YEKHEZKL KOTIK

YEKHEZKL KOTIK (March 25, 1847-August 13, 1921)

            The father of Avrom-Hersh Kotik, he was born in Kamenets-Litovsk, the descendant of a powerful Hassidic family.  He received a fervently religious education.  He was a lessee in villages.  He lived for a time in Kiev and later settled in Warsaw.  There he turned his attention to Jewish community work.  His writings in both Yiddish and Hebrew stem from that time: Aseret hadibrot levene tsiyon (The Ten Commandments for the children of Zion) (Warsaw, 1899), 128 pp., in Hebrew and Yiddish; Arbayter kalendar (Workers’ calendar), with Avrom-Hersh Kotik (Warsaw, 1906); Der yudisher deputat (The Jewish deputy), concerning the elections to the Duma (Warsaw, 1909), 24 pp.; Di lokatorn mit di virtslayt (The tenants with the landlords) (Warsaw, 1908/1909), 24 pp.; Di proyektirte takones far der khevre moyshev zkenim (The projected rules for the association of the old-age home) (Warsaw, 1909/1910), 16 pp.  Kotik’s place in Yiddish literature arises, though, from his book Mayne zikhroynes (My memoirs) (Warsaw, 1913-1914), 2 vols. (Berlin: Klal, 1922), 347 pp. and 266 pp.—vol. 3 remained in manuscript.  Especially valuable is the first volume, which provides a broad view of Jewish life in Russia in the first half of the nineteenth century.  It is one of the most beautiful books in Jewish memoir literature.  Sholem-Aleichem said that “we would have many good books, if people would write their books like this.”  The book has a purely literary value due to its vivid descriptions and its beautiful language.  He died in Warsaw.

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 3; Bal-Makhshoives, in Fraynd (St. Petersburg) (December 1912); M. Kats, in Tsukunft (New York) (1913); Dos sholem-aleykhem bukh (The Sholem-Aleichem book) (New York, 1926), p. 244; Filologishe shriftn (Vilna) 3 (1929), p. 163; Y. A. Litvin, Yudishe neshomes (Jewish souls), vol. 4 (New York, 1917); Shelomo Shreberk, Zikhronot hamotsi laor shelomo shreberk (Memoirs of a publisher, Shelomo Shreberk) (Tel Aviv: Sh. Shreberk, 1954), pp. 158-59; A. Tsaytlin, in Tog-morgn-zhurnal (new York) (February 1971); Yeshurin archive, YIVO (New York).

Yekhezkl Lifshits