ALEKSANDER-ZISKIND RABINOVITSH

ALEKSANDER-ZISKIND RABINOVITSH (January 24, 1854-September 6, 1945)

            He was a Hebrew writer, known by his pen name Az”r, born in Lyady, Byelorussia.  He authored over 100 books and pamphlets.  He debuted in print in Yiddish in 1899 with a story in Yud (Jew).  In 1904 he published in Fraynd (Friend) a lengthy historical story entitled “Haydamatshina” (Haidamaka massacre).  He translated it into Hebrew under the title Beyeme khmelnitski (In the days of Khmelnytskyi) (Cracow, 1906/1907), and it was further translated back into Yiddish under the title In khmelnitskis tsayten (In Khmelnytskyi’s time) (Nadworna: Familyenblat, 1911).  He published an unfinished historical tale “Untern pres” (Under the press) in Fraynd (1907, 155-80) and a political allegory, Di tsushnitene lokshen, a mayse fun a talmetoyre-yingel (The cut up noodles, a story of a lad in Talmud Torah) (Odessa: Di bihn, 1905), 16 pp. (twice translated into Russian and by the author into Hebrew in the third volume of his Kol kitve [Complete writings]).  He ceased writing in Yiddish in 1905 when he settled in the land of Israel.  He died in Tel Aviv.

Sources: Getzel Kressel, Leksikon hasifrut haivrit (Handbook of Hebrew literature), vol. 2 (Merḥavya, 1967); Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 4; Dovid-Arye Fridman, in Tsukunft (New York) 7 (1929); Shoyl Ginzburg, Amolike peterburg, forshungen un zikhroynes vegn yidishn lebn in der residents-shtot fun tsarishn rusland (St. Petersburg of old, research and memories of Jewish life in the imperial capital of Tsarist Russia) (New York, 1944), p. 234.

Berl Cohen