RIFOEL
MAHLER (RAPHAEL MAHLER) (August 15, 1899-October 4, 1977)
He was born in Nay-Sandz (Nowy Sącz), western Galicia, into a
scholarly and business family. He
studied with private tutors and in the Nowy Sącz yeshiva. His
general education came in the municipal public school in Nowy Sącz, where he was the sole
Jewish student. Privately, he prepared
to enter high school, and in 1918 he passed the examinations for the
baccalaureate at the state high school in Cracow. He went on to study Semitic philology and
history at the University of Vienna. He
received his doctoral degree in 1922 for a dissertation on the sociological
issues of progress. He then returned to
Poland. He was a teacher of Jewish and
general history in Lodz (at the Hebrew high school “Yavne”) and in Konin. In 1924 he became a teacher at the high
school (later, lyceum) Askala in Warsaw.
In late 1937 he came to the United States at the invitation of YIVO and
settled in New York, where he worked as a lecturer in the research student
courses at YIVO, in the teachers’ seminary of the Jewish National Labor
Alliance, and in the teachers’ courses at the Workmen’s Circle. He was a lecturer (1938-1939) at the Hebrew
teachers’ seminary Hertsliya in New York.
During WWII he taught Jewish history at the Jefferson School for Social
Studies and at the School of Jewish Studies in New York. In 1947 he visited Poland and Israel, returning
to New York in 1948; in March 1950 he visited Israel, now the state of Israel,
for the second time, and in late 1950 he returned to the United States and soon
thereafter made aliya to Israel with his family. In June 1951 he settled in Jerusalem. Over the years 1953-1959, he was an
instructor in Jewish economic history at the Tel Aviv School of Law and Economics. He also lectured on Jewish history at Seminar
Hakibutsim, first in Tel Aviv and later in Oranim. From 1959 he was an instructor of Eastern
European Jewish history at Tel Aviv University, where in 1961 he was nominated
for a professorship. His community
activities began in his early years. In Nowy
Sącz, he was active in the Zionist school organization Bene Tsiyon (Children of
Zion). In the summer of 1918 he took
part in the conference of Hashomer
Hatsair (The young guard) in Galicia, which took place in Tarnawa Wyżna in the Sambor (Sambir) region.
After the end of WWI, he joined the Labor Zionist Party. When the party split in 1920, he remained
with the left Labor Zionists. In Warsaw
he was a member of the central committee of the youth movement of the left
Labor Zionists. His writing began in
Among his published books: Der kamf tsvishn haskole un khsides in galitsye
in der ershter helft fun 19tn yorhundert (The struggle between Jewish
Enlightenment and Hassidism in the first half of the nineteenth century) (New
York: YIVO, 1942), 254 pp. (in 1961 this appeared in Hebrew as: Haḥasidut vehahaskala begalitsya
uvepolin hakongresait [Hassidism and Jewish Enlightenment in Galicia and
Congress Poland]); Karaimer, a yidishe
geule-bavegung in mitlalter (Karaites, a Jewish redemptive movement in the
Middle Ages) (New York, 1947), 476 pp. (awarded the Zvi Kessel Prize in 1948;
published in Hebrew translation in 1950 as Hakaraim
[The Karaites], 355 pp.); Divre
yeme yisrael, dorot aḥaronot (History of Israel, modern times) (Merḥavya,
1951-1956), 4 vols.; Yidn in amolikn poyln
in likht fun tsifern, di demografishe un sotsyal-ekonomishe struktur fun yidn
in kroyn-poyln in XVII yorhundert (Jews in Poland of the past in light of
numbers, the demographic and social-economic structure of Jews in Crown Poland
in the seventeenth century) (Warsaw: Yidish bukh, 1958), 216 pp.; Historiker un vegvayser, eseyen
(Historian and guide, essays) (Tel Aviv: Yisroel-bukh, 1967), 315 pp.; Hasidism and the Jewish Enlightenment: Their
Confrontation in Galicia and Poland in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century,
trans. from Yiddish by Eugene Orenstein and trans. from Hebrew by Aaron Klein
and Jenny Machlowitz Klein (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1985),
411 pp. Mahler edited a number of
remembrance volumes from various Jewish communities, among them: Tshenstokhover yidn (The Jews of Częstochowa)
(New York, 1947), 404 pp. A number of
his more important writings include: Geklibene
mekoyrim tsu der geshikhte fun di yidn in poyln un mizrekh eyrope (Selected
sources on the history of Jews in Poland and Eastern Europe), with E.
Ringelblum (Warsaw: Klutur-lige, 1930), 2 vols.; a work in Polish on “theories
of Jewish historiography and the historical development of Jewish culture”
(Warsaw, 1933); Tsol un tseshpreytung fun
di yidn in varshe in 18tn yorhundert (The number and distribution of Jews
in Warsaw in the eighteenth century) (Warsaw, 1934); A fragment vegn yidishn handl tsvishn lite un poyln in 16tn yorhundert
(A fragment on Jewish business between Lithuania and Poland in the sixteenth
century) (Vilna, 1937); Dokumentn tsu der
geshikhte fun di vaade-hagliles in poyln (Documents on the history of the
councils of territories in Poland) (Vilna, 1937); Di sektantishe opneygn inem amolikn karayimizm (The sectarian
deviations in Karaism of the past) (Vilna, 1938); “The Austrian Government and
the Hassidim during the Period of Reaction (1814-1848),” Jewish Social Studies 1.2 (1939), pp. 195-240; Yidishe emigratsye fun galitsye un ire sibes (Jewish emigration
from Poland and its causes) (New York, 1948); “Di geshikhte fun yidn in poyln
biz tsu der tseteylung” (The history of Jews in Poland until the partition), in
the collection Yidn in poyln (Jews in
Poland) (New York, 1946); Di natsyonaler
un sotsyaler kharakter fun der alter karayimisher bavegung (karaim in 9tn un
10tn yorhundert) (The national and social character of the ancient Karaite
movement, Karaites in the ninth and tenth centuries) (New York, 1948); Ven un vi azoy zaynen yidn gevorn a
handlsfolk (When and how did Jews become a business people) (Vilna, 1935); Shtrikhn tsu di sotsyal-politishe
farheltenishn fun di bavlish-persishe yidn in der azoy-gerufener geoynim-tkufe
(Features of the social-political relations among Babylonian-Persian Jews in
the so-called era of the Geonim) (Vilna, 1937); Tsvey monumentale verk fun yankev man vegn der yidishe geshikhte
(Two monumental works by Jacob Mann on Jewish history) (Warsaw, 1938); and Di sotsyale tendentsn un velt-banem fun der
karayimisher bavegung (The social tendencies and world conception of the
Karaite movement) (New York, 1943); among others. He also penned the introduction to the Hebrew
edition of Dr. Chaim Zhitlovsky’s selected writings (1961). Mahler also authored a series of works on
political and ideological issues. In
these he represented the viewpoint of socialist Zionism. He also wrote several significant pieces on
anti-Semitism, the last of these published in Entsiklopediya lamadae haḥevra (Encyclopedia
of the social sciences) (1962). Among
his works on politics and ideology: “Anti-Semitism in Poland” (New York, 1942);
Der nekhtn, haynt un morgn fun di yidn in
ratn-farband (Yesterday, today, and tomorrow for Jews in the Soviet Union)
(Buenos Aires, 1950), 43 pp.; Bundishe
ideologye in a nayer oyflage (an entfer tsu moyshe kats (Bundist ideology
in a new edition, an answer to Moyshe Katz) (New York, 1954); “The Socialist
Zionist Viewpoint” (New York), with Dovid Flinker and D. Ben-Nokhum. He made research trips to Europe in 1956-1957
and to the United States in the summer of 1962; and he made a lecture tour in
South Africa in the summer of 1958. He
also wrote under such pen names as: Uriel.
He died in Ramat-Gan, Israel.
Left-to-right:
Emanuel Ringelblum, Itsik Manger,
Rokhl Oyerbakh,
Yankev Shatzky, Ber Horovits, Mahler, M. Weinberg
Raphael Mahler
Sources:
Y. Opatoshu, in Yivo-bleter (Vilna)
14.1-2 (1939); Dr. Y. Shatzky, in Yivo-bleter
(New York) 19.1 (1942); Shmuel Niger, in Tog
(New York) (February 28, 1942); Dr. A. Mukdoni, in Morgn-zhurnal (New York) (March 4, 1942); L. Nyemoy, in Yivo-bleter 33 (1949); G. Aronson, in Di tsukunft (New York) (March 1951); Dr.
Emanuel Ringelblum, Kapitlen geshikhte
fun amolikn yidishn lebn in poyln (Chapters from the history of past Jewish
life in Poland), ed. Y. Shatzky (Buenos Aires, 1953); Shaye Trunk, in Di tsukunft (April 1955); Z. Shaykovski,
in Yivo-bleter 41 (1957-1958);
Meylekh Ravitsh, Mayn leksikon (My
lexicon), vol. 3 (Montreal, 1958); Y. Mestel, in Yidishe kultur (New York) (June-July 1958); B. Ts. Goldberg, in Tog-morgn-zhurnal (New York) (March 26,
1959); Elye Shulman, in Unzer tsayt
(New York) (July-August 1959); Dr. M. Handel, in Haarets (Tel Aviv) (August 12, 1960); A. M. Haberman, in Haarets (December 29, 1962); Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. 7
Yekhiel Hirshhoyt
[Additional
information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon
fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New
York, 1986), col. 354.]
No comments:
Post a Comment