YEKHEZKEL-YANKEV HADAS (JACOB HODESS)

YEKHEZKEL-YANKEV HADAS (JACOB HODESS) (February 18, 1885-1961)

            He was born in Chvodan, Lithuania, and later he moved with his parents to Vanuta where he attended religious primary school.  He later studied in the yeshiva in Nayshtat (Novoe Mesto).  In 1899 he moved to London, where he studied in Dr. Sternheim’s yeshiva, at the same time pursuing secular subjects in a London university.  For a time he was secretary to the Zionist executive in England.  He began his literary activities with stories in Der yidisher advertayzer (The Jewish advertiser) in London (1905), and from that point in time he published articles, stories, sketches, novels, and translations from English in: Der idisher zhurnal (The Jewish journal) in 1906 and Idisher ekspres (Jewish express) in London; Haolam (The world), Hatsfira (The siren), and Haynt (Today) in Warsaw; Yidishes tageblat (Jewish daily newspaper) and Forverts (Forward) in New York; Petrograder togblat (Petrograd daily newspaper); and others as well.  He was for many years a contributor to Jewish Chronicle in London.  He served as editor for the news agency Palkor in London and for the Anglo-Jewish periodical The Jewish World (1908) and New Judaea in London; for Folk un tsien (Nation and Zion) in Jerusalem; and for the oldest Yiddish newspaper in London, Der idisher ekpres (from 1915 until 1928).  In the last of these he published his novel Tsipke dem rovs (Tsipke the rabbi’s daughter), as well as his translations and adaptations of the novels of Israel Zangwill, Walter Scott, Charles Dickens, and others.  He translated into English two parts of the Shulḥan arukh (The set table) (London, 1915), and he authored the English-language pamphlets Pioneerism (1921) and Perez Smolenskin (London, 1927), 7 pp.  In 1949 he made aliya to Israel.  Among his pseudonyms: Ben-Yisroel, Hamabit, Ben-Odem, Mertil, Kultus, Henman, H. S., and S. H.

Sources: Zalmen reyzen arkhiv (Zalmen Reyzen archive) (New York: YIVO); A. Alperin, in Tog-morgn zhurnal New York) (October 15, 1957); Who’s Who in World Jewry (New York, 1955), p. 338.

Khayim Leyb Fuks