MIKHL BRAUN

MIKHL BRAUN (1890-January 23, 1947)

He was born in Vassalboro, Maine, in the United States (according to another source: he came as a child with a Jewish immigrant family from Russia).  His father was an intelligent man who gave him a Jewish education.  In his youth he began writing for local English-language newspapers.  At age eighteen he moved to New York and became acquainted with Jewish writers there.  The then popular Yiddish writer A. Tenenboym advised him to become a Yiddish journalist, taught him Yiddish well, and recommended him to Yankev Sapershteyn of Morgn-zhurnal (Morning journal) in New York.  He later contributed to Varheyt (Truth), edited by Louis Miller in New York.  He published a Yiddish-English dictionary in Boston, contributed to Boston Post (in English), and at the end of 1911 edited, together with L. D. Mekler, Dos yudishe vokhnblat (The Jewish weekly newspaper) in Boston.  He lived for a time in Philadelphia and worked there as news editor for Di idishe velt (The Jewish world).  In 1927 he became a regular contributor to Morgn-zhurnal, and from 1937 he was its news editor.  Braun is considered the first American-born (or American-raised and educated) Yiddish journalist.  He died in Brooklyn.

Sources: Z. Brokhes, “Di geshikhte fun der yidisher prese in masatshuzets” (The history of the Yiddish press in Masaachusetts), Yorbukh fun amopteyl (Annual from the American branch [of YIVO]) 2 (1939); obituary in Morgn-zhurnal January 24, 1947); H. Schneidermann, obituary, in Jewish Book Annual (1947).