EZRIEL KARLEBAKH

EZRIEL KARLEBAKH (November 6, 1908-February 12, 1956)

            A journalist, essayist, and researched, he was born in Leipzig.  He came from a well-known rabbinical family.  He received a Jewish and a general education.  He studied in the yeshivas of Telz and Slabodka, and over the years 1927-1929 he attended the yeshiva of Rabbi A. Y. Kook in Jerusalem.  He fled from Nazi Germany in 1933 to Poland, and in 1937 he settled in Tel Aviv.  His principal literary and journalist achievements were in German and even more so in Hebrew.  He was the founder and editor of the widespread Hebrew daily newspapers Yediot aḥaranot (Latest news) and Maariv (Evening).  He authored books, essays, and works of research, such as: Toldot tenuat hamusar (History of the Musar movement) and Toldot meshiḥiyut hasheker (History of false messianism), among others.  In 1933 he was editor of Haynt (Today) in Warsaw, and over the years 1934-1937 he edited Di yidishe post (The Jewish mail) in London.  His articles and even correspondence pieces in various Yiddish newspapers—such as Idishe shtime (Jewish voice) in Kovno and Frimorgn (Morning) in Riga—were actually essays written in his own original style.  “One of the great journalists among the Jews,” wrote Meylekh Ravitsh, “a journalist with a mission both as the profession and in ideas.”  He died in Tel Aviv.

Sources: Getzel Kressel, Leksikon hasifrut haivrit (Handbook of Hebrew literature), vol. 2 (Merḥavya, 1967); D. Tidhar, Entsiklopedyah leḥalutse hayishuv uvonav (Encyclopedia of the pioneers and builders of the yishuv), vol. 1 (Tel Aviv, 1947), vol. 7 (Tel Aviv, 1956); Meylekh Ravitsh, Mayn leksikon (My lexicon), vol. 3 (Montreal, 1958); B. Kutsher, Geven amol varshe (As Warsaw once was) (Paris, 1955), see index; Sefer hashana shel haitonim (Newspaper yearbook) (Tel Aviv, 1955-1956), pp. 263-69; Kh. Finkelshteyn, in Haynt, a tsaytung bay yidn, 1908-1939 (Haynt, a newspaper for Jews, 1908-1939) (Tel Aviv, 1978), pp. 180-82.

Berl Cohen