YITSKHOK FAYN (ISAAC M. FEIN)

YITSKHOK FAYN (ISAAC M. FEIN) (b. August 18, 1899)

            He was born in Bender, Bessarabia.  He studied in the Herzliya high school in Tel Aviv, graduated from the University of Vienna (Austria), and received his PhD degree from Dropsie College in 1934 for his work on Levi-Yitskhok of Berdichev.  From 1918 he was a teacher in Yiddish and Hebrew schools (in Russia, the United States, and Canada).  From 1923 he was living in America.  For a time he worked as principal of the Perets School in Winnipeg, Canada.  From 1940 he was professor of Jewish history at Baltimore Hebrew College.  From 1960 he was curator of the Jewish historical society of Maryland.  He published articles of a scholarly historical character in: Tsukunft (Future), Yidishe dertsiung (Jewish education), Yivo-bleter (Pages from YIVO), Idisher kemfer (Jewish fighter), and Tog (Day) in New York; Haḥinukh haivri betefutsot hagola (Hebrew education in the diaspora), Entsiklopediya haivrit (Hebrew encyclopedia), and Encyclopedia Britannica; and the journals and anthologies of the America Jewish historical society; among others.  His series of travel writings from the Soviet Union, published in the journal Idisher kemfer in New York (1966), aroused considerable attention.  He was last living in Baltimore.  Among his books: The Making of as American Jewish Community: The History of Baltimore Jewry from 1773 to 1920 (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1971; second edition, 1985), 348 pp.; Boston, Where It All Began: An Historical Perspective on the Boston Jewish Community (Boston, 1976), 83 pp.

Sources: Yivo-biblyografye, 1925-1941 (YIVO bibliography, 1925-1941) (New York, 1943), see index; Tog-morgn-zhurnal (New York) (February 16, 1964).

Khayim Leyb Fuks

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 440.]