FAYVL MOLDAVSKI

FAYVL MOLDAVSKI (b. 1846)

            He was born in Berdichev, Ukraine.  Until 1972 he owned a Jewish publishing house and was a bookseller in Berdichev, later in Warsaw.  He was the author of entertaining novels, plays, and stories with a moral.  His first work was Hagode fun yekina (Yekina’s Haggadah) (Berdichev, 1872), 46 pp.—describing a Passover seder of an innkeeper “with his beloved and famous lad, Yekina, his only son, and how they celebrated the seder….  We published this diligently so that the world may know the old world of many years ago.  Knowing the difference vis-à-vis contemporary generations is to note that one can no longer find innkeepers like this anymore.  Everyone can, then, extract a moral, as one must see all that is to be done and children be allowed to learn, such that we must not live in this world like cows.”  The “Haggadah” appeared in several editions: in Warsaw in 1878, 1881, and 1899, and in Lemberg in 1907.  He also authored: Mayse fun maharsha (The story of Maharsha [Solomon ben Akiva Eger]) (Warsaw, 1877), 32 pp.; Mayse fun hagoen hagodl, bal hamekhaber seyfer oyleles froym (Story of the great sage, the author of the book Olelot Efrayim) (Warsaw, 1877), 48 pp.; Di geshikhte fun bove (The story of Bova), “a lovely story of Bova and Drezuni; this comes from 1001 Nights” (Warsaw, 1878), 72 pp.; Der ben meylekh (The prince), “a beautiful novel of winter” (Warsaw, 1879), 86 pp.; A sheyne geshikhte fun a bas malke (A lovely story of a princess), a novel in two parts (Warsaw, 1889), 96 pp.  All of these works were reprinted with and without Moldavski’s name in numerous editions until WWI.

Sources: Shmuel Niger, in Pinkes fun amopteyl fun yivo (Records of the American division of YIVO), vol. 1 (New York, 1927), p. 7; materials following the frontispiece of Moldavski’s editions in Berdichev and Warsaw.

Khayim Leyb Fuks