KHAYIM-SHOLEM SLIVKIN

KHAYIM-SHOLEM SLIVKIN (b. 1847)

            He was born in a village near Odessa, southern Russia.  In 1863 he came to Odessa and became a pupil of Yankev-Shmuel Trakhtman.  He later wrote articles on the settlement in Palestine and on the movement to settle Jews on the land in the agricultural colonies of Baron Hirsch in Hamelits (The advocate) 3 (1892) and in Hayom (Today) (1896) in St. Petersburg, among other places.  He authored books in Hebrew and Yiddish, mainly on historical topics.  His first book, Hayehudi hanitsḥi, der eybike yude (The eternal Jew) (Odessa, 1891), 98 pp., elicited responses from Yitsḥak-Elḥanan Spektor, the rabbi of Kovno, the Lodz rabbi Mayzl, and Rabbi Reynes—their reactions were published in Slivkin’s text Sefer aspalarya hameira, kolel divre yeme ḥakhme yisrael veanshe hashem (The illuminating mirror, including the chonicles of the sages of Israel and the people of God) (Warsaw, 1901), 139 pp.  In Yiddish: Hanoded, der navenadnik (The wanderer)—part 1, “Alte yidishe geshikhte” (Ancient Jewish history); part 2, “Di bashraybung un erets-yisroel” (The description of the land of Israel); part 3, “Di emigratsye keyn argentine un di oyftuen fun baron hirsh” (The emigration to Argentina and the achievements of Baron Hirsch)—(Warsaw, 1893), 98 pp.; Der unshtarblikher yude (The immortal Jew) (Warsaw, 1894, 1897, 1899), 83 pp., bearing the motto: “The idea that has been awakened in us with respect to agriculture is a divine voice from heaven.”  He is also listed as the “author” of the pamphlets: Der ferlorener un der gefunener (The lost and the found) (Warsaw, 1893), 32 pp.; Dos befrayte land (The liberated land) (Warsaw, 1895); and Gezukht un gefunen (Sought and found) (Warsaw, 1895), 32 pp.  He signed his name: KhSh”S.  From 1893 until the early years of the twentieth century, he was an official in the Jewish colonization association in Warsaw.  Other biographical information about him remains unknown.  He appears to have emigrated to Argentina.

Sources: Yankev-Shmuel Trakhtman, in Hanoded (Warsaw, 1893), p. 2; Y. Yedvebnik, Di bashraybung fun argentine un ire kolonyes (The description of Argentina and its colonies) (Warsaw, 1893); Bet eked seforim; Y. L. Perets, Literatur un lebn (Literature and life) (Warsaw, 1894), pp. 220-21.

Khayim Leyb Fuks