zhitlowsky moved to Bern to study, earning his doctorate in 1892.

Chaim Zhitlowsky was active in an organization which combated the "Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals," which caused controversy and was deemed anti-Semitic for calling Shechita animal cruelty.

The Bund which published the booklet thought that Chaim Zhitlowsky's introduction was not sufficiently revolutionary and too nationalistic, because the author expressed the belief that the rebirth of the Yiddish language and literature would lead to the national and social awakening of the Jewish people.

Chaim Zhitlowsky attended the First Zionist Congress meeting at Basel in 1897.

Chaim Zhitlowsky was against founding a Zionist party, and believed in the necessity for a League for Jewish Colonization, a league that would appeal to all those opposed to Herzel's political Zionism.

Chaim Zhitlowsky toured important European centres, making connections with revolutionary leaders of England, France, and Germany.

Chaim Zhitlowsky conceived the idea of a Jewish Sejm.

In 1904, Chaim Zhitlowsky served as delegate at the International Socialist Congress in Amsterdam, and his fight that the Socialist Revolutionary Party should have a representative in the International Socialist Bureau ended victoriously.

Chaim Zhitlowsky spent some time in Galicia and then went to Russia, where his native province, Vitebsk, nominated him for Duma elections of 1906.

Chaim Zhitlowsky called a congress of socialist factions which leaned more closely to the Socialist Revolutionary ideology.

Chaim Zhitlowsky returned to Europe in 1908, where he participated in the Czernowitz Yiddish Language Conference.

In 1909 Chaim Zhitlowsky raised the question of founding Yiddish secular schools in America.

The first Folkshul in New York City was opened on 10 December 1910 at 143 Madison St, and Chaim Zhitlowsky took an active part in the growth of the school.

Chaim Zhitlowsky's influence was very considerable in the creation, some years later, of the Jewish secular schools of the Workmen's Circle, despite the opposition of Abe Cahan, editor of The Jewish Daily Forward who advocated assimilation of Jewish workers into the general working class.

In 1912, thousands of Chaim Zhitlowsky's followers celebrated the 25th anniversary of his literary activity.

In 1913 publication of Dos Naye Leben ceased, and Chaim Zhitlowsky made a lecture tour of Jewish student colonies of the important academic centers in France, Belgium, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

Chaim Zhitlowsky visited Palestine in order to study the possibilities of widespread Jewish colonization there.

Chaim Zhitlowsky returned to America at the outbreak of the World War I Until then he had been a contributor to the Warheit, edited by L A Miller.

Chaim Zhitlowsky now joined the staff of the newly organized Day.

Chaim Zhitlowsky advocated for America's neutrality, and battled against the pro-German feelings of the man in the street and of the Yiddish press.

Chaim Zhitlowsky joined the movement for a Jewish congress and when it was convened he played an important part in its deliberations.

In 1920, publication commenced of Die Zeit, a daily of the Poale Zion party, a party that Chaim Zhitlowsky had joined a few years before, and he became one of its major contributors.

In 1923, when the magazine was discontinued, Chaim Zhitlowsky returned to Europe to complete The Spiritual Struggle of the Jewish People for Freedom.

Chaim Zhitlowsky visited Palestine and toured the Jewish centers in Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia between 1924 and 1925.

Chaim Zhitlowsky was one of the editors of the weekly Yiddish, issued by the Yiddish Culture Society.

Chaim Zhitlowsky was one of the leaders of the Worker's Bloc, and supported the calling of a Jewish World Congress.

Chaim Zhitlowsky died in Calgary, Canada, on May 6,1943 while visiting on a lecture circuit.

Chaim Zhitlowsky's funeral was held at the Manhattan Center on 34th Street in New York, NY.