Tshemeriski (Chemeriski), Alexander
TSHEMERISKI (Chemeriski), ALEXANDER
TSHEMERISKI (Chemeriski), ALEXANDER (Solomon ; 1880–193?), leading member of the Russian *Bund and later of the *Yevsektsiya in the Soviet Union. Born in Bar, Podolia, in the late 1890s Tshemeriski worked as a photographer in Minsk, and ranked among the activists of the Bund. In 1901 he was among the founders of the *Independent Jewish Workers Party. When the party was liquidated, he once more became a revolutionary and conducted illegal propaganda among the peasants. After he addressed a letter of "confession" to the central committee of the Bund, however, he was again accepted within its ranks. As a committee member of the Bund in Lodz, he played an important role in the 1905 Revolution. During the years 1908–10 he was exiled to Siberia. Upon his return, he was the delegate for Lodz at the eighth (Lemberg, 1910) and ninth (Vienna, 1912) conferences of the Bund. He also represented Jewish workers of Lodz at the all-Russian convention of craftsmen (St. Petersburg, 1911), after which he was again arrested. During World War i he lived in Vienna and Geneva. Upon his return to Russia, he was arrested, but set free after the February revolution (1917). Tshemeriski was co-opted as a member of the central committee of the Bund, active in Yekaterinoslav (Dnepropetrovsk) and Kiev, and became a member of the central executive of the trade unions of Ukraine. At the 11th conference of the Bund (March 1919), having been nominated as a candidate for the central committee, he rapidly turned to the Bolsheviks and participated in the foundation of the "Komfarbund," which was the result of merging the "Kombund" with the United Jewish Communist Party (May 1919). At first a member of the head office of the Yevsektsiya in the Ukraine, he was subsequently appointed member of the central bureau of the Yevsektsiya and its secretary (1920). He wrote for Emes and was active in social and economic reconstruction and education among the Jews. In the mid-1930s he was arrested and tried on charges which included his previous affiliation to the "Independents." He apparently died in prison. Tshemeriski published memoirs in Krasny Arkhiv, no. 1 (1922), on the "Independents," and in Royte Bleter (1929), on his activities in Lodz in 1905. His publications of the Soviet period are listed in Ch. Shmeruk (ed.), Pirsumim Yehudiyyim be-Verit ha-Mo'aẓot (1961), index.
bibliography:
M. Altshuler (ed.), Russian Publications on Jews and Judaism in the Soviet Union 1917 – 1967 (1970), index; J.S. Hertz et al. (eds.), Geshikhte fun Bund, 3 vols. (1960–66), index; lnyl, 4 (1961), 153–4; Avram der Tate [= Leib Blekhman], Bleter fun Mayn Yugnt (1959), 179–85.
[Moshe Mishkinsky]