GOTTLIEB, YEHOSHUA

GOTTLIEB, YEHOSHUA (1882–c. 1940–41), Zionist journalist and leader in Poland during the interwar period. Born in Pinsk, Gottlieb began his Zionist activities in 1913, becoming a member of the central committee of the Zionist Organization in Poland in 1916. He served the movement mainly as a journalist, writing for the great Warsaw Yiddish dailies Haynt (1919–35) and Moment (1935–39), and was one of the outstanding newsmen and essayists of his time. In 1935 he was elected to the Sejm (Polish parliament). From 1927 to 1934 he was chairman of the Warsaw Journalists' Association and from 1924 to 1939 was a member of the Warsaw Jewish Community Council, serving as its deputy chairman from 1926 to 1930. He was one of the founders of the Et Livnot ("Time to Build") faction of the *General Zionists, which supported *Weizmann's idea of an "enlarged" *Jewish Agency. On behalf of his faction, Gottlieb worked diligently in support of the Fourth Aliyah (from 1924 on), which consisted mostly of middle-class Jews from Poland. When World War ii broke out, he fled to Pinsk, where he was arrested by the Soviets soon after their entry into the city. He died in prison in Poland, according to one version, while another version has it that he had been taken to northern Kazakhstan.

bibliography:

lnyl, 2 (1958), 15–18; Kol, in: Sefer Pinsk, 2 (1966), 539–40; Remba, in: Herut (Dec. 17, 1965). add. bibliography: Ch. Finkelstein, Haynt, a Tsaitung baz Ziden 1908–1939 (1978), index.

[Getzel Kressel]