Sunday 27 September 2015

YANKEV GRAF

YANKEV GRAF (1840-1895)
            He was a follower of the Jewish Enlightenment movement from Warsaw, a journalist, and a playwright, son-in-law of the wealthy man Tsvi Hirsh Finklman.  He contributed to the Warsaw Yiddish press in the second half of the nineteenth century.  He wrote for Izraelita (Israelite) and for Varshoyer yudishe tsaytung (Warsaw Jewish newspaper).  He is considered the first Warsaw social reporter.  He wrote about contemporary concerns involving the productivity of Polish Jewry and treatises on Hassidism; he made known Jewish undertakings which were conducive to employing Jewish laborers, and he fought for the Enlightenment in community institutions.  Among other things, he called for a library in the Warsaw Jewish hospital.  He died in Warsaw.


Source: Y. Shatski, Geshikhte fun yidn in varshe (History of Jews in Warsaw), vol. 3 (New York: YIVO, 1953), see index.

No comments:

Post a Comment