YUDE HALEVI LEVIK

YUDE HALEVI LEVIK (b. ca. 1845)

            He was born in Berdichev, Ukraine.  For a time he ran courses in bookkeeping and Hebrew (“Kursn vi oykh durkh briv” [Courses as well through correspondence]) in Berdichev and Dvinsk (Daugavpils).  Over the years 1912-1913, he lived in Warsaw.  He published articles on philosophy, mathematics, and general questions in Hamelits (The spectator) in Odessa (1872) and elsewhere.  He researched the history of the calendar and published on this topic in Yudishes folksblat (Jewish people’s newspaper) in St. Petersburg (1882-1885).  He authored a series of texts in Hebrew and Yiddish on the Hebrew language and on bookkeeping, such as: Hagilui (The discovery), “information on commerce and ways of accounting,” with a Yiddish portion (Berdichev, 1890), 52 pp.; Haezer (The assistant), “the laws of the administration of commercial ledgers”—“with explanations in the vernacular: Yiddish”—(Berdichev, 1896), 39 pp.; Shevet miyehuda (The tribe of Judah), a polemic with A. Ḥ. Tavyor (Berdichev, 1896), 63 pp.; Torat sefat-ever (Rules of the Hebrew language), with explanations in spoken Yiddish (Berdichev, 1897), 3 parts, 196 pp.; Der praktisher bukhhalter (The practical bookkeeper), “a new and short system to teach double-entry bookkeeping” (Berdichev, 1895), 96 pp., which appeared in five editions, the final one dubbed “lengthened and improved” with two sorts of bookkeeping texts in Yiddish and Russian (Warsaw, 1913), 150 pp. in Yiddish and 47 pp. in Russian.  Together with Dov-Berish Yeraḥmielzohn, he edited the literary scholarly collection Talpiyot, measaf sifruit (Fortresses, literary anthology) (Berdichev, 1895), 800 pp., for which he wrote: “Vegn lukhes” (On calendars), “Bukhfirung” (Bookkeeping), and “Vegn der yidisher filosofye in 15tn yorhundert” (On Jewish philosophy in the fifteenth century).  He also wrote under such pen names as: Yh”l, Halevi, and others.

Sources: Talpiyot (Berdichev, 1895), last page; M. Anilovitsh, in Shriftn far psikhologye un pedagogik (Writings on psychology and pedagogy) (Vilna, 1933), p. 528; Bet eked sefarim; Y. Rivkind, Yidishe gelt (Jewish money) (New York, 1960), p. 12.

Khayim Leyb Fuks