H. L. ZELIG (HARRIS L. SELIG)

H. L. ZELIG (HARRIS L. SELIG) (October 15, 1880-April 16, 1960)

            He was born in Minsk, Byelorussia.  He studied in the Volozhin Yeshiva.  At age seventeen he received rabbinical ordination.  In 1898 he moved to the United States, where he began writing in both Hebrew and Yiddish.  In 1902 he was editor (under the name “H. L. Zelikovitsh”) of the New York Hebrew-language weekly newspaper, Hatikva (The hope).  In 1910 he was a contributor to Morgn-zhurnal (Morning journal) in Philadelphia.  He was active in the Joint Distribution Committee, the Jewish National Fund, the Tsedaka Federation, the yeshiva of Rabbi Yitskhok Elchonon, and other institutions.  He was director of the Yeshiva Foundation.  He published a collection of his articles, entitled Fun eybikn kval, gedanken un maynungen fun der agode iber di sedres fun der ṿokh un yamim toyvim (From the eternal source, ideas and views from the homiletic literature for the weekly Torah portions and holidays) (New York, 1938), 392 pp.; this later appeared in English as The Eternal Fount (New York: Hebrew Publishing Company, 1941), 280 pp.  From 1942 he wrote a weekly essay on the Torah portions and the prophetic readings of the week for Tog (Day) in New York; in 1947-1948 the published essays came out in book form under the title Di sedre un haftoyre (Weekly portion and prophetic reading), in five volumes with roughly 2000 pp.  In 1951 he was editor of Der amerikaner (The American) in New York.  In 1952 he was one of the managing publishers of Morgn-zhurnal in New York.  He died in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Source: Who’s Who in World Jewry (New York, 1959).

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