YITSKHOK GOLDBERG

YITSKHOK GOLDBERG (1853-January 6, 1916)

            He was born in Kovno, Lithuania, to observant, well-to-do parents.  He studied until age sixteen in yeshivas, among them Volozhin.  At the end of 1881 he emigrated to the United States.  He was a wine merchant in New York, a friend of modern Yiddish literature, a community leader, and philanthropist.  During WWI, he was a co-founder of the People’s Relief Committee in America.  From time to time, he published articles in the Forverts (Forward).  He authored the pamphlets: Idishe problemen (Jewish issues) (New York, 1913), 32 pp.; Idish un hebreish in teorye un praktik (Yiddish and Hebrew in theory and practice) (New York, 1914), 31 pp., “dedicated to the Jewish people, the nine million brothers and sisters who speak, think, read, and write the mother tongue—Yiddish.”  He died in New York.  He left in manuscript form a polemical pamphlet in opposition to Zionism.

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 1; Forverts (New York) (January 8, 1916).