Early years Pesakh (later known as Paul) Novick was born on September 7, 1891 in
Brest-Litovsk,
Grodno Governorate, in the
Russian Empire (present-day Brest, Belarus). His father was a shopkeeper and sent him to
cheder and
yeshiva to study under the Rabbi
Chaim Soloveitchik. Novick left the
yeshiva at 16 and joined the
General Jewish Labor Bund in 1907. He worked as a machinist in
Zurich, Switzerland from 1910 to 1912 then came to
New York City in 1913. Novick soon became an official in the
Jewish Socialist Federation and began writing for its weekly organ,
Di Naye Velt (The New World), in 1915. Following the
February Revolution, Novick returned to Russia and resumed his activity with the Bund, editing several Bundist papers such as
Undzer shtime (Our Voice) in
Vilna, succeeding
Max Weinreich. During this time, Novick took a room in the residence of Jewish communal leader
Zemach Shabad. All three men were forced to take refuge in Shabad's home during the
Vilna pogrom in 1919. Novick immigrated to the United States permanently in October 1920, He resided in
the Bronx.
Political career In America, Novick rejoined the JSF and briefly wrote for the
Jewish Daily Forward from 1920 to 1921. He sided with the left wing of the JSF when it split from the
Socialist Party of America in 1921. In April 1922, Novick,
Moissaye Joseph Olgin, and several others founded the
Morgen Freiheit, a Yiddish-language daily newspaper affiliated with the Communist Party USA. Novick served first as news editor, then as assistant editor, and finally as editor-in-chief after Olgin's death in 1939. and was at one point its European
correspondent. The publication billed him as "an authority on the situation in
Palestine." In 1953, at the height of the
Second Red Scare, the
United States Department of Justice announced that it would attempt to
denaturalize Novick on the grounds that he "swore to false statements" during his 1927 citizenship proceedings. but he ultimately retained his citizenship. He did, however, make a point to condemn "
expansionists" like
Moshe Dayan,
Yigal Allon, and
Menachem Begin. When the
Communist Party of Israel (Maki) split in the mid-1960s, the CPUSA supported the anti-Zionist
Rakah faction while Novick aligned himself with the opposing
Mikunis-led faction. By the 1980s, the
Freiheit had declined to a
circulation of just 6,000 from a peak of 14,000 It was forced to transition from a
daily to a
weekly, and its staff was reduced to six people, including Novick. Unable to sustain itself financially, His funeral service at the Plaza Memorial Chapel in
Manhattan attracted 300 mourners, during which eulogies were delivered by
Morris U. Schappes and
Itche Goldberg, amongst others. He was survived by his second wife Shirley, his son Allan, ==Works==