Tuesday, 13 June 2017

YEKHEZKL-YANKEV LETABLE

YEKHEZKL-YANKEV LETABLE (b. 1822)
            He was born in Vilna, the son of a bank clerk.  In his youth, he moved with his parents to Riga, attending there religious elementary school and yeshiva, and studying secular subject matter.  At age eighteen he returned to Vilna and worked for a time as a bookkeeper.  At the same time he studied mathematics.  In 1846 he settled in Slonim, where he was head bookkeeper for the state bank.  He was the author of Maarekhet sifre misḥar, sidre hapeshuta vehakefula (System for commercial books, simple and multiple rules) (Vilna, 1858), 190 pp., with a preface in which he describes his background and the reasons that stimulated him to write this book—the first such effort in this field in Hebrew.  At the end of the book, there is a short dictionary of the terms in bookkeeping in Hebrew—paired with German and Russian.  He was also the author of: Mivḥar haḥeshbon (Selections in accounting), a textbook for arithmetic (Warsaw, 1866; Vilna, 1973), 180 pp.; Rekhnen und bukhfihrung, mit alle beste erklerungen und bay shpilen grindlikh tsu erlernen ohne lehrer (Arithmetic and bookkeeping, with all the best explanations and examples to thoroughly learn without a teacher) (Eydtkuhnen, 1972), 128 pp., with a foreword in which he writes that until that point he had published his textbooks in Hebrew and that the books would afford much greater progress if they were published in Judeo-German.  He published other books as well, such as: Die eynfakhe bukhfihrung (Simple bookkeeping) (Vila, 1873), 126 pp., which was used for many years in Jewish business circles.  Letable was (1869-1880) the correspondent for Hamagid (The preacher) in Russia.

Source: Bet eked sefarim.
Khayim Leyb Fuks


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