MORTKHE LEVENSHTAM

MORTKHE LEVENSHTAM

            He was the son of the rabbi of Rotterdam, Arye-Leyb Levenshtam.  He lived in Germany and Holland.  He was the author of religious texts in Hebrew and Judeo-German, among them: Shire habaḥina (Poems of investigation), “thirty-eight poems on motifs from Sefer beḥinot olam [Investigation into the world]) (Breslau, 1892), 125 pp.; Misped mar (Bitter mourning), a speech of mourning with poems in Hebrew and Yiddish (Rotterdam, 1893), 40 pp.; Mazkeret (Souvenir) (Breslau, 1896), 36 pp.; Ketav yosher (Honest writing), “a writing against the reformers of Jewish law” (Breslau, 1896), 36 pp.  A number of his manuscripts—among them a work on Jewish Polish words—may be found in the YIVO archives in New York.

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen archive in YIVO (New York); Bet eked sefarim.

Khayim Leyb Fuks