AVIGDOR
MERMELSHTEYN (1850-September 14, 1925)
He was born in Borislav (Boryslaw),
Galicia, where his father ran an oil refinery.
He traveled around the region a great deal, was in the land of Israel
and India (Calcutta), and lived for a certain period of time in Romania. He experienced all phases of a Galician
follower of the Jewish Enlightenment, and over the years 1879-1881, he
co-edited the assimilationist, biweekly newspaper in Hebrew Haohev amo veerets moledeto (One who loves his people and the land of
his birth), later turning his attention thoroughly to Hebrew educational
work. Around 1883 he funded the first
Hebrew school in Przemyśl and led it until 1909, before
becoming engaged in retail commerce in Belsk, Silesia. He published a series of pamphlets in Yiddish
(under the pseudonym Hatsiyoni [The Zionist]) and in Hebrew, including: A brief fun tsien tsi alle ihre liebe kinder
in goles (A letter from Zion to all you beloved children in the diaspora), “sent
by Hatsiyoni on the ninth of Av…” (Lemberg: H. Rohatin, 1894), 32 pp.; Khanike likhter (Hanukkah candles) (Przemyśl, 1897); Arbe kashes (Four questions); and in Hebrew he published, among
other items, “Al yede haskala leḥerut” (To freedom via the Enlightenment), in
Y. Fernhof’s Sifre shaashuim (Books
for enjoyment) (Buczacz, 1896-1898).
He also wrote a work of grammar and left in manuscript a Hebrew
reader. He died in Bilsk.
Source:
Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 1, with
a bibliography.
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