KIRZHNITZ, ABRAHAM

KIRZHNITZ, ABRAHAM (1888–?), Soviet bibliographer. Kirzhnitz, who was born in Bobruisk, was among the directors of the well-known Jewish library there, and published articles on the problem of founding Jewish popular libraries. A member of the bund until 1920, he, like most of the members of his party, then joined the Communist Party. He was the author of Di Yidishe Prese in der Gevezener Ruslendisher Imperye 1823–1916 (1930); Di Yidishe Prese in Ratnfarband 1917–1927 (1928), and Di Yidishe Prese in Vaysrusland (1925), pioneering works on the Jewish press in Eastern Europe. He edited the collection Der Yidisher Arbeter (4 vols., 1925–28), and a collection of documents (in Russian) on Jewish participation in the 1905 Revolution (1928). Containing valuable material on the history of the Jewish workers' movement in Russia, these collections stress the central role of the Bund. Kirzhnitz disappeared at the end of the 1930s at the time of the great purges. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Kh. Shmeruk, Pirsumim Yehudiyyim bi-Verit ha-Mo'aẓot, 1917–1960 (1961), index; M. Altshuler (ed.), Pirsumim Rusiyyim bi-Verit ha-Mo'aẓot al Yehudim ve-Yahadut, 1917–1967 (1970), index; Y. Slutsky (ed.), Sefer Bobruisk (1967), index; Rejzen, Leksikon, 3 (1929), 652–9. (Yehuda Slutsky)