Arditi, Albert Judah
ARDITI, ALBERT JUDAH
ARDITI, ALBERT JUDAH (1891–1942), Greek socialist leader. Arditi, who was born in Salonika, was a paper merchant. He devoted his life to the Salonika socialist movement, the Salonikan Federation (the Socialist Labor Federation of Salonika), of which he was one of the founders in late spring 1909. He organized the city's trade union movement, contributed to the labor newspaper La Solidaredad Obradera, later called Avanti, and became its editor. He pulled the movement together when liberal criticism from Joseph *Nehama and former students of the Alliance Israélite Universelle within the Federation almost fragmented the movement. When movement leader Avraham *Ben-Aroya was exiled in 1912, Arditi filled in as editor-in-chief of Avanti. He was one of the Federation's foremost leaders, but yet a simple activist and devoted Socialist. In December 1912, after Salonika was captured by Greece, Arditi was sentenced to three years' imprisonment for insulting the Greek king in one of his newspaper's articles. In opposition to the collaboration of the Federation with the royalist conservative political establishment, Arditi, together with a small group of activists from the Federation, split off from the Federation in the summer of 1915. Arditi served as deputy mayor of Salonika and was a member of the Jewish Communal Council. A staunch fighter for his socialist ideals, he was outspoken and courageous in his public statements and was imprisoned by the authorities for his views. During World War ii, Arditi, his wife, and children were deported to Birkenau and murdered by the Nazis.
add. bibliography:
G.B. Leon, "The Greek Socialist Movement And The First World War: The Road To Unity," in: Eastern European Quarterly (1976), 26; D. Quataert, "The Workers of Salonica, 1850–1912," in: D. Quataert and Erik J. Zurcher (eds.), Workers and the Working Class in the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic 1839–1950 (1995), 59–74; da. Recanati (ed.), Zikhron Saloniki, i (1972), 317–18.
[Baruch Uziel /
Yitzchak Kerem (2nd ed.)]