YEKHEZKL RABINOVITSH (EZEKIEL RABINOWITZ)

YEKHEZKL RABINOVITSH (EZEKIEL RABINOWITZ) (September 19, 1892-December 24, 1982)

            He was born in Zvonits (Zvonetske)-Podolsk.  He attended the local “cheder metukan” (improved religious elementary school), and later as an external student he graduated from high schools in Czernowitz and Homel.  Over the years 1911-1914, he studied philosophy and law in Constantinople, later making his way to the United States where he became one of the leaders of the Tseire-tsiyon (Zionist youth) movement.  He was a cofounder of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (ITA) with Meyer Grosman.  He published his first articles in Leybl Toybish’s Yudishes vokhnblat (Jewish weekly newspaper).  He also contributed, with interruptions, to Tog (Day), Tog-morgn-zhurnal (Day-morning journal) until the 1960s, and edited the weekly newspaper of Tseire-tsiyon Farn folk (For the people) (1925-1927); he also wrote for Idisher kemfer (Jewish fighter) and Dos idishe folk (The Jewish people) in New York, and Moment (Moment), Unzer leben (Our life), and Hatsfira (The siren) in Warsaw.  He translated Dr. Herzl’s writings into Yiddish: Gezamlte shriftn (Collected writings) (New York: Literarishe farlag, 1920), 2 vols.  He wrote two books in English on the topic of Zionism: Justice Louis D. Brandeis: The Zionist Chapter of His Life (New York, 1968), 130 pp.; The Jews: Their Dream of Zion and the State Department (New York: Vantage Press, 1973), 195 pp.  Among his pen names: Efendi, Y. Rayzeson, Yekhezkl ben Khayim, and N. Malbin.  He died in New York.

Yekhezkl Lifshits