NOSN-NETANYAHU MILEYKOVSKI

NOSN-NETANYAHU MILEYKOVSKI (March 11, 1879-February 4, 1935)

            He was born in Kriv (Krivėnai?), Kovno district, Lithuania, into a family which drew its pedigree back to the Gaon of Vilna.  Until age eight, he studied in religious elementary school, before spending ten years in the Volozhin Yeshiva where he received ordination into the rabbinate.  He was a pupil of the celebrated orator Yevzerov, later acquiring prestige for himself as a preacher who traveled round Russia and Siberia (1905-1908), giving speeches on behalf of Zionism.  He later lived in Vilna.  Over the years 1908-1912, he served as director of Krinski’s Hebrew high school in Warsaw, later an orator at the Ohel Yaakov Synagogue in Lodz.  In 1920 he went to the land of Israel.  In 1924 he traveled through Europe on behalf of Israel; 1925-1929, he was on assignment for the Jewish National Fund in the United States, before returning to Israel.  He began publishing in Dos idishe folk (The Jewish people) in Vilna (1906), later in: Yatskan’s Idishes tageblat (Jewish daily newspaper) and Haynt (Today) in Warsaw; Lodzer tageblat (Lodz daily newspaper), Nayer folksblat (New people’s newspaper), and Bloy-vays bukh (Blue-white book)—in Lodz; a regular contributor to Dos idishe folk in New York; Di tsayt (The times) in Vilna; and Di tsayt in London; among others.  His books include: Haneviim vehaam (The prophets and the people) (Lodz, 1913), 64 pp.; the same volume in Yiddish, Di neviim un dos folk (The prophets and the people) (Lodz, 1913); Folk un land (People and country) (New York, 1928), 25 pp., with prefaces by Tsvi-Hirsh Maslyanski and Dr. A. Koralnik.  He died in Jerusalem.

Sources: Haarets and Davar (Tel Aviv) (February 5, 1935); M. R., in Hadoar (New York) (February 8, 1935); Dr. Sh. Bernshteyn, in Der tog (New York) (February 14, 1935); Sefer haishim (Biographical dictionary) (Tel Aviv, 1937), p. 592; D. Tidhar, in Entsiklopedyah leḥalutse hayishuv uvonav (Encyclopedia of the pioneers and builders of the yishuv), vol. 1 (Tel Aviv, 1947), pp. 186-87; A. Tenenboym-Arzi, Lodz un ire yidn (Lodz and her Jews) (Buenos Aires, 1956), see index; Khayim Leyb Fuks, in Fun noentn over (New York) 3 (1957), see index.

Khayim Leyb Fuks