BINYUMIN GRIL

BINYUMIN GRIL (1868-November 25, 1936)

            He was born in Zholkiev (Żółkiew), eastern Galicia, into a Hassidic home.  In his youth he moved to Lemberg where he turned his attentions to secular subjects.  He later studied in Vienna at a rabbinical seminary, before studying further in Switzerland where he received his doctorate in Berne in 1900 for a dissertation on Job.  He returned to Lemberg in 1902, later living as a Bohemian in various and sundry cities of Eastern Europe, particularly Vienna.  After WWI, he was back in Zholkiev where he died.  He contributed to R. A. Broydes’s weekly newspapers: Der veker (The alarm), Der karmel (Carmel), Haivri (The Jew), and others as well.  He was particularly successful with his Hassidic work, “Motl toykhekhe” (Motl’s chapter of curses).  Dov Sadan published a monographic work on him: Kokhav nida (Remote star) (Tel Aviv, 1950).

Source: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 1.

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 176.]