KHAYIM-SHIMEN NAYHOYZEN (SIMON AVSEYEWITZ NEUHAUSEN)

KHAYIM-SHIMEN NAYHOYZEN (SIMON AVSEYEWITZ NEUHAUSEN) (1872-December 14, 1943)

            He was born in Dvinsk (Dinaburg, Daugavpils), Latvia.  He studied in religious elementary school and in Dvinsk and Vitebsk yeshivas, as well as with private tutors.  For several years he was a free auditor at Kiev University and completed his studies in pedagogy.  He founded Zionist groups in Latvia, Ukraine, and Byelorussia.  In late 1904 he came to the United States and settled in New York, where he worked in educational institutions and acquired a reputation as a teacher.  From 1925 he was living in St. Louis and in Baltimore, where he was a rabbi and a teacher.  His first poems were published in Aḥiasef in Warsaw (1893), and later contributed to: Hatsfira (The siren) in Warsaw; Der fraynd (The friend) in St. Petersburg; Yidishes tageblat (Jewish daily newspaper), Morgn-zhurnal (Morning journal), and Dos idishe likht (The Jewish light), among others, in New York.  He authored both Hebrew and Yiddish texts, among them: Hakriya (Reading), a textbook (used in the first modern religious elementary schools in Russia) (Vilna, 1899), 96 pp.; Luaḥ ozer (Helping chart), auxiliary text for studying arithmetic and Hebrew (Warsaw, 1899), 96 pp.; Shne luḥot (Two calendars), Sefer hayamim (The book of days), Divre hayamim livne yisrael (The book of Chronicles for the children of Israel)—all (Vilna, 1902); Haagron (The letter-writer), “a useful letter-writer for every Jewish home” (Vilna, 1903), 102 pp.; Torat halashon haivrit (The rules of the Hebrew language) (Vilna, 1904), 72 pp.  In America, he published the texts: Luḥot netiya (Conjugation charts) (New York, 1910), 171 pp.; Telishat asavim (Plucking out weeds) (New York, 1910), 20 pp.; Haderekh (The path), a textbook (New York, 1912), 208 pp.; Derekh hamovil (The leading way), a textbook (New York, 1912), 110 pp.; Tanakh in idish (The Tanakh in Yiddish), according to M. H. Leteris, translated together with M. A. Hyman-Charlap (New York, 1912), two large volumes; Nirdefe zohar (Synonyms in the Zohar) (New York, 1923), 50 + 12 pp.; Zahare zohar (Splendor of the Zohar), fables and stories from the Zohar, with annotations and explanations in Yiddish (St. Louis, 1929), 140 pp.; Tora or leharambam (The Torah is light, according to the Rambam) (Baltimore, 1942), 109 + 19 pp.  He also organized and published: Yisrael Zeligman’s Otsar hamisparim (The treasury of numbers), stories and legends from the Talmud, midrashim, and other writings, with an introduction and an afterword (New York, 1942), 400 pp.; and Perets Tarshish’s Ishim vesefarim batosafot (Men and texts on the Tosafot) (New York, 1942), 161 pp.  He died in Baltimore.

Sources: Ben-Tsien Ayzenshtadt, Dor rabanav vesofrav (A generations of rabbis and authors) (New York, 1905), pp. 51-52; Avrom Reyzen, in Di literarishe velt (New York) (December 13, 1912); Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 3, under the biography for A. Hyman-Charlap; Bet eked sefarim; American Jewish Yearbook (New York, 1944-1945).

Khayim Leyb Fuks