HIRSH HAKOHEN RABINOVITSH (ZVI HIRSCH RABINOWITZ)

HIRSH HAKOHEN RABINOVITSH (ZVI HIRSCH RABINOWITZ) (February 23, 1832-January 16, 1889)

            He was born in Linkeve, Lithuania.  He was a Hebrew writer who, thanks to his enormous talent and zeal, acquired basic knowledge of natural science, such that at an extremely young age he began to publish a series of works in this field.  An entire generation of followers of the Jewish Enlightenment and yeshiva lads were raised on his Hebrew-language works on natural science—such as: Hamenuḥa vehatenua (Rest and motion) (Vilna, 1867), 408 pp., and Mishpete hamagbilim (Restrictive theorems) (St. Petersburg, 1871), 30 pp.  In Yiddish he published a series of articles in Kol mevaser (Herald) in 1871 under the title “Erhaltung der gezundheyt” (Maintenance of health).  Irrespective of its Germanic-sounding title, the series was written in a “simple and clear style,” according to Zalmen Reyzen, “and made him one of the first and best popularizers of natural science in Yiddish.”  He died in St. Petersburg.

Source: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 4.

Berl Cohen