TSVI-HIRSH HACOHEN RAYKHERSON

TSVI-HIRSH HACOHEN RAYKHERSON (October 26, 1857-December 19, 1892)

            He was born in Vilna, a descendent of a family of scholars and followers of the Jewish Enlightenment.  He was the son of a well-known Hebrew grammarian and Krylov translator into Hebrew, Moshe Raykherson.  In 1873 he completed rabbinical seminary in Vilna.  In 1884 he settled in Smargon and took up teaching.  In the 1870s he began translating Krylov’s fables into Yiddish, and these were published in book form in 1879: Basni krilov, krilovs fabeln (Fables of Krylov) (Vilna: Yeduda Leib Metz).  Sholem-Aleichem wrote a warm review of this volume in his Yudishe folks-biblyothek (Jewish people’s library) and considered it the best translation of Krylov into Yiddish of that era.  Raykherson’s work also appeared in the anthology Fargesene lider (Forgotten poems) (Moscow, 1939).  He left numerous manuscripts in Hebrew, Russian, and Yiddish, including the Yiddish translations of Jean de La Fontaine and Ivan Chemnitzer, but all of these were lost.  He died in Smargon, Vilna district.

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 4; Chone Shmeruk, comp., Pirsumim yehudiim babrit-hamoatsot, 1917-1961 (Jewish publications in the Soviet Union, 1917-1961) (Jerusalem, 1962), see index.

Berl Cohen