YOYSEF-ZELIG GLIK (JOSEPH S. GLICK)

YOYSEF-ZELIG GLIK (JOSEPH S. GLICK) (February 5, 1852-September 7, 1922)

            He was born in the village of Patsinel (Pociūnėliai), Kovno region.  He studied with the village school teachers, with the rabbi from the neighboring town Grinkishok (Grinkiškis), in the Kaidaner Yeshiva, and with R. Reuven-Yoysef Gordon in Shavel (Šiauliai).  For a short period of time, he worked as a ritual slaughterer, attempted to do business, was a Hebrew teacher in Bohuslav, Kiev region, later ran a lending library, and later still traded in jewels and prospering.  He left Russia because of pogroms, in 1887 arriving in the United States.  He lived for a short time in New York, before settling in Pittsburgh.  He made a living as a peddler and a teacher as well.  In 1889 he began publishing a weekly newspaper, Der folksfraynd (The friend of the people).  With help from a son, he published the newspaper himself in a small format.  On a foot press, he stitched them together with needle and thread and distributed them.  A year later the newspaper was published in an enlarged format and with a Hebrew section.  Over the years 1903-1911, he published the weekly newspaper Di yidishe post (The Jewish post) in Pittburgh.  He was the founder of the Zionist association “Dorshe tsiyon” (Preachers of Zion) in Pittsburgh, and he was active in the Zionist movement as a proselytizer.  He was the author of the pamphlets: Bitset yisrael mimitsrayim (When Israel came forth out of Egypt) (Pittsburgh), 10 pp.; Maḥasit hashekel (The half-shekel), 28 pp.; Yazag’s lider un epigramen (Yazag’s [=Yoysef-Zelig Glik’s] poems and epigrams) (1907), 100 pp.; Yazag’s felyetonin, kokhleflekh un vitsige artiklen (Yazag’s feature pieces, dippers, and important articles) (1907), 100 pp.; Yazag’s mish-mash (Yazag’s hodge-podge) (Pittsburgh, 1908), 100 pp.; Yazag’s shriftn (Yazag’s writings) (Pittsburgh, 1909), 100 pp.; Yazag’s vitsige literatur (Yazag’s important literature) (Pittsburgh, 1916), 100 pp.; Der idisher redner (The Yiddish speaker) (Pittsburgh, 1908), 82 pp.  In these pamphlets, the author assembled his Zionist speeches, articles, features essays, tracts on the sages, epigrams, and humorous sketches, written in an Enlightened folkish Yiddish.  His merit on behalf of Yiddish culture consisted, though, largely in the fact that he was a pioneer in the Yiddish press in America.  Glik died in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 1; M. Ḥizkuni (Shtarkman), “Ivrim kaḥalutse yidish beamerika” (Jews as pioneers of Yiddish in America), Metsuda 7 (1953).

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