KURSKY, FRANZ (pseudonym of Samuel Kahan; 1874–1950), early Bundist, born in Courland. He was one of a large family which produced many revolutionaries, inspired by the memory of a grandfather in St. Petersburg who had fought against the anti-Jewish legislation. Kursky became a member of the Polish Social Democrats in the 1890s in Warsaw, and in 1899 joined the *Bund. He subsequently went abroad where for many years he directed the Bundist conspiratorial contacts with Russia. From 1906 he supervised the Bund archives in Geneva, later installed in New York and named after him. Kursky represented the Bund in the bureau of the Second Socialist International, and contributed to the international socialist press. After many years of activity in Berlin and Paris, he was, from 1941, active in Bundist groups in New York. His writings on the history of the Jewish labor movement, including his own part in it (see pp. 407–13), are included in his Gezamlte Shriftn (1952).

Sources: Encyclopaedia Judaica. © 2007 The Gale Group. All Rights Reserved.

Franz Kursky