FEIGENBAUM, BENJAMIN

FEIGENBAUM, BENJAMIN (1860–1932), Yiddish journalist, essayist, editor, and pamphleteer. Born in Warsaw, the son of ḥasidic parents, he rejected the religious traditions in which he had been brought up and developed into a militant atheist and agitator for socialism. Leaving home, he proceeded in 1884 to Antwerp, in 1887 to London, where he wrote for Yiddish and Hebrew periodicals and published pamphlets on socialism, reaching the United States in 1891. In America, he joined the United Hebrew Trades, writing tracts to win the support of Jewish laborers for socialism and atheism. He also wrote for the Forverts and Arbeter-Tsaytung, and for the literary monthly Tsukunft, of which he was editor for a time. He wrote his essays under several pseudonyms including Shabbes, Shabsovitch, and Sh. Peshes. In 1900 he became general secretary of the newly formed Arbeter Ring (*Workmen's Circle), which he established firmly before resigning in 1903. In 1909 he served as chairman of the mass meeting which sanctioned the general strike of the waist and dress trade, the so-called "uprising of 20,000." His publications include Vi Kumt a Yid tsu Sotsyalizmus (1889); Kosher un Treyfe un Andere Mitsves (1909); Yidishkayt un Sotsyalizm (1942).

bibliography:

Rejzen, Leksikon, 3 (1929), 44–49; L. Kobrin, Mayne Fuftsik Yor in Amerike (1966), 64–75. add. bibliography: Bal-Makhshoves, Populere Visnshaftlekhe Literatur (1910), 76–83; M. Shtarkman, in: yivo Bleter, 4 (1932), 354–87; M. Osherovitch, Geshikhte fun Forverts (1947), 43–56.

[Melvyn Dubofsky /

Marc Miller (2^nd ed.)]