MOYSHE-YUDE MAYZEL (MORRIS MEISEL)

MOYSHE-YUDE MAYZEL (MORRIS MEISEL) (b. December 2, 1889)

            He was born in the Jewish agricultural colony of Romanovke (Romanivka), near Berdichev, Ukraine.  Until age nineteen, he studied in religious primary school and the Mir, Slobodka, and Slutsk yeshivas.  He was later a teacher in a Hebrew private school in Vilna.  In 1910 he moved to New York, engaged in a variety of work, and continued his studies.  He completed the Hebrew course at the Hebrew Educational Alliance.  He published his first article in Hatsfira (The siren) in Warsaw (1907), for which he was later (using the pen name “Ish Yehuda”) a regular contributor.  At the same time, he published in M. Spektor’s Di naye velt (The new world) and in Haynt (Today)—in Warsaw.  In New York he contributed poetry, articles, and translations of Yiddish literary poetry in: Idishe shtime (Jewish voice), Di ortodoksishe tribune (The Orthodox tribune), and Dos idishe vort (The Yiddish word), among others.  Over the years 1923-1931, he was a regular contributor to Dos yidishe likht (The Jewish light) and to Dr. Rozmarin’s weekly Der id (The Jew).  He also placed work in Hebrew in Hapardes (The orchard) and Hamaor (The light), among others.  In book form: Eygens un fremds (One’s own and others’) (New York, 1960), 358 pp., poems and translations of liturgical and homiletical material, prayers, and articles on issues of the day, with a foreword by Dr. A. Rozmarin and a preface by Rabbi Yankev Kagan.  He was last living on Long Island, New York.

Source: Dr. A. Rozmarin, foreword to Eygens un fremds (One’s own and others’) (New York, 1960).

Khayim Leyb Fuks