MESHULEM P. TUSHINSKI

MESHULEM P. TUSHINSKI (b. 1846)

            He came from a town in Ukraine.  He authored textbooks in Yiddish on Hebrew, such as: Otsar halashon (Treasury of the language) (Berdichev, 1890), 32 pp.; Otsar hashorashim (Treasury of roots), published in booklets, Alef and Bet 108 pp., Gimel 68 pp. (Berdichev, 1891), Dalet 67 pp., Heh 51 pp. (Berdichev, 1892), in which the author explained Hebrew words in Yiddish and vice versa, which was, as he noted, a “short concordance” (“dressing up all Zhargon words in the roots of our language”), with two prefaces of his own: “To parents about their children” and “To teachers about their students.”  He was also the author of Erekh mishpate sefat heaver (The importance to families of the Hebrew language), a handbook of thirty-seven language groupings, explained in stylized Yiddish (Berdichev, 1899), 180 pp.  All of these works were signed by his pseudonym “Mabit.”  In this older style of Yiddish he wrote: Seyfer melokhes hadover (Volume of the trade in words), “namely, language lessons, a new method to master Hebrew grammar with all details in a short time” (Berdichev, 1892), 36 pp.  This pamphlet, written in a dialogue format between a rabbi and his student, including “sixteen lessons.”  Biographical remain unknown.

Sources: Bet eked sefarim; Kh. Giniger, in Yivo-bleter (New York) (1952), p. 178.

Khayim Leyb Fuks