YEKUSIEL-YEHUDA (ZALMEN-LEYB) GRINVALD (GREENWALD)

YEKUSIEL-YEHUDA (ZALMEN-LEYB) GRINVALD (GREENWALD) (September 26, 1889-April 11, 1955)

            He was born in Sighetu Marmației, Hungary.  At age sixteen he received permission to officiate as a rabbi.  Before WWI, he graduated from rabbinical school in the Frankfurt-on-Main.  During the war he was an officer in the Austro-Hungarian Army.  After the war he lived in Budapest and in 1924 emigrated to the United States.  For over thirty years, he served as a rabbi in Columbus, Ohio.  He began writing in 1905 in the Lemberg weekly newspaper Maḥzike hadat (Upholders of the faith).  He also contributed to Yidishes blat (Jewish newspaper) in Sighetu and many other Hungarian Jewish newspapers and magazines.  After settling in America, he published historical descriptions, experiences, and articles in: Di yidishe velt (The Jewish world) in Philadelphia; Tsukunft (Future), Der amerikaner (The American), Tog (Day), Morgn-zhurnal (Morning journal), Hadoar (The mail), Hekhal hatora (The Ark of the Torah), Der mizrekh (The east), Veg (Way), and Mesila (Road), among others, in New York; Hapardes (Paradise) in Chicago; Der idishe rekord (The Jewish record) in St. Louis; Der idisher firer (The Jewish leader) in Boston; and Mishor (Honesty), Haeda (The testimony), and Hamayan (The source) in Jerusalem, among others.  He published nearly forty religious texts in Hebrew.  In Yiddish: Toyznt yor yidish lebn in ungarn (1000 years of Jewish life in Hungary) (New York, 1945), 279 pp.  He also authored Di geshikhte fun der yidisher literatur un prese in ungarn (The history of Yiddish literature and the press in Hungary), which Zalmen Reyzen used for his Leksikon fun der yidisher literatur (Handbook of Yiddish literature) in various places, always indicating the name of the author.  Grinvald’s last text was a biographical study of R. Jonathan Eybeschütz.  He died in Columbus, Ohio.

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 1; Ḥ. Blokh, Harav yekutiel yehuda grinvald (Rabbi Yekusiel Yehuda Grinvald) (New York, 1948), with a detailed bibliography of everything that Grinvald published in both Hebrew and Yiddish, published to commemorate fortieth years of literary activity; L. Berliner, in Tog-morgn-zhurnal (New York) (April 13, 1955); N. Gordon, in Tog-morgn-zhurnal (April 21, 1955); N. Shemen, in Keneder odler (Montreal) (June 21, 1955); Nathaniel Katsburg, Hahistoryografya hayehudit behungarya (Jewish historiography in Hungary) (Jerusalem, 1957), pp. 313-14.