Dr. Chaim Zhitlowsky, Jewish Author and Philosopher, Dead

Dr. Chaim Zhitlowsky, 78 prominent Jewish writer and philosopher, who was one of the founders of the Social Revolutionary Party in Russia under the Czar, died last night in a hospital at Calgary, Canada. He was on a lecture tour.

Dr. Zhitlowsky had been living in New York since 1908, where he played an important role in the cultural development of the immigrant Jews in America. He was the author of books on Jewish national problems and published many works in Yiddish on the history of philosophy. He is credited with laying the foundation for the idea of Jewish local autonomy which later served as a basis for the minority rights program in central and eastern European countries.

Born in Russia, he joined the Russian revolutionary movement in Tula in his youth. He later became the chief theoretician of the Russian Social Revolutionary Party and was the first to publish its program. In 1885 he also composed a program for Jewish Socialists built on the concept of Jewish nationalism on a Socialist basis with Yiddish as its national language. He was compelled to leave Russia in 1888, but managed to return and take an active part in the revolution of 1905. He later came to the United States where he became one of the leaders of Jewish nationalism and of the Zionist Laborites. He was a member of the editorial staff of The Day, Jewish daily newspaper, and recently became honorary chairman of the Jewish Council for Russian War Relief.