HOROWITZ, ḤAYYIM DOV

HOROWITZ, ḤAYYIM DOV (1865–1933), economist and Hebrew writer. Born in Gorki, Belorussia, Horowitz published articles and stories in the Hebrew and Yiddish press on economic and financial subjects. His book Ha-Mamon ("The Money," 1900) was the first work in Hebrew dealing with theoretical problems of economics and finances. In the period 1901–03 he edited the Yidishes Folksblat together with M. *Spector. He joined the Zionist movement in its initial stage and became one of the leaders of the *Democratic Fraction. It was Horowitz who put the economic problems of the Jewish people on the agenda of the Zionist Movement. In his articles he sought to demonstrate that the modern development of capitalism in the nations among which the Jewish people were living was causing the pauperization of the Jews, and he called upon the Zionist Movement to apply itself to the improvement of the economic condition of the Jews by furthering cooperative methods on a mass basis. He also saw this effort as a prerequisite for the realization of Zionism. His lecture on this subject at the *Minsk Conference of Russian Zionists (1902) made a profound impression. In the period 1903–11 he contributed articles on economic and financial subjects to Fraynd, using the pen name A. Soḥer. He also became the supervisor of the savings and loan societies established by the *Jewish Colonization Association in the cities and towns of the Russian Pale of Settlement. Horowitz published booklets on cooperation and was a member of the editorial board of Di Yidishe Kooperatsiye. At the beginning of the Russian Revolution (1917) he moved to Poland, and at the time of the Polish conquest of Minsk (1919–20) he was the editor of the Zionist newspaper Farn Folk. In 1922 he returned to his family in Moscow and spent the rest of his life dealing with problems of cooperation among Soviet Jews.

bibliography:

S. Orhov, in: He-Avar, 5 (1957), 149–51; lnyl, 3 (1960), 104–6; Kressel, Leksikon, I (1965), 583–4.

[Yehuda Slutsky]