GETSL
ZELIKOVITSH (GEORGE SELIKOVITCH, ZELIKOWITCH) (May 23, 1863[1]-November 28, 1926)
He was born in Riteve (Rietavas),
Kovno district Lithuania. His father sat
day and night studying, and his mother ran a leather goods shop. Until age sixteen he studied in religious
primary school and yeshivas, was known as the Riteve prodigy, and was on the
verge of receiving ordination into the rabbinate, but under the influence of
the Jewish Enlightenment movement, he abandoned his studies and in 1879 moved
to Paris where he became a teacher of Hebrew to the well-known philanthropist
Michel Erlanger in the latter’s home; at the same time, he turned his attention
to secular studies, principally of ancient languages: ancient Egyptian,
Ethiopian, Arabic, and Sanskrit. In 1885
he accompanied as an Arabic-English interpreter the British military expedition
that was sent to Egypt to free General Gordon from Khartoum, but due to the
accusation of Lord Kitchener that he sympathized with the Africans, Zelikovitsh
left the expedition and returned via Abyssinia to Paris where he continued his
studies at the Sorbonne and received his degree as an Egyptologist. After a brief trip to Turkey, Greece, Italy,
and North Africa with scholarly expeditions, in 1887 he moved to the United
States where he initially was professor of Egyptology at the University of Pennsylvania
in Philadelphia, but due to certain intrigues he had to relinquish his
professorship, and from that point on he turned to journalism. He began writing as early as 1879 when he
published correspondence pieces for: Hamagid
(The preacher), Hamelits (The
advocate), Kneset yisrael (Congregation
of Israel), and the New York-based Yudishe
folkstsaytung (Jewish people’s newspaper). In Paris he was a contributor to L’Intransigeant (The intransigent) and Univers israélite (Jewish universe), as well as for the Arabic
newspaper Al Ahram in Cairo. In America, he began writing for Folks advokat (People’s advocate), for
which he served as editor over the years 1888-1890, later becoming a regular
contributor to Nyu yorker folkstsaytung
(New York people’s newspaper) in which he published—aside from newspaper
material and articles—sentimental poetry and hymns, among them: “Di heylike
martirer fun shikago” (The holy martyr of Chicago), which was sung at that time
as a folksong. From 1890 he was the main
contributor to Yidishes tageblat
(Jewish daily newspaper) and Yudishe
gazetten (Jewish gazette) in New York, in which over the course of a
decade—with only short breaks when he edited in Chicago Yidishes tageblat fun der vest (Jewish daily newspaper from the
West), in Boston Idisher odler
(Jewish eagle) and Teglikhe prese
(Daily press), and in New York Abend-post
(Evening mail)—he published a great number of current events and scholarly
articles, sketches, and feature pieces. Using
the pen name Sambatyon, he also ran the division “Literatur un lomdes” (Literature
and scholarship) in Yidishes tageblat,
and there he reviewed a variety of books and scholarly works, mainly in the
field of Jewish studies, and thus demonstrated great erudition in various
realms of knowledge. To help make a
living, he also wrote under an assortment of pseudonyms trashy novels, some of
which appeared in book form from the Hebrew Publishing Company. Over the course of his many years of
newspaper work, he contributed as well to: Yudishe
ilustrirte tsaytung (Jewish illustrated newspaper), Di varhayt (The truth), Der
teglikher herald (The daily herald), Reform-advokat
(Reform advocate), Der tog (The day),
and Morgn-zhurnal (Morning
journal)—all in New York. In Hebrew he
wrote for: Ruvn Brainin’s Mimizraḥ
umimaariv (From the east and from the west); Haolam (The world); the children’s magazine Haperaḥim
(The flowers) in Lugansk; Hashaḥar
(The dawn); Ben shaḥar
(Son of dawn) in Warsaw; Hadoar (The
mail), Hatoran (The duty officer), Ner
hamaarvi (The
Western candle), Haaravi (The Arab),
and Hadevora (The bee) in New York,
in which (aside from poetry) he also published translations from ancient
Oriental literature in which he excelled with his magnificent Hebrew style.
Zelikovitsh
was considered among the pioneers of the Yiddish press in America. He was a fighter for a pure Yiddish
vernacular for which he offered as examples his short press pieces, and he
condemned the crippled, Germanized Yiddish that at the time dominated the Yiddish
press in America. In the early 1890s,
when Shomer (Nokhum Meyer Shaykevitch) was leading a
fight in New York against Sholem-Aleykhem (in connection with the latter’s book
Shomers mishpet [Shomer’s trial]),
Zelikovitsh was on the side of Sholem-Aleykhem.
He also edited: Der idish-amerikaner
redner (The Jewish American orator), a collection of over 500 speeches in
Yiddish, Hebrew, and English (New York, 1908), second printing in 1909; Bar mitsve redes (Bar Mitzvah speeches)
(New York, 1910), published in a number of editions. He was also co-editor of Yidishes tageblat (Jewish daily newspaper) from 1901 to 1915. He authored such books in Yiddish as: Literarishe brif (Literary letters), a
collection of articles and feature pieces (New york, 1909), 96 pp.; Arabish idisher lerer, veg-vayzer far di
idishe legyonern in tsien (Arabic-Yiddish teacher, guide for the Jewish
legionnaires in Zion) (New York, 1918), 32 pp., in a variety of editions; Geklibene shriftn (Selected works),
published on his fiftieth birthday (New York, 1913)—consisting of three parts:
(1) sketches and stories; (2) features and recitations; and (3) reports and
philosophical treatises (music, drama, poetry, literature, and art); Yokum bembe, humorous stories drawn from
American Jewish life (New York, 1913), 160 pp.; and the pamphlet Di fereynikte shtatn afn sheydveg (The
United States at the crossroads) (Warsaw, 1921), 29 pp. His light novels published between 1907 and
1912 include: Di bitere nekome (The
bitter revenge); Der baroybter keyver
(The robbed grave); Di nekome fun a barmenen
(The revenge of a corpse); and Madam
yeytser hore (Madame temptation). In
Hebrew: Tsiure masa (Images from a
journey) (Warsaw, 1910), 68 pp. He
translated from Sanskrit into a biblical Hebrew style: Torat budha (The law of the Buddha), from the Tripitaka (New York,
1922), 143 pp.; Sefer hametim (Book
of the dead) from ancient Egyptian, portions of the Babylonia Epus gilgamesh (Epic of Gilgamesh), and
from the ancient literature of the Hittites.
In French: a work on the immortality of the soul, Le School des Hébreux (The school of the Hebrews) (Paris, 1884); Drumont (Paris, 1886), his polemic against
the famed anti-Semite; and Division
mystique du temps (The mystical division of time) (Paris, 1886); among
others. In English: Pawn of Egyptian Civilization (Philadelphia, 1887); Memorial Prayers and Meditations, a
translation of Maane lashon (New
York, 1910), 94 pp. He was also a
contributor to the Jewish Encyclopedia
(London-New York, 1901), and to Ayzenshteyn’s Otsar yisrael (Treasury of Israel) (London-New York). He also published under such pen names as:
Der litvisher filozof, Veḥalaklakot,
Baron Yekum Purkan, Di litvishe khakhmanyes, and Estetikus. He died in New York. His son William (born September 1898 in
Chicago) published articles and letters in Yidishe
tageblat in New York.
Sources:
Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 1 (with
a bibliography); Y. Entin, in Yidishe poetn (Yiddish poets), part 2 (New
York, 1927), p. 19; Pinkes fun amopteyl
fun yivo (Records of the American division of YIVO) (New York) (1927-1928),
p. 261; E. R. Malachi, in Tsukunft
(New York) (February 1927); Malachi, in Gilyonot (Tel Aviv) (Ḥeshvan 27 [=
November 5], 1953); Ben-Tsien Ayzenshtadt, Otsar zikhronot (Treasury of memories) (New York, 1927), pp. 44, 56, 57; Y. D. Berkovitsh, in Forverts (New York) (January 3, 1932); Y.
Lifshits, in Tsukunft (New York) (May
1939); Shmuel Niger, in Tsukunft
(September 1940); Niger, in Algemeyne
yidishe entsiklopedye (General Jewish encyclopedia), “Yidn 5” (New York,
1957); Moyshe Shtarkman, in Yorbukh
fun amopteyl (Annual from the American branch [of YIVO]),
vol. 1 (New York, 1938), p. 274; Shtarkman (using the pen name Moshe Khizkuni),
in Metsuda 7 (1954); Elye
Shulman, Geshikhte fun der yidisher literatur in amerike (History of
Yiddish literature in America) (New York, 1943), pp. 41, 43, 44, 61, 85, 90; E.
Almi, Momentn fun a lebn (Moments in
a life) (Buenos Aires, 1948), pp. 224-29; Y. Tsuzmer, Beikve hador (At the edge of the generation) (New York, 1957), p. 208;
Y. B. Beylin, in Morgn-frayhayt (New
York) (September 25, 1957); The Universal
Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. 9, p. 471.
Borekh Tshubinski
and Khayim Leyb Fuks
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