SHIMEN EYNHORN (SIMEON EINHORN)

SHIMEN EYNHORN (SIMEON EINHORN) (January-February 1882-October 2, 1950)

     Born in Lodz into a family of rabbis and scholars.  He studied initially in Dvinsk (Daugavpils), Latgale district, and later in Plotsk (Płock), Poland.  He studied medicine in Leipzig.  He worked as a doctor in Minsk and Smolensk.  After the Polish-Russian War, in the early 1920s, he was sent by Yekopo (Yevreyskiy komitet pomoshchi zhertvam voyny—“Jewish Relief Committee for War Victims”) to Ukraine to investigate the pogroms which the Polish military allowed to be carried out.  He assembled numerous materials which were bit by bit published in Hebrew in Palestine.  He was also engaged in collecting Yiddish sayings and poems which were published in Yevreyskaya starina (The Jewish past) (St. Petersburg), vol. 8, pp. 73-84; and in Reshumot (the official gazette of the Israeli government), vol. “heh” (Tel Aviv, 1926) under the heading “Mishle-am” (Sayings of the people), pp. 338-48.  In 1925 he moved to Palestine where he served as one of the first doctors with the Haganah and a contributor to the Hebrew-language journal concerning folklore, Yeda-am (Folklore).  Among his books: Mishle-am beyidish (Popular sayings in Yiddish) (Tel Aviv, 1959), 208 pp., 300 sayings in Yiddish with Hebrew translation.  He died in Tel Aviv.

Source: Yeda-am, vol. “zayin-khet” (Tel Aviv) (Nissan, 1950); Getzel Kressel, Leksikon hasifrut haivrit (Handbook of Hebrew literature) (Merḥavya, 1967), vol. 1.

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), cols. 538-39.]