KHAYIM-LEYZER HOYZDORF

KHAYIM-LEYZER HOYZDORF (April 28, 1864-February 24, 1940)

            He was born in Jerusalem and received ordination into the rabbinate at the local yeshiva Ets Ḥayim (Tree of life).  He assisted in the founding of the colony of Petach Tikvah.  In 1886 he moved to Germany and from there to the United States, where he studied to be a pharmacist.  After living in New York for many years, he returned to Israel and became director of the pharmaceutical division of the Rothschild Hospital in Jerusalem.  He returned again to the United States prior to WWI, before returning once more to Israel.  In his old age he moved back to New York where he died.  He wrote articles for Jerusalem periodicals: Ḥavatselet (Lily), Shaare-tsiyon (Gates of Zion), Yehuda veyerushalaim (Jew and Jerusalem), and in the late 1880s he edited the Yiddish newspaper in Jerusalem Heyliger ontseyger (Holy advertiser).  In America he published articles in Yudishe gazeten (Jewish gazette) and in other Jewish publications.  He also published a number of pamphlets and brochures, such as: a booklet about his father, R. Ezriel-Zelig Hoyzdorf, which was simultaneously a contribution to the history of the old yishuv (settlement) in the land of Israel; a brochure about R. Yehoshua Mayzlish and Sipur masa leerets yisrael bereshit hamea hay”t (Travel account to the land of Israel at the beginning of the nineteenth century).

Sources: B”ts. Ayzenshtadt, Letoldot yisrael beamerika (Toward a history of Jews in America), vol. 1 (New York, 1916/1917); E. R. Malachi, in Hadoar (New York) (March 9, 1934; January 18, 1935); M. Unger, in Zamlbukh lekoved dem tsvey hundert un fuftsikstn yoyvl fun der yidisher prese (Anthology in honor of the 250^th anniversary of the Yiddish press), ed. Y. Shatski (New York, 1937), p. 153; David Tidhar, in Entsiklopedyah leḥalutse hayishuv uvonav (Encyclopedia of the pioneers and builders of the yishuv), vol. 6 (Tel Aviv, 1955), pp. 2255-56.