Jakob Szpejter, known as Jacques Ravine, was born in 1906 in Luck (Russia); that city became part of Poland after World War I.
Jakob Szpejter was pursuing graduate studies in electrical engineering there. In 1926, he joined the Communist Party and assumed leadership roles at the city level and then, in 1929–1930, at the regional level.
He arrived in France in 1931, fleeing the Polish crackdown on communists.
In France, until 1935, he served as secretary of the Kultur Ligue (a cultural organization of the Jewish section of the M.O.I.).
After spending two years in Brazil, where he reunited with his family and was active in the Brazilian Communist Party, he returned to France.
In 1937, for six weeks, he attended the PCF’s training program for immigrant workers (M.O.I.)
From 1937 to 1939, he then became one of the secretaries of “Les Amis de Naïe Presse, ” a Yiddish-language newspaper published by the Jewish section of the M.O.I.
From November 1939 until the Occupation in 1940, he was in charge of the finances of the underground Jewish groups of the M.O.I. in Paris.
From 1940 to May 1941, he served as secretary of the “Solidarité” organization (a mutual aid and Resistance organization of the clandestine Jewish section of the M.O.I.).
Then, from May 1941 through September 1943, he became head of the Jewish sector of the M.O.I. in the southern zone.
He was arrested in Marseille in November 1941 and sentenced to seven months in prison for using forged documents. With the help of activists in Marseille, he managed to escape from prison and, in Lyon, resumed leadership of the Jewish group of the M.O.I. in the southern zone.
He was sent to Paris for a meeting with Louis Gronowski (national director of the M.O.I.) and Adam Rayski (director of the Mouvement National contre le Racisme—MNCR—and of the M.O.I.’s Jewish press). He returned to Lyon and took on the role of head of the M.O.I. for the southern region.
From 1944 to 1947, he served as secretary of the Union of Jews for Resistance and Mutual Aid (UJRE).
He died in 1984 in Paris.
References:
— Stéphane Courtois, Denis Peschanski, Adam Rayski, 1989, *Le Sang de l’étranger*. Fayard
— *Le Maitron*, by Zoé Grumberg
— Photo: La Presse Nouvelle Magazine, No. 377. June 2020. (DR)
