VOLF RABINOVITSH

VOLF RABINOVITSH (1864-1939)

            He was born in Pereyaslav (now, Pereyaslav-Khmel'nyts'kyy), Poltava Province, Ukraine, the younger brother of Sholem-Aleichem. In 1882 he settled in Berdichev. His whole life he worked as a glove-maker and made a name for himself as a master of his trade. At exhibitions in Berdichev and Kiev, he was awarded for his gloves with bronze and silver medals, and at the world exhibition in Paris in 1900, he received a gold medal. He was selected in 1926 in his hometown as a deputy to the Berdichev city council. Until the last days of his life, he led a glove-makers’ group in the local cooperative and was one of the most revered workers—a stakhanovets, as people at the time dubbed the best laborers—in his city. He held onto letters written to him over a number of years by his famous brother, and he included them in his volume of memoirs: Mayn bruder sholem-aleykhem, zikhroynes (My brother Sholem-Aleichem, memoirs) (Kiev: Ukrainian State Publishers for National Minorities, 1939), 233 pp. He attended a celebratory evening in 1939 in Moscow, commemorating the eightieth birthday of Sholem-Aleichem. He died in Kiev.

Berl Cohen

[Additional information from: Chaim Beider, Leksikon fun yidishe shrayber in ratn-farband (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers in the Soviet Union), ed. Boris Sandler and Gennady Estraikh (New York: Congress for Jewish Culture, Inc., 2011), pp. 344-45.]

HIRSH HAKOHEN RABINOVITSH (ZVI HIRSCH RABINOWITZ)

HIRSH HAKOHEN RABINOVITSH (ZVI HIRSCH RABINOWITZ) (February 23, 1832-January 16, 1889)

            He was born in Linkeve, Lithuania.  He was a Hebrew writer who, thanks to his enormous talent and zeal, acquired basic knowledge of natural science, such that at an extremely young age he began to publish a series of works in this field.  An entire generation of followers of the Jewish Enlightenment and yeshiva lads were raised on his Hebrew-language works on natural science—such as: Hamenuḥa vehatenua (Rest and motion) (Vilna, 1867), 408 pp., and Mishpete hamagbilim (Restrictive theorems) (St. Petersburg, 1871), 30 pp.  In Yiddish he published a series of articles in Kol mevaser (Herald) in 1871 under the title “Erhaltung der gezundheyt” (Maintenance of health).  Irrespective of its Germanic-sounding title, the series was written in a “simple and clear style,” according to Zalmen Reyzen, “and made him one of the first and best popularizers of natural science in Yiddish.”  He died in St. Petersburg.

Source: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 4.

Berl Cohen

D. L. RABINOVITSH

D. L. RABINOVITSH

            He was the author of the play Eybike opgenarte (Perpetually deceived) (New York, 1946), 58 pp., concerning the Jewish Legion—earlier published serially in Di feder (The pen) (New York, 1931), under the title Di opgenarte (The deceived).

Ezra Lehad

Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 495.

BENYOMEN-ZEV RABINOVITSH

BENYOMEN-ZEV RABINOVITSH

            He was the author of a booklet entitled Der dishput fun a shiler mit a kloyznik, un der tsu mayne brider nokh tsvey herlikhe lider (The dispute between a student and a man devoted to sacred study in a small synagogue, and also, my brothers, two magnificent poems) (Vilna: Fin-Rozenkrants, 1877), 62 pp., second edition (Vilna, 1888/1889).

Source: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 4.

Berl Cohen

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

LEYZER-SHLOYME RABINOVITSH

LEYZER-SHLOYME RABINOVITSH (b. June 2, 1964)

            A linguist and folklorist, he was born in Yagotin (Yahotyn), Poltava Province, Ukraine, the descendant of a Hassidic family. He was active in Zionist and community organizations in Pereyaslav and Kiev. From 1904 he was working on a large project entitled “Der hebraizmen-oytser” (The treasury of Hebraisms). The Jewish Literary Association in Kiev approved this work for publication in 1910, but it was never realized. He was nominated and became a member of the commission on orthography and terminology in the Kultur-lige (Culture league) in Kiev, when it was founded in 1918. He revised the first three letters (5,000 words) for a large Russian-Yiddish dictionary, which the Yiddish department of the Kiev Institute for Jewish Culture was to publish, but nothing of this came to fruition either, and the fate of the manuscript remains unknown. It is entirely possible that it was used in preparation of the major Russian-Yiddish dictionary that appeared in print in Moscow in 1984. Only an insignificant portion of his large collection of Yiddish proverbs, sayings, beliefs, portents, remedies, and the like was published. He wrote for the first and second issues of Tsaytshrift (Periodical) in Minsk (1926) on personages in Sholem-Aleichem’s works, the wedding entertainer Moyshe Marokhovski, and Semiticisms in Yiddish), and for Hoyzfraynd (House friend); and he placed correspondence pieces under the names Osher or Osher ben Moyshe in Yidishes folksblat (Jewish people newspaper). He corresponded with Sholem-Aleichem. The date of his death is unknown, though he was alive in Kiev in 1940.

Source: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 4.

Berl Cohen

[Additional information from: Chaim Beider, Leksikon fun yidishe shrayber in ratn-farband (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers in the Soviet Union), ed. Boris Sandler and Gennady Estraikh (New York: Congress for Jewish Culture, Inc., 2011), p. 344.]

ELYE-AKIVE RABINOVITSH

ELYE-AKIVE RABINOVITSH (May 13, 1862-April 16, 1917)

            Born in Shilel (Šilalė), Lithuania, he was a rabbi and the son of a rabbi.  He was well known by the name “Poltaver rov” (Poltava rabbi), and he was among the leaders of extreme Orthodoxy in the Russian empire.  He wrote mainly in Hebrew, but from October 1914 he switched his weekly newspaper Hamodia (The herald) (Poltava, 1911-1915) to Yiddish “so that all strata of our people will be able to read it…and everyone understands and is unashamed of our Jewish mother tongue.”  He died in Poltave (Poltava), Ukraine.

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 4; Getzel Kressel, Leksikon hasifrut haivrit (Handbook of Hebrew literature), vol. 2 (Merḥavya, 1967).

Berl Cohen