{"id":3714,"date":"2021-12-16T17:01:35","date_gmt":"2021-12-16T17:01:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jewishstudiescolumbia.com\/myny\/?p=3714"},"modified":"2021-12-16T17:11:52","modified_gmt":"2021-12-16T17:11:52","slug":"comrade-medem-is-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jewishstudiescolumbia.com\/myny\/arts\/comrade-medem-is-dead\/","title":{"rendered":"Comrade Medem is Dead"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Comrade Medem is Dead<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Forverts<\/em>, Wednesday, January 10, 1923<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Translated by Daniela Goodman Rabner<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Comrade Medem is dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the age of 42, Vladimir Medem died last night. \u2014 He was loved by all Jewish workers. \u2014 In Russia and in Poland he had been the leader of the Bund. \u2014  His dead body has been brought to the undertaker. \u2014 Tomorrow morning the dead body will be brought to the Forverts<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The levaye<\/em> [funeral] will be tomorrow, at one o\u2019clock in the afternoon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cde. [comrade] Vladimir Medem is dead! The sad news spread last night with the speed of lighting across all the Jewish neighborhoods of Greater New York and within about a couple of hours the wired telegraph and wireless telegraph carried the news to the farthest corners of America and Europe. The news has left the Jewish neighborhood in deep mourning. The news was received with great pain and grief, and everywhere all heard the words: \u201cWe have lost a great leader, a lovely man, and a great fighter for the worker\u2019s cause.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Comrade Medem was not simply a labor activist or a leader of the Jewish masses. He was one of the most important leaders of the Jewish Labor Bund in Poland and Russia and was the founder and theoretician of the Bund\u2019s national program. He was considered the intellectual father of the tens of thousands of Jewish workers and his death will cause a profound wound in the entire Jewish labor movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Comrade Medem rendered his great services not only as a brave labor fighter, not only as a martyr of the great class struggle, for which he devoted many years of his life in the Russian prisons, but he also has rendered great praise as a warm person and as a devoted activist in the field of Jewish culture and children\u2019s education. He was the founder of the children’s schools in Warsaw and devoted a large part of his time to the success of the schools. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Comrade Medem had been seriously ill for the last six weeks. He had his illness due to the troubles and sufferings he endured in the various prisons and this shortened his life. He died at the age of 42 years. The end came yesterday afternoon, 10 minutes after 4. He was treated by the greatest professors, who made a great effort to save his life. However, it did not help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The levaye<\/em> [funeral] <\/em>will take place Thursday, at 1 o\u2019clock in the afternoon, at the Forverts<\/em> building. His body will be moved from his house, 704A 52nd St., Brooklyn, and to the Forverts<\/em> building tomorrow morning. He will be buried at the Workers Circle cemetery on Mount Carmel.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The levaye<\/em> [funeral] will be arranged by the New York branch of the Bund, Central Union of the Bundist Organizations in America, Aid Committee for the Bund, Forverts<\/em> Association, Warsaw District Branch 215 Workers Circle and the Greater Romanian Workers Circle.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Vladimir Medem was born in Livave [Liep\u0101ja, Lithuania] on July 22, 1879, into an assimilated Jewish family. His father, a Russian military doctor with the title of General, was estranged from yiddishkeit<\/em>. All of Medem’s brothers and sisters converted to Christianity in their youth. His father converted to Christianity himself shortly before his death when Medem was 13 years old.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vladimir Medem was also baptized as Protestant immediately after his birth, and his upbringing as a young man was a religious Christian one. He used to frequent the church every Sunday and almost did not know about his Jewish ancestry until later in university, Medem grew closer to the Jews and his first political activity began in the ranks of the Bund, which he remained loyal to until the last day of his life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He received his education at the Minsk Gymnasium in 1897. He enrolled in the University of Kiev from where he was removed in 1899 for participating in a student demonstration and was exiled to Minsk under police supervision. In Minsk he began to take an active part in the work of the Bund.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1901 he fled to Switzerland, not wanting to be sent to Siberia for his activities. From then on, Medem\u2019s wandering life began. And immeasurable activity in the ranks of the Bund.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, the still-young Medem became a member of the Central Committee of the Bund, a post he held until his departure for America. He was one of the best journalists and speakers the Bund has ever had. The entire heroic history of Bund was strongly influenced by him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His journalistic work began in 1900, in “Veker<\/em>“, the then-organ of the Bund. From then on he took part in all Bundist publications as well as in a number of general socialist publications. He has also edited numerous Bundist newspapers, weekly magazines and monthly magazines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Medem was abroad until 1913. He spent only a short time of the 1905 Russian Revolution in Russia. In 1913 Medem returned to Russia and, immediately after crossing the border, was arrested in Kovno for belonging to the Central Committee of the Bund and for editing the “Lebens Fragen<\/em>,” a Bundist weekly published in Warsaw, but the editors were located in Vienna. He was sentenced in 1914 by the Warsaw Crown to four and a half years in prison. However, the German occupation of Warsaw in September 1915 released him from prison, because the Russians were unable to deport him from Warsaw back to Russia due to his illness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After being released from prison, Medem immediately went to work and began to publish in Warsaw the Bund\u2019s organ, the “Lebens Fragen,<\/em>” which still appears to this day as a daily newspaper. The newspaper is often under strong pressure from the public and changes its name very often.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under his influence, the Bundist organizations in Poland were revived and the Polish Bund developed strongly and became a robust power. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, under his influence, the movement for the modern Idisher Folk<\/em> shul was formed. He was one of the first to sign the petition to the German authorities regarding the Jewish folk shul. And from then on began the widespread folk movement in the field of modern school education, which developed very rapidly. And today there are more than 200 schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Medem arrived in the United States on January 16, 1921, as a representative of the Bund in Poland. He received a very warm welcome from the thousands of veteran Bundists and from all the comrades across the country. He visited a number of cities here, and unfortunately due to his health condition could not visit the distant regions, where comrades called him so strongly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the United States, in addition to his literary work for the Forverts<\/em>, he has worked in the field of relief work for the Bund and the Idisher Folk<\/em> schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His last work in America was the founding of the \u201cGreat Romanian Workers League,\u201d an organization for Romanian, Bessarabian, and Bukhovian comrades, which aims to help Romanian comrades and to also do cultural work among the Romanian immigrants here in America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His prison memoirs, as well as a book of his articles, entitled “From My Note Book,” have been published. His life story, which was published in the Forverts<\/em>, will soon appear in book form, along with some unpublished articles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Comrade Medem was treated by the best and greatest doctors: Prof. Simon Blathaus, Dr. L. Liebman, Dr. Alex Barsky, Dr. A. Ginsburg, and Dr. Emanuel Robinson from Brooklyn who all used to visit him two or three times a day, often at night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

____________________________________<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the relatively short time that Vladimir Medem was in the United States, he also took an active part in the cultural work of the Workers Circle. Until the last minute of his life, he was a member of the National Shul Commission of the Workers Circle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The National Shul Commission of the Workers Circle invites all members of the current executive and of the former Workers Circle Steering Committee to attend the levaye<\/em> [funeral].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

____________________________________<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

All members of Warsaw District Branch 215 Workers Circle are urged to come to the levaye<\/em> [funeral] of their friend Vladimir Medem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

____________________________________<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The New York branch of the Bund invites all Bundists to a meeting tonight, 6 pm, in Clinton Hall, Room 34. The final arrangements will be made for the levaye<\/em> [funeral] of the late Comrade Vladimir Medem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bundists who have ever sung in a big choir are urgently invited to attend the meeting. A Bundist choir will be composed for the levaye<\/em> [funeral] of Comrade Vladimir Medem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Source: \u201cComrade Medem is Dead.\u201d Forverts<\/em>, 10 January 1923, pp. 1, 8.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Comrade Medem is Dead Forverts, Wednesday, January 10, 1923 Translated by Daniela Goodman Rabner Comrade Medem is dead. At the age of 42, Vladimir Medem died last night. \u2014 He was loved by all Jewish workers. \u2014 In Russia and in Poland he had been the leader of the Bund. \u2014  His dead body has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":138,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[269,268,42,44,177,271,270,72,102],"class_list":["post-3714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts","tag-arbeiter-ring","tag-bund","tag-forverts","tag-jewish-daily-forward","tag-translation","tag-vladimir-medem","tag-workers-circle","tag-yiddish","tag-yivo","has-post-thumbnail"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9teox-XU","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jewishstudiescolumbia.com\/myny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jewishstudiescolumbia.com\/myny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jewishstudiescolumbia.com\/myny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jewishstudiescolumbia.com\/myny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/138"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jewishstudiescolumbia.com\/myny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3714"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/jewishstudiescolumbia.com\/myny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3714\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3725,"href":"https:\/\/jewishstudiescolumbia.com\/myny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3714\/revisions\/3725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jewishstudiescolumbia.com\/myny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jewishstudiescolumbia.com\/myny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jewishstudiescolumbia.com\/myny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}