MOYSHE LIKERMAN

MOYSHE LIKERMAN (May 15, 1875-1939)

            He was born in Propil (?), Podolia.  Until age fourteen he attended religious elementary school, later studying on his own in synagogue.  In 1890 he moved to Odessa where he ran a book business.  He was a frequent visitor to the home of Ḥ. N. Bialik.  After the Russian Revolution of 1917, he moved to Vilna, and from there in 1919 he made his way to the land of Israel.  He translated into Russian a Jewish tale for Tolstoy, whom he visited in Yasnaya Polyana in 1904.  In Israel he contributed to Doar hayom (Today’s mail) in Jerusalem, and later to Haarets (The land) in Tel Aviv.  He published articles and memoirs of Bialik, and he edited Ḥoveret hayovel likhvod ḥ. n. bialik (Pamphlet for the jubilee in honor of Ḥ. N. Bialik) (Tel Aviv, 1933), 22 pp., in which he published: “Bialik, as He Was” [in Hebrew].  His books include: Yarmelinitser yarid, a bild fun dem yudishen leben in podolyen (The Yarmelinits fair, a picture of Jewish life in Podolia) (Warsaw, 1910), 50 pp.; and the Hebrew pamphlets Pene hador (The face of the generation) (Jaffa, 1922), 24 pp.; Pene hayahadut (The face of Judaism) (Tel Aviv, 1922), 32 pp.; and Mishpaḥat habiryonim (The family of thugs) (Tel Aviv, n.d.), 8 pp.  He also wrote (using the pen name Moshe Hakohen) a Russian-language booklet on the tale of Gog and Magog and the world war according to Jewish eschatology.  He also published under the name M. Lukorman.  He died in Tel Aviv.

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 2; Sh. Shreberk, Zikhroynes (Memoirs) (Tel Aviv, 1955), p. 138.

Khayim Leyb Fuks