YUDE-LEYB KANTOR (April 27, 1849-May 5, 1915)
He was Hebrew
and Yiddish journalist and a feuilletonist, born in Vilna. His father was a cantor. He received a traditional education. In 1873 he graduated from the Zhitomir
rabbinical seminary. He studied in
Berlin and there received his medical degree.
In 1879 he settled in St. Petersburg, where he became the actual editor
of Russkii Evrei (Russian Jew). From 1890 he was rabbi of Libave (Liepāja),
Vilna, and Riga. He founded and edited
the first Hebrew-language, daily newspaper Hayom
(Today) (1886-1887). He also wrote for Hashaḥar (The dawn)
starting in 1873, Hashiloaḥ
(The shiloah), Hatsfira (The siren),
and Haolam (The world). In late 1887 he began his literary work in
Yiddish with Yudishes folkblat (Jewish
people’s newspaper), for which he served as editor after Alexander Tsederboym.[1] Here he wrote editorials—many of them
anonymously—literary historical articles, and political surveys, as well as feature
pieces (using the pseudonyms: Moyshe Glezl, Velvl Tsaptserik, and others) and
for Baylage tsum yudishen folkblat
(Supplement to Yudishes folksblat),
using the pseudonym Kolef Ben Yefune. He
co-edited Fraynd (Friend) for which
he composed features under the title “Velt mit veltlekh” (World with little
worlds), using the pen name Mimikri, and also on literary historical themes—in
the monthly Dos leben (The life),
among other items a long piece of Ayzik-Meyer Din, in Dos yudishe folk (The Jewish people) in 1906, and elsewhere. Kantor was one of the creators of the
feuilleton genre in the Yiddish press.
He introduced Shimen Frug and Dovid Frishman to Yiddish literature, but
he had no luck attracting his boss at Yudishes
folksblat, Yisroel Levi, to enhance the station of the printed Yiddish
word. He contributed to the Russian Jewish
encyclopedia (St. Petersburg, 1910) and to Russian-language Jewish
periodicals. “Kantor achievement,” wrote
Shmuel Niger, “was not only that he helped others become writers, but that he
was an editor with education, taste, and initiative…. He was himself an outstanding journalist, an independent
writer and researcher.” He died in Riga.
Sources: Kantor’s memoirs appeared in Hashiloaḥ 1;
Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 3; Getzel
Kressel, Leksikon hasifrut haivrit
(Handbook of Hebrew literature), vol. 2 (Merḥavya, 1967); Lidskis
familyen almanakh (Lidski’s family almanac) (Warsaw, 1909/1910); Sh. L.
Tsitron, Dray literarishe doyres
(Three literary generations), vol. 2 (Warsaw,
1923), pp. 111-12, vol. 3, pp. 45-53; Tsitron, Geshikhte fun der yudisher prese prese fun yor 1863 biz 1889 (The history of the Yiddish press from
the year 1863 until 1889) (Warsaw: Aḥisefer, 1923), pp. 52, 158-59; Yankev-Yude Mark, Gedoylim fun unzer tsayt, monografyes,
kharakter-shtrikhn un zikhroynes (Great men of our time, monographs,
character traits, and memoirs) (New York, 1927), pp. 334-39; Shoyl Ginzburg, Amolike
peterburg, forshungen un zikhroynes vegn
yidishn lebn in der residents-shtot fun tsarishn rusland (St. Petersburg of old, research and memories of
Jewish life in the imperial capital of Tsarist Russia) (New York, 1944), pp.
203ff; Reuben Brainin, Fun mayn lebns-bukh
(From my book of life) (New York: IKUF, 1946), pp. 330-35; Nakhmen Mayzil, Forgeyer un mittsaytler (Forerunner and contemporary)
(New York, 1946), see index; Shmuel Niger, in Tog (New York) (December 24, 1949; December 31, 1949).
Berl Cohen
[1] This is according to Zalmen Reyzen and others. Shmuel-Leyb Tsitron claims—in Geshikhte fun der yudisher prese prese fun yor 1863 biz 1889 (The history
of the Yiddish press from the year 1863 until 1889), vol. 1 (Warsaw: Aḥisefer, 1923), p. 52—that Kantor had already written
for Kol mevaser (Herald) at this
point under the pen name “Shilshom Ben Yente,” which people have erroneously
mistaken as the pen name of another writer: Yisroel Bernshteyn.
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