YANKEV BABINSKI (JACOB BOBINSKY)

YANKEV BABINSKI (JACOB BOBINSKY) (1882-October 24, 1969)

     A former yeshiva student, he emigrated to the United States and settled in Chicago where he became a maker of brushes.  He was the author of Yiddish books on philosophical and religious topics.  He was the organizer and leader of “the new life-culture-club,” co-founder of the Jewish Religio-Ethical Society in Chicago, and a contributor to Abba Gordin’s Yidishe shriftn (Yiddish writings) in which he published a major work entitled “Yidishe traditsye” (Jewish tradition), vol. 1, section 1-4, pp. 139-61.  His books include: Vos iz azoyns yidishkeyt? (What can compare to Judaism?) (Chicago, 1940), 167 pp.; Printsipn-derklerung far yidisher religyez-etisher gezelshaft (Declaration of principles of the Jewish Religio-Ethical Society) (Chicago, 1940), 13 pp.; Dos problem fun der yidish-religyezer traditsye (The problem of Jewish religious tradition) (Chicago, 1941).  He translated (with Dr. Morris Finkel) Lebn un materye (Life and matter), by Herbert Wildon Carr (Chicago [printed in Warsaw], 1937), 23 pp.; and Dray dialogn tsvishn haylas un filonus (Three dialogues between Hylus and Philonous), by George Berkeley (Chicago: Filozofishe bibyotek, 1938), 243 pp.  He died in Chicago.

Source: Philip Bregstone, Chicago and Its Jews (Chicago, 1933).