DOVID HALEVI HURVITS

DOVID HALEVI HURVITS (July 22, 1858-1914)

            He was born in Lokshive, Kiev district, Ukraine.  He married at age eighteen and lived for four years in the town of Stavisht, where he devoted himself to self-study and became a follower of the Jewish Enlightenment.  He later lived in Uman, Kiev, and Belotserkov, where he worked as a private tutor.  He moved to Warsaw in 1894, where he was a friend of Dr. Zamenhof and Kh.-Z. Slonimski.  In 1903 he moved to Odessa and opened a business for religious and secular books.  He contributed writings to Hatsfira (The siren), Hamelits (The advocate), and Spektor’s Hoyzfraynd (House friend), in which he published poetry, short sketches, and popular scientific treatises which were later collected into his book, Kaveret devash (Honey bee) (Warsaw, 1893), 68 pp., with a preface and a poem by the author—a second, enlarged edition, entitled Kaveret devash, o sheelot uteshuvot beḥokhmat hateva (Honey bee, or questions and answers about knowledge of nature) (Odessa, 1904), 88 pp.  He was also the author of Sefer hamilim zhargoni-ivri, yudisher loshn-koydesher verter-bukh (Yiddish-Hebrew dictionary) (Warsaw, 1893, 1899; Odessa, 1905), 112 pp. with four additions and corrections, the approbation of Hirsh Naymanovitsh, and two prefaces in Hebrew and Yiddish in which the author wrote inter alia: “Many readers who take this dictionary in their hands will surely ask: How can this [book] make it possible to understand the entire language, for Yiddish (zhargon) is an immense language?  Yet, should they take the trouble to read the rules that we have placed here and everything should be answered.”  Hurvits also authored the textbooks: Sefer ḥinukh hatalmidim behaataka (Education of students in translation) (Odessa, 1896), 58 pp.; and Mafteaḥ sefer ḥinukh hatalmidim behaataka (Index to education of students in translation) (Odessa, 1897), 45 pp., which included, aside from a preface by the author, the section “Intelligent words, wonderful narrative”—biographies of well-known Jewish and Gentile personalities, sayings and epigrams, and poems and fables translated into Yiddish by the author from Russian and Hebrew; More sfat esperanto (Guide to the language Esperanto), with two short dictionaries of Esperanto, German, and Hebrew (Odessa, 1909), 80 pp.  He also published the pamphlets: Di yudishe shprakh-frage (The Yiddish language issue), “a few serious words for the entire Jewish people in all countries in which they live” (Warsaw, 1909), 36 pp., in which he called for people to replace in speech and writing Germanic expressions with popular Hebrew ones; Der blutiger pogrom in odesa fun 18-22 oktyabr, 1905 yor (The bloody pogrom in Odeesa, October 18-22, 1905) (Odessa, 1905), 12 pp., in which he described as an eyewitness the bloody pogrom.  He also published there the poem about the pogrom, “S’iz tsayt” (It’s time) by Sh. Frug and a listing of 307 names of victims of the pogrom and of those who died in self-defense.  He revised and edited the collection Shloyshim (Thirty [days of mourning following the death of a relative]—the thirty days of the Odessa pogrom), with a word from the editor “to our youth” and with a Russian and a Yiddish poem by Tsvi-Hirsh Hornshteyn, “Di levaye” (The funeral): (Odessa, 1905), 32 pp.  He also edited Odeser folks-kalendar (Odessa people’s calendar) for 1905 through 1909, each 64 pp. in length—he published in these his works on the language issue).  He died in Odessa.

Source: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 1.

Khayim Leyb Fuks