SHOLEM SON OF RABBI YANKEV COHEN

SHOLEM SON OF RABBI YANKEV COHEN (December 23, 1772-February 20, 1845)

            He was born in a town near Poyzn (Poznań), and he later lived in Vienna, Berlin, London, and Hamburg.  He was a friend of the Yitskhok Eykhel, the writer of the Jewish Enlightenment.  He was a proofreader in Anton Schmidt’s Vienna publishing firm, which brought out Holy Scriptures in the original and in Judeo-German.  He was the author of a series of books in Hebrew and editor of Hameasef (The collector) in Berlin (1794).  In Judeo-German he wrote: the letter-writing manual Katav yosher (Honest writing), “letters on various occurrences that take place in human life” (Vienna, 1820), 76 pp.; and Toyres loshn ivrit (Rules of the Hebrew language), “texts of the Hebrew language for instruction and self-instruction” (Vienna, 1825), 320 pp.; both books appeared in numerous editions over the course of generations.  He died in Hamburg.

Sources: Sh. Bastomski, in Di naye shul (Warsaw) (January 1923), p. 49; Y. Birnboym, in Dertsiungs-entsiklopedye (Encyclopedia of education) 1 (New York, 1957), pp. 476-78; Encyclopedia Judaica, vol. 5, pp. 616-17.

Khayim Leyb Fuks