יקותיאל פורטנוי

Yekutiel Portnoy (Noah; Yuzef), (1872-1941), one of the pioneers of the Bund, the Jewish Labour Union of Lithuania, Poland and Russia founded in 1897. He joined a revolutionary circle at the Jewish teachers seminary in Vilna (1888-92). While working as a teacher in Kovno (Kaunas) he was active amongst local Jewish workers and had contacts with socialists in Poland as well as throughout Lithuanian. He was exiled to Siberia on account of his revolutionary activities but managed to escape in 1899. Shortly thereafter he joined the central committee of the Bund. Portnoy edited the Bund's newspaper, "Arbeiter Shtimme", was in charge of its organization and gave ideas for its various programs.

In 1908 Portnoy settled in Warsaw. During World War I (1914-1918) he promoted cooperation between the Bund and Polish Socialist parties, but was imprisoned by the Germans. After World War I, in independent Poland, he headed the central committee of the Bund, and from 1925 to 1930 he was its emissary in the Unites States. After the Nazis occupied Poland in 1939 he succeeded in escaping to the United States and served as head of the U.S. delegation of the Bund of Poland.