YOFFE, ALTER

YOFFE, ALTER (fl. early 20th century), Zionist Socialist living in Dvinsk. An early member of the Zionist Socialist movement before its division into political parties, he was co-founder of the vozrozhdeniye group . He published a pamphlet Di Ikorim fun Tsionism far Yidishe Arbeter ("The Principles of Zionism for Jewish Workers"), justifying the class struggle in the Jewish economy and recommending Jewish participation in the general struggle only to the extent that it benefited the Jewish proletariat. Yoffe decided to become a laborer and worked in a furniture factory. He established the first group of worker Zionists in Dvinsk. At the beginning of 1905, he was a co-founder of the territorialist Zionist Socialist Workers' Party and a member of its first central committee. After the 1905 Revolution, he immigrated to the United States, where he became a lawyer and a member of the Socialist Party. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Royter Pinkas, 1 (1921), 153–73; Yedi'ot ha-Arkhiyyon ve-ha-Muze'on shel Tenu'at ha-Avodah, 3–4 (1938), 52–55. (Mendel Bobe)