Shekhtman, Yoysef
September 6, 1891–March 1, 1970
He was born in Odessa. He graduated from a Russian Jewish high school in Odessa and the law department in Berlin and Odessa. He received his doctoral degree in 1914. He was a member of the All-Russian Jewish Conference in Petrograd (1917), of the Ukrainian Central and Minor Rada (Council), a deputy of the Ukrainian founding assembly, and in later years among the highest authorities of the Zionist and Revisionist movement. He resided in Kishinev, Riga, London, Berlin (until 1932), Paris, and from 1941 New York.
He began doing journalism, later switching to research work, combining demography, population transfers, and refugee issues. He debuted in print in 1909 in Voskhod (Arise) and later contributed to a string of Russian Jewish periodicals; he also wrote in German, French, and English, and published books in those languages. Among other works, he penned a two-volume monograph on Zev Jabotinsky.
He also composed articles in Yiddish for: the Zionist Der Telegraf (The Telegraph) and Af der Vakh (On Guard) in Kiev; Idishe Shtime (Jewish Voice) in Kovno; Haynt (Today) and Moment (Moment) in Warsaw; Tribune (Tribune) in Berlin and London (1922); Der Nayer Veg (The New Way) in London (1929-1931); Morgn-Zhurnal (Morning Journal) and Tog (Day) in New York; Keneder Adler (Keneder Odler, Canadian Eagle) in Montreal; Idishe Tsaytung (Jewish Newspaper) in Buenos Aires; and YIVO-Bleter (YIVO Monthly Bulletin) (issues 26 and 37).
With Shmuel Tshernovits, he edited the weekly Dos Idishe Folk (The Jewish People) (Kiev, 1918); with A. Tsherikover and others, Di Idishe Avtonomye un der Natsyonaler Sekretaryat in Ukrayne (Jewish Autonomy and the National Secretariat in Ukraine) (Kiev, 1920), 330-plus pp.; with Shaye Klinov, Der Id (The Jew) (Kishinev, 1921); with Zev-Volf Latski-Bertoldi, Dos Folk (The People) (1926).
In Yiddish he published: Ver iz Farantvortlikh far di Pogromen in Ukrayne (Who Is Responsible for the Pogroms in Ukraine) (Paris, 1927), 155 pp.; Revizyonizm un di Idishe Arbetershaft in Erets-Yisroel (Revisionism and Jewish Labor in the Land of Israel) (Warsaw, 1933), 38 pp.; Teritoryalistishe Iluzyes (Territorialist Illusions) (Warsaw, 1939), 60 pp.
His pen name in Yiddish was Borisov.
He died in New York.
Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 4; Encyclopedia of Zionism and Israel, vol. 2 (New York, 1971).