ZALMEN-NAKHMEN ZUMMER

ZALMEN-NAKHMEN ZUMMER (b. ca. 1872)

            He was born in Jerusalem.  He was a leader among the local yeshivas.  He came to the United States in 1911 and founded Kolel America in an effort to support the American religious students in Israel.  He published articles in Yidishe tageblat (Jewish daily newspaper) in New York, and brought out a booklet entitled Sipure erets-yisroel, fulshtendige beshraybung fun unzer heylig land erets yisroel, ire berg un ire toler, ire shtet, ire derfer, ale altertumer mit original bilder, vi oykh zeyer sheyne vare pasirungen in farsheydene tsaytn (Stories of the land of Israel, a complete description of our holy land, Israel, its mountains and its valleys, its cities, its villages, all antiquities with original pictures, as well as very beautiful and true events from different times) (New York, 1912), 45 pp. in Yiddish, 39 pp. in English, with a foreword and an afterword entitled “Sustenance and Provision” in which he noted: “Sad, very sad is the ‘partition’ that every European gets from his ‘community’….  A thousand times sadder with the Americans who have no ‘community’ and must collect up the dried bones from under the table of foreign people.”  Zummer was successful in establishing his own American Kolel in the names of Rabbi Meir Baal Hanes (R. Meir, miracle worker), and in 1913 he returned to Israel.

Source: Information from Y. Kh. Frenk in New York.

Khayim Leyb Fuks