REFUEL (RAPHAEL) GUTMAN

REFUEL (RAPHAEL) GUTMAN (1883-early 1940s)

            He was born in Sokoli (Sokoły), Lomzhe district, Poland.  He studied in religious elementary school and in yeshivas, later as an external student he receiving his baccalaureate in Vilna.  In 1908 he was studying philosophy at Warsaw University.  He worked as a teacher in private and state schools for Jewish children.  From 1912 he managed a four-tiered school for the Jewish community in Warsaw.  He was also manager of a Hebrew teachers’ course.  He wrote about pedagogical issues first in Russian and thereafter in such Yiddish newspapers as: Nayes (News), Haynt (Today), Warshever tageblat (Warsaw daily news), edited by H. D. Nomberg, and Moment (Moment).  He compiled over twenty Hebrew, Russian, Polish, and Yiddish textbooks.  He also wrote a number of shorter books for children: Hilel hakatan (Little Hillel), R. akive (Rabbi Akiva) (Warsaw: Farlag Idish), 29 pp., and Khone hamagel (Ḥoni, the circle-maker) (Warsaw: Farlag Idish, 1921), 15 pp.  He was closest in views to the Labor Zionists.  His textbook Yidish (Yiddish) in four parts was republished many times and was also used in schools in the United States.  He also published Agodes far kinder, tsu leyenen in shul un in hoyz (Homiletical tales for children to read in school and at home) which appeared in the 1920s (New York), 122 pp.; Ilustrirte alef-beys mit a khrestomatye tsu lernen kinder leyenen un shraybn yidish (Illustrated alphabet with a reader to teach children to read and to write Yiddish), written with M. Birnboym (New York, 1936); Aritmetik (Arithmetic) in three parts; and Sipure haḥumesh vehaneviim (Stories from the Pentateuch and the Prophets) in six parts.  He committed suicide by taking cyanide in the Byalistok ghetto.

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 1; Dr. R. Feldshuh, Gezelshaftlekher leksikon (Yidisher gezelshaftlekher leksikon (Jewish community handbook) (Warsaw, 1939), vol. 1.