YISROEL TSIYONI

YISROEL TSIYONI (August 1, 1861-November 1927)

            He was born in Lutsin (Ludza), Vitebsk Province, into a family said to have come from Spain, of great pedigree (the family Tsiyoni had a tradition that it descended from King David).  He attended religious primary school and various yeshivas and also spent considerable time in self-study.  At age eighteen he began his journalistic work in Russian in Russkii Evrei (Russian Jew), later also for Voskhod (Sunrise).  In 1884 he was invited to St. Petersburg to set up a library for a wealthy Jewish man, but he was unable to stay there for long because of residential rights, and he thus returned to Lutsin.  Because of persecution by the town police, he emigrated in 1894 to the United States.  He initially wrote correspondence pieces for Russian-language newspapers in St. Petersburg.  Around 1897 he began writing for the Yiddish press: Teglikher herald (Daily herald), Yudishes tageblat (Daily Jewish newspaper), and Di idishe velt (The Jewish world).  After the founding of Morgn-zhurnal (Morning journal), over the course of twenty years he wrote for the newspaper, as well as its weekly Der amerikaner (The American).  He also edited Morgentsaytung (Morning newspaper) in Philadelphia.  For a year he served as editor of Idisher kuryer (Jewish courier) in Chicago.  He brought out in Chicago a periodical entitled Der amerikaner id (The American Jew), a weekly journal of politics, literature, science, and journalism.  He also contributed to other New York daily and weekly serials.  In 1912 he translated into Yiddish George Frederick’s Milkhome miṭ a himelshen ṭiran, oder a rayze durkh di oylemes haelyoynim (War with a celestial tyrant, or a voyage through the realms of those on high) (New York), 68 pp.  He also wrote under such pen names as: Ben-Rifoel, Y. Imenitov, Y. Ashkenazi, Dr. Sherushevski, and Lyutsinski.  He became ill around 1924 and had to withdraw from his journalistic work.  He died in Brooklyn, New York.

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 3; Ts. B. Tirkel, in Pinkes (New York) (1927-1928), p. 261; M. Khizkuni (Shtarkman), in Pinkes (Chicago) (1951/1952), p. 1; Shtarkman, in Hadoar (New York) (May 23, 1947), p. 844.

Yankev Kahan