Joseph Kissmann

Joseph "Iosif" Kissmann (July 13, 1889 – December 31, 1967) was a Romanian Jewish lawyer, journalist, and socialist leader. He served as president of the Jewish Labor Bund of Romania from 1930 to 1937, representing the party in the Romanian Parliament. He was active in socialist circles in Central and Eastern Europe and worked as a legal representative for Jewish communities in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and then, during the interwar period, Romania. He published works about the history of Romanian Jewry in Romanian, English, German and Yiddish.

At the age of 14, Kissmann left home to attend high school in Siret. After graduation, he moved to Vienna to study law at the University of Vienna. However, before completing his first year, he went to Lviv (then known as Lemberg) to work with the Yiddish socialist publication Der Sozialdemokrat.

Political and legal career Kissman’s involvement with Der Sozialdemokrat brought him into contact with Jewish socialist circles across Galicia and Bukovina. During this period, he began corresponding with Leah Rosenbaum, whom he later married in November 1913. He returned to Vienna to complete his legal studies and passed three years’ worth of examinations in a single year. During this period, he took an anticommunist stance and he became one of the leading figures in Jewish socialist movements in Romania and in Central Europe. Although his relatives were involved in the lumber industry, Kissman distanced himself from their business and was often critical of labor practices in the sector.

After the ascension of fascist parties in Romania, he was arrested, during the premiership of Octavian Goga.