RINGEL, MICHAEL

RINGEL, MICHAEL (1880–?), Zionist leader in Galicia and Poland. Born in Borislav, Galicia, Ringel began his Zionist activity in high school. He practiced law in Vienna and several Galician towns. In 1908 he settled in Lemberg. Ringel worked on behalf of the Zionist Organization in the election campaigns to the Austrian parliament. He wrote pamphlets and hundreds of articles in Polish-language Zionist journals to foster Zionist ideas in Polish-speaking circles, Jewish and non-Jewish alike. His greatest contribution was to the Zionist daily Nowy Dziennik of which he was a founder. He also wrote in the Yiddish press in Galicia. After World War I he was, together with L. Reich , among the leaders of the Zionist Organization and participated also in the Comité des Délégations Juives at the peace conference in Paris. In 1922–27 he was a member of the Jewish Club (Kolo Zydowskie) in the Polish senate. A collection of his speeches in the senate concerning the Jewish problems in Poland was published in 1928. He was one of the attorneys for the young Jew who was accused of attempting to kill the president of Poland (see steiger trial ). During the Soviet occupation of Lvov in 1939–41, he was deported to the Soviet interior and nothing is known of him thereafter. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: N.M. Gelber, Toledot ha-Tenu'ah ha-Ẓiyyonit be-Galiẓyah 1875–1918 (1958), index. (Getzel Kressel)