ARN-SHMUEL MUNS

ARN-SHMUEL MUNS

            He hailed from Lithuania.  In his youth he lived in Kovno and moved to Warsaw in the 1880s.  He also resided in other Jewish communities in Lithuania, Poland, and Volhynia.  He published feature pieces and travel letters in Hamelits (The spectator) and Hamagid (The preacher).  He authored works of entertainment in Yiddish under the pen name ASh״M and AM״Sh.  He was said to have been the same author who used the pen name “Hamegila Razin-derazin” and published the booklet Der rayzender (The traveler), the first voyage “in the year of their journey from fanaticism and camped in Hassidism,” with a poem in the text, in which he ridiculed Hassidic figures and the rebbes in Poland.  This work excelled with its rich Yiddish language and was used both in the Groyse verterbukh fun der yidisher shprakh (Great dictionary of the Yiddish language) and by Dr. Y. Ribkind in his book, Yidish gelt (Jewish money) (New York, 1960).

Sources: Noyekh Prilucki, Dos gevet (The wager) (Warsaw, 1923); Prilucki, Mame yidish (Mother Yiddish) (Warsaw, 1924); following materials in the Weiner collection at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Khayim Leyb Fuks

[Translator’s note. WorldCat lists another (similar-sounding) work by Muns, entitled: A rayze in oylem hatoye, oder di nesie oyf yener velt (A trip in the chaotic world, or a voyage to the hereafter) (1873). (JAF)]