SIMHA ASSAF (SIMKHE ASAF)

SIMHA ASSAF (SIMKHE ASAF) (July 8, 1889-October 27, 1954)

     Born in Lyuban, Minsk district, Byelorussia.  His studied in religious schools through high school.  Over the years 1910-1911, he was a rabbi in Lyuban.  From 1911 to 1919, he was a teacher in Rabbi Chaim Chernowitz’s yeshiva in Odessa.  From 1921, he was living in Palestine.  He was one of the most active leaders in Mizrachi, as well as a professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.  He was a member of the highest court in the state of Israel.  In his four-volume work, Mekorot letoldot hakhinuch be-Yisrael (Sources on the history of Jewish education) (Tel Aviv, 1924-1942), are to be found numerous documents concerning education among the Jews (published in their original Yiddish), which had a significant philological worth.  Otherwise, he published in Yiddish: “Umbavuste yidishe kehile-dokumentn funem pinkes fun kehiles ah’v [altona hamburg vandzbek]” (Unknown Yiddish community documents from the records of the community of Altona, Hamburg, and Wandsbeck), Yivo bleter (Pages from YIVO) 33 (1949), pp. 113-23.  He also published Yiddish writings in Tsien (Zion) and other publications, among them a letter from Ayzik Meyer Dik (see the bibliography in Sefer asaf [The book of Assaf (Jerusalem, 1952)].

Sources: Dr. Y. Shatski, in Shul un lerer (May 1927), pp. 12-13; same essay in Shriftn far psikhologye un pedagogik (Writings on psychology and pedagogy), YIVO, vol. 1 (1933), pp. 375-77, and in Yivo-bleter 22 (1943), pp. 215-25; Y. Ribkind, in Yivo-bleter 37 (1953), pp. 213-15; D. Tidhar, Entsiklopedyah leḥalutse hayishuv uvonav (Encyclopedia of the founders and builders of Israel) (Tel Aviv, 1947-1971), p. 769; N. Frid, in Hahad (Jerusalem) 3 (1933), pp. כא-כד; Y., in Yavneh (Jerusalem) (1939), vol. B; Sefer asaf (Jerusalem, 1939).