MORTKHE VAYSMAN-KHAYES

MORTKHE VAYSMAN-KHAYES (January 17, 1831-March 3, 1914)

            He was born in Torne (Tarnov, Tarnów), eastern Galicia.  He studied in Brody, Lemberg, and Vienna.  He owned a lithography shop.  He began writing Hebrew poetry in 1846 and published some of his work in subsequent years in his own journal, Magid mishne (Lemberg, 1872).  He published in Hebrew a collection of proverbs and aphorisms from the Talmud and Midrash in rhymed verses, humorous poetry, and epigrams.  He brought out and edited the Yiddish weekly Viener yudishe tsaytung (Viennese Jewish newspaper), 1874-1877, in which he published in his own translation of portions of his life-work, Divre ḥakhamim veḥidotam (Words of the sages and their intricacies) (Vienna, 1889-1892), six volumes, each 80 pp.  He also published under the pen name Moaḥ.  He was run over by a tramway and died in Vienna.

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 1; Gershon Bader, Medina veḥakhameha (The state and its sages) (New York, 1934), pp. 91-92; Dov Sadan, Kaarat egozim o elef bediha ubediha, asufat humor beyisrael (A bowl of nuts or one thousand and one jokes, an anthology of humor in Israel) (Tel Aviv, 1953), see index; Bet eked sefarim.