YEHUDE-DOVID AYZENSHTEYN (JUDAH DAVID EISENSTEIN)

YEHUDE-DOVID AYZENSHTEYN (JUDAH DAVID EISENSTEIN) (November 12, 1854-May 17, 1956)

Born in Mezritsh (Międzyrzecz), Poland.  He was living in New York by 1872.  He was a manufacturer of shirts, and later a bank director while at the same time devoting himself to research into the Hebrew language and literature.  He was a cofounder of the later liquidated Jewish colony Mitspeh (Watchtower) in New Jersey (1891).  He visited Palestine four times and traveled all over the world, and he sought out libraries and museums for his research purposes.  From 1891 he devoted himself exclusively to literary work and became editor of a series of books entitled Otsar (Treasury), an anthology of Jewish subject matter in Hebrew and one volume in English, and he was the chief editor and publisher of the ten-volume Hebrew encyclopedia Otsar yisrael (Treasury of Israel).  He published articles in the early Yiddish press in the United States, such as: Tageblat (Daily), Gazetn (Gazette), and Vokhnblat (Weekly); and he translated into Yiddish: Di konstitutsyon fun di fereynigte shtaten (The Constitution of the United States) (New York, 1891) and Hagode shel peysekh, di dertseylung fun yetsies mitsraim, der seyder far di tsvey nekht fun peysekh (Haggadah of Passover: The story of the exodus from Egypt, the seder for the two nights of Passover) in Hebrew and Yiddish with color illustrations by Lola (New York, 1928), 71-72 pp.  He died in New York.

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 1; K. Marmor, Der onhoyb fun a yidisher literatur in amerike (The beginning of a Jewish literature in America) (New York, 1940), see index; M. Shtarkman, “Ivrim kekhalutse yidish beamerika” (Jewish pioneers of Yiddish in America), Metsodah 7 (1954); editors, in Hador (Adar 1955); G. Karsel, in Hapoel hatsair (47th year of publication), no. 18.