MENAKHEM-MENDL SHEYNKIN (SHEINKIN)

MENAKHEM-MENDL SHEYNKIN (SHEINKIN) (1871-December 10, 1924)

            He was born in Ula, Vitebsk Province, Belarus.  He attended religious elementary school and yeshiva.  In 1892 he moved to Odessa where he was an external student and studied at the local university.  For a short time served as rabbi in Balte (Blata), Podolia.  He was active in the “Ḥibat Tsiyon” (Love of Zion) movement and later the Zionist movement.  While a Zionist emissary in the United States, he was killed in an automobile accident in Chicago and was buried in Tel Aviv.  He wrote mainly about the land of Israel and Zionist matters in Yiddish and Hebrew publications, such as: Yidishes tageblat (Jewish daily newspaper), Di varhayt (The truth), Tog (Day), Hatoran (The duty officer), and Haivri (The Jew).  His pamphlets include: Informatsyons byuro yafo (Information Bureau, Yafo) (Vilna, 1908); Di bale-melokhe un di arbeter in der alie fun erets-yisroel (The tradesmen and the laborers in aliya to Israel) (Berlin, n.d.), 15 pp.; Kolonizatsyons-meglikhkeyten in erets-yisroel, a kurtser iberblik (Colonization possibilities in the land of Israel, a brief overview) (New York: Palestine Bureau, American Zionist Organization, 1917), 31 pp.; Erets yisroel in milkhome-tsayt, fakten fun dem dortigen leben (The land of Israel in wartime, facts from local life) (New York: Zionist Federation in America, 1916/1917), 64 pp.; Di tsien komonṿelth (aḥuzat tsiyon) in der tsienistisher program (The Zion Commonwealth [Aḥuzat Tsiyon] in the Zionist program) (Chicago, 1917), 12 pp., new printing (New York, 1918), 24 pp.; Der idisher legyon, zayn fargangenheyt, gegenvart un tsuḳunft (The Jewish Legion, its past, present, and future) (New York: Alpha Press, 1918), 24 pp.  In 1935 there was published: Kitve menaḥem sheinkin (The writings of Menaḥem Sheinkin) (Jerusalem: Reuben Mass), 350 pp.

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 4; Getzel Kressel, Leksikon hasifrut haivrit (Handbook of Hebrew literature), vol. 2 (Merḥavya, 1967); D. Tidhar, in Entsiklopedyah leḥalutse hayishuv uvonav (Encyclopedia of the pioneers and builders of the yishuv), vol. 4 (Tel Aviv, 1950).

Ruvn Goldberg