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“We can speak Russian, too,” he told me. “I too am from Odessa, like you, although born in Lithuania.”
I knew already that he was a Jew—“Signor Zal’tsman.” It was clear who and what he was. Now he suggested that I call him Solomon Davidovich; he revealed that his position as correspondent with the Italian magazine was only a hobby, and that his main occupation was commerce, as was every Jew’s. He also told me that he was a Zionist.53
Zal’tsman, with his Italian credentials, his command of French, and his Russian-Jewish origins seemed the ideal friend for Jabotinsky. Zal’tsman was also a publisher. Jabotinsky describes how Zal’tsman introduced him to a Zionist circle of wealthy Jewish businessmen in Odessa, and how he arranged for Jabotinsky to represent the group at the Sixth Zionist Congress in Basel in 1903, where the famous Uganda issue would be discussed. Incidentally, Zal’tsman’s version of these events differs from Jabotinsky’s; Zal’tsman reports that the invitation to meet the members of the Zionist club was not immediately accepted. Jabotinsky apparently consulted with Lebedintsev about whether he should join the national Jewish cause so far from general Russian problems.54 Lebedintsev gave his blessing, and Jabotinsky went to Basel.
Vsevolod Lebedintsev, who was hanged in 1908 for revolutionary activity, appears to be much closer to Jabotinsky and more influential in his early political development than Zal’tsman. But in the long run, Zal’tsman would become a central figure in Jabotinsky’s life, coming to the rescue any number of times with cash, publication opportunities, and advice; he was instrumental in the publication of Jabotinsky’s translation of Bialik’s poetry in 1911.55 Zal’tsman apparently masterminded the plan to recruit this well-known, talented, and interesting young man to serve the Zionist cause. At the same time, Zal’tsman played many other roles in Jabotinsky’s life; a Pygmalion, he helped Jabotinsky realize wide-ranging and ambitious plans.
Thus, it is something of a conundrum that the handmaiden to bring Jabotinsky to Zionism was not a Jew, but a Russian aristocrat and revolutionary. But perhaps there is logic in it; many Jews came to feel alienated from Russian culture and attracted to their own people. In fact, such Jewish artists as Mark Antokol’sky or Ilya Ginzburg were directed to Jewish culture by Vladimir Stasov. Ultimately, however, Zal’tsman played the greater role. Jabotinsky provided his energy, his knowledge of literature, and his vision to Zal’tsman, who contributed his capital and organizational acumen. Despite his attempt to give himself a longer Zionist pedigree, his Jewish feelings before 1903 were unformed, generalized, and spliced with others; after 1903, they took shape and became his life credo.
Notes
1.Steven Zipperstein, Pogrom: Kishinev and the Tilt of History (New York: Liveright, 2018); Arye Naor, “Mavo,” in Leumiut liberalit, ed. Ze’ev Z’abotinski (Tel Aviv: Jabotinsky Institute, 2013), 11–56.
2.Vladimir Jabotinsky, Story of My Life, eds. Brian Horowitz and Leonid Katsis (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2017), 66.
3.Ibid., 42.
4.Michael Stanislawski has discovered that Story of My Life has a problem with facts. At times the autobiography departs from fact altogether, while in other instances Jabotinsky manipulates facts to score various political points. However, it is not unusual that political autobiographies reflect the time they were written as much as—and in some cases more than—the times they describe. Nonetheless, I caution the reader not to jettison this text as a factual source because it provides information that often corresponds with reliable sources and adds to our overall knowledge.
5.Vladimir Jabotinsky, “Sippur yamai,”in Golah ve-hitbolelut (Tel Aviv: Sh. Zal’tsman, 1936), 16.
6.Jabotinsky, Story of My Life, 49.
7.Israel Klausner, Opozitsiya le-Herzl (Jerusalem, 1960). Hibbat Tsion refers to the organization in the Russian Empire that offered support for settlement in Palestine between 1882 and 1897. They stood for “infiltration” and small-scale colonization of Jews in Palestine.
8.Jewish liberals envisioned integration as the ultimate solution for Jews in Russia. Brian Horowitz, Jewish Philanthropy and Enlightenment in Late-Tsarist Russia (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2009), 81–86.
9.Vladimir Jabotinsky, “Vskol’z: Antisotsial’noe uchrezhdenie,” Odesskie Novosti, November 2, 1903, 4.
10.Ibid.
11.Jabotinsky, Story of My Life, 43.
12.Stanislawski, Zionism and the Fin de Siècle: Cosmopolitanism and Nationalism from Nordau to Jabotinsky (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 127, 132.
13.Vl. Jabotinsky to Vl. Korolenko from April 26, 1898, in V. Zhabotinskii, “Pis’ma russkim pisateliam,” Vestnik Evreiskogo Universiteta v Moskve 1 (1992): 203.
14.Vl. Jabotinsky to Vl. Korolenko from August 28, 1899, ibid., 204–205.
15.Jabotinsky, Story of My Life, 58.
16.Dimitry Merezhkovskii, “O prichinakh upadka i o novykh techeniiakh sovremennoi russkoi literatury,” O prichinakh upadka i o novykh techeniiakh sovremennoi russkoi literatury (Moscow: Direkt-Media, 2010).
17.Helen Tolstoy, Akim Volynsky: A Hidden Russian-Jewish Prophet, trans. Simon Cook (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 6–8.
18.Kornei Chukovskii, “Kak ia stal pisatelem,” Zhizn’ i tvorchestvo Korneiia Chukovskogo: Sbornik (Moscow, 1978), 143.
19.Vladimir Jabotinsky, “Anton Cekhof e Massimo Gorki: L’Impressionismo nella literature russa,” Nuova Antologia (1901): 96. See also S. Gardzonio, “Zhabotinskii ital’ianskogo perioda,” in V. (Z.) Zhabotinskii, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii v 9 tomakh (Minsk: Met, 2008), 2:6–18.
20.Ivan Turgenev, “Gamlet i Don-Kikhot,” Polnoe sobranie sochinenii i pisem v tridtsati tomakh, 2nd ed. (Moscow: Nauka, 1980), 5:330–348.
21.Vladimir Jabotinsky, “Anton Chekhov i Maksim Gor’kii,” in V. Jabotinsky, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii v deviati tomakh (Minsk: Met, 2008), 2:676–678.
22.Ibid., 683.
23.Ibid., 686.
24.Joseph B. Schechtman, The Life and Times of Vladimir Jabotinsky: Rebel and Statesman, The Early Years (Silver Springs, MD: Eshel Books, 1986), 64.
25.Altalena in Italian means “seesaw”; it was Jabotinsky’s nom de plume.
26.Jabotinsky, Story of My Life, 56.
27.“The first pacifist play, Blood (in three short scenes) was staged in 1901 by one of the best provincial theaters, the Odessa theater, and gave two performances with no particular success. The next play (in one act), infelicitously named ‘Ladno’ by the author, was passed by the censor on October 16, 1902. It was shown in the same theater, only a single time, which was a scandal, on November 5, 1902.” Viktoriia Litvina, “. . . i evrei, moia krov’”: Evreiskaia drama—russkaia stsena (Moscow: Vozdushnyi Transport, 1991), 239.
28.Ibid., 260–261.
29.Viktor Kel’ner, ed., “Vladimir Jabotinsky i russkie pisateli,” Vestnik Evreiskogo Universiteta v Moskve 1 (1993): 215–255.
30.Mikhail Artsybashev, Sanin (Moscow: Zhizn’, 1907).
31.Litvina, “. . . i evrei, moia krov’,” 239.
32.Ibid., 51.
33.“I too was invited to lecture on my professional subjects—the Decadents, Italian revival (in honor of the aforementioned ‘Garibaldi’), and of course individualism. But after this lecture they did not invite me to speak anymore.” Jabotinsky, Story of My Life, 72.
34.Jabotinsky, Story of My Life, 61–63.
35.Natal’ia Pasenko, “Zhabotinskii i politicheskie partii,” Moriia 12 (2011): 6–20.
36.Mitiyahu