KHAYIM BORODYANSKI

KHAYIM BORODYANSKI (May 18, 1899-February 24, 1979)

     He changed his surname to Bar-Dayan.  He was born in Kiev, Ukraine, and received both a Jewish and a general education.  He studied in Kiev and Berlin Universities, and received a doctorate in archeology.  He graduated from the Conservatories of Vienna and Berlin.  Over the years 1926-1937, he lived in Berlin, where he worked as director of the cultural department of the Zionist Organization.  From 1937 he was living in Palestine, and until 1940 he served as a teacher at the teachers seminary in Jerusalem, and later he was employed in the education department of the Jewish National Council.  He was the author of scholarly writings in Yiddish, German, and Hebrew, which he published in a number of different periodicals.  They include: “Araynfir-shtudye tsum teyator fun khsidim” (Initial study of the Hassidic theater), Historishe shriftn (Historical writings) 1 (1929), pp. 627-44; “Moyshe mendelson un Zayne yidishe briv” (Moses Mendelssohn and his Yiddish letters), Historishe shriftn 1 (1929), pp. 297-346; “Di loyblider lekoved keterine 2 un zeyere mekhabrim” (The poems of praise for Catherine the Second and their authors), Historishe shriftn 2 (1937), pp. 531-37; and these essays set off a polemic among the scholars in “Yevsektsye” (Jewish section) in Soviet Russia.  He also published—in the anthology Eder hayakar (The precious mantle [Tel Aviv, 1947])—an important work concerning the blood libel, entitled “Gezirat pevoluts u-mishpat Zhitomir” (The Pevoluts decree and the trial in Zhitomir), with citations from an old Yiddish poem, published in Frankfurt on the Main in 1768 entitled “Di loyblider lekoved keterine 2 un zeyere mekhabrim” (a publication distinct from the like-titled essay in Historishe shriftn 2).  In Berlin, he edited a few volumes of Moses Mendelssohn’s collected works, including a volume with Hebrew and Yiddish letters.  He died in Jerusalem.

Sources: Who’s Who in Israel (1952), p. 114; Mi va-mi beyisrael (Who’s who in Israel) (1955), p. 101.