ABSTRACT
In a short story published in the Yiddish monthly Der funk, Shloyme Davidman tells the story of a young boy named Motl at the communist summer camp, Kinderland. Shloyme Davidman was born in 1900 in Mogilev-Podolsk, in the Bessarabian region of the Russian empire. In 1914, Shloyme joined his first workers' organization, becoming secretary of a youth group called Bney Tsion, the Sons of Zion. Davidman most likely modelled himself to some extent on Goldberg's model, carving out a niche for himself as a kultur-tuer. Davidman contended that language itself is not inherently nationalistic after all, German was used by both the Nazis and the anti-Fascists that fought them. In late 1969, Davidman wrote a column for the Morgn-Frayhayt, reflecting on the struggle to end the war in Vietnam from his perspective of fifty years as a progressive writer and twenty years as teacher in progressive children's schools.
