ישעיה איזנשטאט

Isaiah Eisenstadt (pseudonyms Yudin, Vitali) (1867-1937), one of the founders of the Jewish socialist revolutionary movement in Russia, born in Vilna, Lithuania (then part of the Russian Empire).

Eisenstadt was member of the Narodnaya Volya ("Will of the People") movement during the 1880's. He was arrested and sentenced for revolutionary activities. After one year in prison, he returned to Vilna, and joined the Social Democrats. He was an energetic organizer amongst the Jewish workers of Vilna and Odessa. The Russian authorities exiled him to Siberia from 1896 to 1901. After his return he became one of the founders of the Bund within which he was prominent amongst the "anti-legalists" (as opposed to the "legalists" whose activities were with the law). As a result he was frequently arrested. A member of the central committee of the Russian Social Democratic Workers Party, Eisenstadt tried to arrange a compromise between the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks. After the February 1917 Revolution, Eisenstadt was active in St.Petersburg. He was elected vice-chairman of the central committee of the Bund but joined the Social Democratic Bund after its split with the communists. In 1922 he was again arrested but was given permission to emigrate from the USSR. He went to Berlin and then Paris where he continued with his political activities, this time with the Menshevik émigrés. His wife was Lyuba Eisenstadt-Levinson, a leading socialist activist in her own right.