Borukh Charney-Vladek

Born near Minsk, Borukh Tsharni (later spelled “Charney” in English and hyphenated with his pen name Vladek) was brought up in a Hasidic home by his single mother. He demonstrated talent in rabbinic studies before encountering secular literature and socialist politics. Becoming active in the Jewish socialist Bund before the 1905 Revolution, Charney took the pen name Vladek to conceal his identity. Arrested several times for revolutionary activity, he achieved a reputation as one of The Bund’s brightest young intellectual stars for his contributions to the bundist press on both literary and political questions. In 1907, he immigrated to New York City, where he contributed widely to the Yiddish press—most notably the literary monthly Tsukunft—and in 1912 joined the staff of the Forverts, where continued to work the rest of his life. In 1917, Vladek ran a successful campaign for the New York City Board of Aldermen on the Socialist Party line and served in that post for four years. In the 1920s and 1930s, remaining active in Yiddish socialist and labor politics, he also moved into the mainstream of New York politics, serving in Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia’s New York Housing Authority. In 1933, he organized the Jewish Labor Committee to bring together elements of the American Jewish left in opposition to Nazism in Germany. Vladek was the brother of the preeminent Yiddish literary critic Shmuel Niger.