MORTKHE
PLUNGIAN (PLUNGYANSKI) (1814-November 29, 1883)
He was born in Plungian (Plungė), Kovno district, into a family that drew its
lineage back to Rabbi Mordechai Yaffe Halavush.
The newer family name Plungyan came from the town. He studied with R. Tsvi-Hirsh, head of the
rabbinic court of Salant (Salantai)
and with R. Aharon, head of the rabbinic court of Krotingen (Kretinga), and he
composed a monograph about Menasha Ilyer entitled Ben-porat (Fruitful son) (Vilna: Romm, 1858), 134 pp. This work elicited opposition from the highly
devout, and he nearly paid with his life.
In Vilna he worked as a teacher of Talmud and commentaries at the
rabbinical school and played a prominent role among the followers of the Jewish
Enlightenment. The last thirteen years
of his life he served as chief proofreader at the Romm publishing house. According to Tsvi Nisn Golomb, he was said to
have made a translation of R. Avraham Danzig’s Ḥaye adam
(Life of man) and of the second portion of the legal text Ḥokhmat
adam (The wisdom of man), published by Romm. According to Golomb, Plugian also translated
the booklet, Ḥovat nashim (Obligations of women), which according
to Ben Yankev was a book in two parts, an original work and not a translation
(1861). He also published a booklet for
Romm in Yiddish, a humorous work at the expense of those who followed the
fashionable mode of traveling to spas.
Source:
Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 2.
Yankev Kahan
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