Sunday 20 March 2016

ELYAKIM-GETSL HIRSHENZOHN

ELYAKIM-GETSL HIRSHENZOHN
            He was born in Mohilev, Byelorussia.  He worked in the field of commerce.  He was the author of: Gildn-gold rekhnung (Golden accounting) (Mohilev, 1810), 74 pp., with a preface in Hebrew and Yiddish in which the author introduces the hard conditions of Jewish businessmen in earlier times in Poland, for on the one hand they were not allowed to engage in any other livelihood besides commerce, and at the same time the Germans deceived the Polish Jews who came to Leipzig to purchase goods, and in exchanging Polish zlotys for German Thalers they were swindled.  In his “proposal in the language of Ashkenaz,” he wrote: “I have written this little volume for you, my friends, so that you will easily be able to properly account in business affairs in Leipzig commodities the Thalers in gold and thus easily know what commodities amount to in our silver money.”

Sources: Bernhard Friedberg, Toldot hadefus haivri bepolanya (History of Hebrew typography in Poland) (Tel Aviv, 1950); Friedberg, in Bet eked sefarim.
Khayim Leyb Fuks


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