The Maccabaean

THIS new member of the Actions Committee of our movement was one of the first men to join the Zionist ranks. It was in his early youth that he went from his native city of Krementchoug, Government of Poltava, now more than thirty years ago, to the great capital of Central Russia, Moscow. His father, a great merchant, a man of wealth and learning, of the best type of "Maskilim," had given him a fine secular and Hebrew education. Now he was to crown that education by a university training. The calling which the young Tchlenow chose was that of medicine. While pursuing his courses he could not fail to be swept into the whirl of the local Jewish life, especially the life of the Jewish university youth, the finest of whom were dedicating themselves with that singular enthusiasm so characteristic of the Eastern European Jewish youth to the cause of their people, to the Chovevei Zion movement. Small

was the group of Jewish students enlisted in that movement, but active as none other, for they plunged all of their youthful energy into that work and they succeeded in making Jewish Moscow the most prominent center of Chovevei Zion activity after Odessa. Of these students the most brilliant champions of reawakened nationalism were Ussischkin, the present Rabbi Maze, who testified as an expert on the Jewish religion at the Beilis trial, and—Tchlenow.

Having once enlisted in the Chovevei Zion movement Tchlenow remained in it, retaining his prominent position therein until it was to be absorbed by the larger Universal Jewish movement — Zionism. When Dr. Herzl's call was first issued, Dr, Tchlenow was one of the first men to join the ranks. Henceforth he became one of

the most prominent men in our movement, devoted to it with an enthusiasm and zeal that were no less constant because lacking in os- tentatiousness. For Tcehlenow isa modest man, the most modest and quiet worker in our ranks, a man shunning sensation quite as much as he courts work. And his capacity for work is fairly amazing. The Zionist movement in Russia not being ofhcially sanctioned, all the major Zionist activity has to be centered in single individuals, and the one that bore more of that activity on his shoulders than any other was Tchlenow. Nearly all the Zionist monies in Russia. passed

through his hands. At the same time Tchlenow had established a very large practice in his specialty — the nose and throat diseases — in which he is accounted one of the best specialists in Russia. His clientele is consequently a very large one and his regular devotion of several hours daily to the routine work of our movement meant a very heavy pecuniary sacrifice on his part — an example that will very well bear noticing and emulating on