YUDE ZELITSH (JUDAH ZELITCH)

YUDE ZELITSH (JUDAH ZELITCH) (1892-October 1, 1973)

            He was born with the surname Zelitshenko in Vyetke (Vietka), Byelorussia.  He studied in religious elementary school.  In 1913 he moved to Philadelphia.  In 1927 he graduated as a lawyer from the University of Pennsylvania.  From 1913 he wrote articles for Tog (Day), Groyser kundes (Great prankster), and other Yiddish publications in New York.  In the 1920s he wrote sharply polemical articles on cultural and political topics in Afn shvel (At the threshold) in New York under the pseudonym “A. Raskin.”  He was active in the Freeland movement.  His writings include: Soviet Administration of Criminal Law (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1931), 418 pp.  He died in Philadelphia.

Source: Information from YIVO in New York (Autumn 1973).

Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 266.