SIMKHE-BUNEM FELDMAN

SIMKHE-BUNEM FELDMAN (December 23, 1874-1954)

            He was born in Zborov (Zboriv), eastern Galicia.  He attended religious elementary school and the yeshiva of Rabbi Yitskhok Khayes (Chayes) in Bród.  He graduated from high school and attended Czernowitz University to study law.  At age fourteen he became a “Ḥovev-tsiyon” (Lover of Zion), and with the emergence of Mizrachi, he became one of its leading members.  He lived in Warsaw and later in Biała Podlaska, where he practiced law.  He served as a deputy in the Polish Sejm. He was a major figure in Mizrachi in Poland.  In 1924 he made aliya to the land of Israel.  He was a founder of Hatsofe (The spectator) and a member of its initial editorial board.  He contributed works to various periodicals.  He published popular pamphlets and booklets in Yiddish, Hebrew, and Polish.  In Yiddish: Der tsienizm, di agude un der mizrakhi (Zionism, the Agudat Yisrael and Mizrachi) (Warsaw, 1930), 51 pp.; Ver iz mer shuldik vi mir aleyn? (Who is guiltier than we ourselves?) (Warsaw, 1930); Der fataler toes, a vort tsum religyezen yidntum (The fatal error, a word to religious Jewry) (Warsaw, 1939), 15 pp.; Vos hot der keren-erets-yisroel shel mizrakhi oyfgeton in erets-yiroel? (What has the land of Israel fund of Mizrachi achieved in the land of Israel?) (Warsaw, 1939), 14 pp.; and Lomir vern fraynd funem hebreishn universitet in yerusholaim (Lets become friends with the Hebrew University in Jerusalem) (Warsaw, 1934), 7 pp.; among others.  Remaining in manuscript form is a long work on Jewish historiography (in English) and his memoirs.  He died in Jerusalem.

Sources: Hatsofe (Jerusalem) (1954); Yitsḥak Gilshlog, in Hatsofe (1954).

Yankev Kahan