Dr. Moses Mintz, one of the first pioneers of Zionism in Russia as well as one of the earliest Yiddish journalists in this country, died suddenly on Wednesday at the age of 71.
Dr. Mintz was born in Brest-Litowsk, now in Poland, of a noted rabbinical family. Besides a thorough Hebrew and Talmudic education, he received a secular training in the Universities of Moscow and Kharkov. As a result of the Russian pogroms in 1882, Dr. Mintz founded, together with Belkind and Berlowsky, the first “Bilu” organization, whose purpose was to colonize Russian Jews in Palestine. In 1884 he went to Palestine and founded the colonies “Mikveh Yisrael” and “Gedera.”
In 1885 Dr. Mintz came to this country for the purpose of establishing a Socialist colony, but instead of this he became the editor of the first Yiddish-Socialist paper in this country, Die Volkszeitung and four years later became the editor of the Volksadvocat. In 1892 he founded in New York the “Shuvu Tsion” (Return to Zion) organization and went to Palestine to buy land for the group.
At the same time Dr. Mintz continued his medical studies, becoming an M.D. in 1889. He was connected with the New York City Health Department from 1898 to 1923, when he left for Palestine to settle in the colony “Gedera,” which he had himself founded forty years earlier and where his wife died and was buried.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
