Jakob Lestschinsky (also ''Jacob Lestschinsky'', ''Yankev Leshtshinski'', ''Yankev Leshchinski'', לשצ'ינסקי, יעקב; August 26, 1876 in Horodysche,

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

– March 22, 1966 in

Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...

) was a Jewish statistician and sociologist who wrote in Yiddish, German, and English. He specialized in Jewish demography and economic history. And during the February Revolution in Russia he helped found the United Jewish Socialist Party and served on the editorial board of ''Naye Tsayt'', its official journal.And in 1938 he went to the United States. During the war he lived in New York, and worked with the Institute of Jewish Affairs of the World Jewish Congress.

Life

Born near Kyiv, he received a traditional Jewish education. As a teenager, he was deeply moved by Hebrew writer Ahad Ha'am. After university study in Switzerland for a decade, he returned to Russia in 1913. He was involved in various Zionist and socialist political activities, such as the

Zionist Socialist Workers Party Zionist-Socialist Workers Party (russian: Сионистско-социалистическая рабочая партия), often referred to simply as Zionist-Socialists or S.S. by their Russian initials, was a Jewish territorialist and social ...

. After being imprisoned in the aftermath of the

October Revolution The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key mome ...

, he left Russia in 1921 for Berlin. There he was a correspondent for the New York Yiddish daily ''

Forverts ''The Forward'' ( yi, פֿאָרווערטס, Forverts), formerly known as ''The Jewish Daily Forward'', is an American news media organization for a American Jews, Jewish American audience. Founded in 1897 as a Yiddish-language daily socialis ...

'', a role he continued for more than 40 years. He left Germany for Warsaw in 1934, emigrated to the United States in 1938, and finally to Israel in 1959. And Lestschinsky jacob sent a dispatch to ''Forward'' which was published in the ''New York Times'' on March 26, 1933; in it he said: "The Hitler regime flames up with anger because it has been compelled through fear of public foreign opinion to forego a mass slaughter of Jews.

YIVO

He was a founding member of

YIVO YIVO (Yiddish: , ) is an organization that preserves, studies, and teaches the cultural history of Jewish life throughout Eastern Europe, Germany, and Russia as well as orthography, lexicography, and other studies related to Yiddish. (The word '' ...

(Institute for Jewish Research) in

Vilna Vilnius ( , ; see also #Etymology and other names, other names) is the capital and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the munic ...

(then in

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

), starting its Section for Economics and Statistics. He also edited the , which appeared in Berlin from 1923 until 1925, and the Economic-Statistical Section publications ''Ekonomishe shriftn'' and ''Yidishe ekonomik''.

Selected works

* ''Yidishe Folk in Tsifern'' (1922) * ''Jüdische Bevölkerungsbewegung'' (1926) * "Die Umsiedlung und Umschichtung des jüdischen Volkes im Laufe des letzten Jahrhunderts" (1929), ''Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv'', 30: 123-156 * ''Di Yidishe Katastrofe'' (1944) * ''Crisis, Catastrophe, and Survival: A Jewish Balance Sheet, 1914–1948'' (1948)

References

Ukrainian Jews Demographers History of YIVO 1876 births 1966 deaths Zionist Socialist Workers Party politicians People from Kiev Governorate Russian expatriates in Switzerland Russian expatriates in Germany Russian expatriates in Poland Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United States Prisoners and detainees of the Soviet Union White Russian emigrants to Germany American emigrants to Israel {{Jewish-hist-stub