NEKHEMYE-DOV
HOFMAN (NEHEMIAH DOV HOFFMANN) (January 8, 1857[1]-July 1928)
He was born in Gavre (Gaurė), Kovno region,
Lithuania. His father, Zev-Volf, was a
prominent local figure and a follower of the Jewish Enlightenment. He studied with itinerant teachers until age
ten, attended as well a Russian public school in the town of Erzvelik (Eržvilkas), and then studied
Mishna and commentators with the town rabbi, while at the same time beginning
to write poetry in Hebrew. In 1873 he
moved with his parents to Birz (Biržai), where he studied medieval literature,
philosophy, and mathematical science with the writer and mathematician
Yoysef-Leyb Zosnits. He also mastered
German and read books in four languages there.
In 1874 he published a description of the city of Biržai in Halevanon
(Lebanon), thereafter a series of scholarly articles in Hatsfira (The siren), and in 1876/1877 he brought out his first
text: Otsar neḥmad (Delightful treasury),
a number of scholarly articles translated from Russian and German journals, in
Vilna where for a short period of time he worked as a proofreader for the publishing
house of Y. L. Mats (104 pp.). In 1879
he published his text Toldot ḥakhame habotanik
(History of wise men of botany), and that same year he was invited by M. L.
Rodkinson to come to Königsberg to help edit Hakol (The voice), a Hebrew weekly.
He spent five months there, wrote as well for Asupat ḥakhamim (Assembly of wise men) and Kol laam (Voice to the people), the Yiddish supplement of Hakol, and then he returned to Vilna,
and from there sent his articles to the Hebrew weeklies: Hatsfira, Hamagid (The
preacher), Halevanon, Hamelits (The advocate), Ivri anokhi (I am Jewish), and Haohev (Beloved); he published his texts
Hanosea (The traveler) of 1883 (144
pp.) and Maase ḥakhamim (Stories of
wise men) of 1884/1885; and he also wrote for Mats Publishers for an honorarium
of five rubles per pamphlet more than twenty Yiddish-language storybooks: Der falsher feter (The false uncle), Der tsigayner kind (The gypsy [Roma]
child), Di geheyme tsavoe (The secret
will), Di yerushe (The heritage), Der tiran (The tyrant), Der kosherer korbn (The kosher victim), Der fertsveyfelter (The desperate one), Don yude abarbonel (Don Yehuda Abarbanel),
Tsu der tlie (To the gallows), Der harem lebn (Life in the harem), Unshuldik farmishpet (Innocently
convicted), Fargiftigte libe
(Poisoned love), Di briderlikhe libe
(Brotherly love), and others. From Vilna
he also sent scholarly essays to Di
yudishe gazetten (The Jewish gazette) in New York, and in 1885 Kasriel-Tsvi
Sorosohn, editor of this serial, invited him to New York to contribute to the
newspaper for a salary of ten dollars per week with room and board. He then left for New York, but he only spent
nine months there. He described his impressions
of America at that time in Hamagid
under the title “Tisha ḥadashim baamerika” (Nine months in the United States). Returning from America in 1886, that very
year he left for Lick, eastern Prussia, to edit Hamagid in place of the editor, David Gordon, who had become
dangerously ill. Several months later,
when Gordon’s son, after his father’s death, took over editorship of the
newspaper, Hoffmann left for Warsaw, where in 1887 he brought out his
treatises, Sipure hateva (Stories of
nature) and Mekadme erets (From the
beginning of the Earth) and where he published popular scientific articles in
M. Spektor’s Hoyz-fraynd (House
friend)—e.g., “Di neviim” (The prophets) and “A rayze in morgenland” (A trip to
tomorrow-land), vol. 1 (Warsaw, 1888); “Di zaydn-fabrikatsye” (The manufacture
of silk) and “Di toybenpost” (The pigeon-post), vol. 2 (Warsaw, 1889).
According to information
from a brother-in-law who had earlier moved to South Africa, in 1889 he left
for the “country of gold, diamonds, and hope.”
He attained no treasures in Africa, however, and to the contrary he
suffered for the rest of his life, tried out a number of different occupations,
and turned his attention to implanting a Yiddish press in the local Jewish
settlement. He first brought Yiddish
type font to South Africa, “the first lead type of the Jewish alphabet” (as he
expressed it himself), opened in Johannesburg a Yiddish publishing house, and
founded there the first Yiddish newspaper in Africa—the weekly Der afrikaner izraelit (The African
Israelite), as noted in the Jewish Chronicle
in London (1890), which was to have eight pages of news, politics, and
literature—all of it filled out by Hoffmann, even typeset by him alone, as
there were no Yiddish typesetters in South Africa at the time. The Izarelit
lasted in total for six months, because at the time Johannesburg “was not ready
for a Yiddish newspaper.” Over the
course of the next four years, Hoffmann was a “tocher” (a peddler); he traveled
about the wilderness and settlements of the Cape colony, dealing with Boers and
Blacks, until around 1895 he settled in Cape Town where he opened a Yiddish
publishing house and brought out a full series of Yiddish and Hebrew
serials. The first publication was the
weekly newspaper Haor (The light),
which according to Hoffmann himself—Der
Afrikaner (The African), Cape Town
(April 1914)—would have lasted for five years; according to Y. L. Yudelovitsh—South African Jewish Yearbook (1929)—it lasted
from April 1, 1895 to July 5, 1897; and according to Dovid Goldblatt—in his
book In kamf far der yudisher shprakh
(In the struggle for the Yiddish language) (New York, 1942)—until 1898. After Haor,
the weekly Der idisher herald (The
Jewish herald) appeared, and it lasted barely two years, according to Hoffmann;
he published it together with the London journalist Isaac Stone. Next came Der
idisher telegraf (The Jewish telegraph) in 1898, which he published
together with Eygel, Kaplanski, and Dovid Goldblatt, and which soon thereafter
closed down, it appears, because of a quarrel among the partners—according to
Yudelovitsh, the Telegraf lasted until
1902. In that year, he—together with his
friend Yude-Leyb Shrire and the Warsaw Yiddish journalist M. Mathuson—began to publish
the weekly newspaper Di idishe
folkstsaytung (The Jewish people’s newspaper), which (according to Hoffmann’s
own telling of it) broke off its existence in six months—according to
Yudelovitsh, it lasted from 1902 until 1905.
Later (1907, according to Hoffmann; January 1909, according to
Yudelovitsh), he began publishing, all in Cape Town, the literary-scholarly monthly
Der afrikaner (not to be confused
with the weekly newspaper of the same name, which Sh. Fogelman later published
in Johannesburg), which lasted until April 1914. This journal also had a Hebrew supplement,
entitled Kineret (Kinneret [Lake Tiberias]),
final issue April 1914, and was also to have had a second supplement entitled Haohev.
In 1916 Hoffmann published his Seyfer
hazikhroynes (Book of memoirs), “experiences of a Lithuanian follower of
the Jewish Enlightenment in three parts of the world—Europe, America, and
Africa—published and printed by N. Hoffmann, Cape Town, 1916, 225 pp., in
folio.” This was the first Yiddish book
published in South Africa (Hoffmann typeset it himself). The second, shorter portion of the book—“In
amerike” (In America)—was written in Hebrew.
The third part included a description of South Africa and its population
and of its Jewish settlement with Jewish communal institutions and the most
important personalities in the community and religious life (with their
photographs), with a bibliographic note as well on the Yiddish press in South
Africa. This book is now a rare
item. He also edited Saut-afrikanishe yorbukh (South African
yearbook) (Cape Town, 1920) and published bibliographic notes on the Yiddish
press in South Africa in: Der afrikaner
(April 1914); Jews in South Africa,
of all matters concerning Jewish and Judaism in S. Africa (Cape Town,
1916), 224 pp.; Ivri anokhi (Johannesburg,
May 1925). In manuscript there remained
following his death several completed books in Hebrew. Hoffmann died in Cape Town.
Sources:
Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 1 (with
a bibliography); Jewish Encyclopedia
(New York), vol. 6; N. D. Hoffmann, “A bisl vegn zikh zelbst” (A little about
myself), Der afrikaner (Passover
issue) (Cape Town) (April 9, 1914); Y. Sh. Yudelovitsh, “Tsu der geshikhte fun
der idisher prese in dorem-afrike” (Toward a history of the Yiddish press in
South Africa), Dos naye vort
(Johannesburg) 3 (September 1, 1916); Yudelovitsh, “The Yiddish press in South
Africa,” in South African Jewish Yearbook
(Johannesburg, 1929); Yudelovitsh, “Dokumentn tsu der geshikhte fun der yidisher
prese in dorem-afrike” (Documents on the history of the Yiddish press in South
Africa), Dorem-afrike (Johannesburg)
(April and July 1950); Shammai, in Dorem-afrike
(August 1928); Hadoar (New York)
(October 5, 1928), obituary; Leybl Feldman, Yidn
in dorem-afrike (Jews in South Africa) (Johannesburg-Vilna, 1937), pp.
66-69; Feldman, Yidn in yohanesburg
(Jews in Johannesburg) (Johannesburg, 1956), pp. 173, 219; D. Goldblatt, In kamf far der yudisher shprakh (New York,
1942), pp. 210-12, 214; L. Gudman, in Dorem-afroke
(August 1952)
Yitskhok Kharlash
[1] This date (given as Tevet 12, תרי״ז) is offered in Sefer zikaron (Remembrance book) (Berlin, 1888), p. 30, and in the Yevreyskaia entsiklopediya (Jewish
encyclopedia), vol. 6. Zalmen Reyzen in
his Leksikon, vol. 1, gives “November
14, 1860” as the date of Hoffmann’s birth, which he apparently took from Hoffmann’s
Seyfer hazikhroynes (Memoirs), which
is now difficult to find; he also notes the date given in Sefer zikaron.
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