VLADECK, BARUCH CHARNEY

VLADECK, BARUCH CHARNEY (1886–1938), U.S. journalist, civic leader, and public official; brother of Daniel *Charney and Shmuel *Niger. Born in Dukor, near Minsk, Belorussia, Vladeck abandoned religious study in his teens in favor of political action. A lifelong socialist, he had been a revolutionary in Russia, but became a moderate in the United States. Between 1904 and 1908, he agitated extensively for the Jewish Labor *Bund, and was imprisoned three times. He wrote Yiddish poetry and prose. In 1908, he immigrated to the United States, becoming city editor of the Jewish Daily Forward in 1916, and business manager of that newspaper from 1918. From 1918 to 1921, he sat on the board of aldermen in New York City as a Socialist member. Long active in the public housing movement, Vladeck was appointed to the New York City Housing Authority in 1934. In 1938, he served on the City Council, leading a coalition of its pro-La Guardia members. President of ORT from 1932 to 1938 and chairman of the Jewish Labor Committee from 1934 to 1938, Vladeck was an opponent of Communist influence in the labor movement and was influential in helping to align Jewish labor with other segments of the Jewish community.

bibliography:

M. Epstein, Profiles of Eleven (1965), 323–56; J. Herling, in: ajyb, 41 (1939), 79–93, includes portrait; ajyb, Index to Volumes 1 – 50 (1967), 348; Rejzen, Leksikon, 1 (1926), 999–1001; A. Liesen, Zikhroynes un Bilder (1954), 295–311; lnyl, 3 (1960), 469–75, incl. bibl.

[Franklin Jonas]