Alexander Harkavy
Alexander Harkavy ( Yiddish : אַלכּסנדר האַרקאַווי or אַלעקסאַנדר האַרקאַווי, Belarus : Аляксандр Гаркавы or Аляксандар Гаркаві, Russian : Александр Гаркави), (born 5. May 1863 in Nawahrudak Yiddish (: נאַוואַרעדאָק, Belarus: Навагрудак or Наваградак, in what is now Belarus ); died November 2, 1939 in New York ), was a Yiddish writer , lexicographer, and linguist , who particularly after his emigration to theUSA has made a contribution to researching and maintaining the Yiddish language at YIVO .
Life
After the anti-Semitic pogroms of 1880, Harkavy joined the Jewish movement Am Olam ("Eternal People"), the aim of which was the formation of agricultural communities. Instead of orienting itself towards Palestine, as the BILU ( Beir Ya'ako Leku Ve-neklja, "Let Jacob's house go"), Am Olam orientated towards North America. Harkavy therefore emigrated to the USA in 1882, but found no connection with a successful Am Olam commune. Instead, he embarked on his years of traveling, which took him to Paris in 1885, New York in 1886, Montreal in 1887, Baltimore in 1889, and New York again in 1890. During these years he studied and taught and published his first journalistic and scientific works.
In Montreal he succeeded in rallying a group of friends of Hebrew and of the Hovevei Tsion (" Lovers of Zion ") movement . Together they founded a local group, which Harvaky took over. He also managed to publish a new magazine, the first Yiddish in Canada: Di Tsayt . He also wrote the first history of the Jews in Canada. Back in the USA, he took part in the activities of the anarchist group Pionire der Frayhayt ("Pioneers of Freedom"). In Baltimore in 1890 he published the magazine Der Idisher Progres ("The Jewish Progress").
Between 1897 and 1898 he edited the non-organizational radical magazine Der Nayer Gayst ("The New Spirit"), the first aesthetic journal of the American left.
Harkavy has achieved lasting importance with his lexicographical work. His first English-Yiddish dictionary was published in 1891, his second in 1898, and his Yiddish-English-Hebrew dictionary, which is still indispensable for reading older Yiddish texts, was published in 1928 in its fourth revised edition (reprinted unchanged in 1988). In 1894 he also published an English grammar in Hebrew, and in 1897/1898 he translated Cervante's novel Don Quixote into Yiddish.
literature
- Dovid Katz : Alexander Harkavy and his trilingual dictionary. In: Alexander Harkavy: ייִדיש-ענגליש-העברעאישער ווערטערבוך (Yidish-english-hebreisher verterbukh) / Yiddish-English-Hebrew Dictionary. A Reprint of the 1928 Expanded Second Edition. YIVO Institute for Jewish Research / Schocken Books, New York 1988. ISBN 0-8052-4027-6 .
- Kenyon Zimmer, "The Whole World is our Country". Immigration and Anarchism in the United States 1885-1940 . Dissertation University of Pittsburgh 2010, pp. 78–81 ( PDF ).
- Jonathan D. Sarna: "Our Distant Brethren." Alexander Harkavy on Montreal Jews. 1888. In: Canadian Jewish Historical Society - Journal Vol. 7 no 2, pp. 59-61. ( PDF ).
- Alexander Harkavy: The Jews in Canada. Montreal 1887. Reprinted in: Canadian Jewish Historical Society - Journal Vol. 7 no 2, pp. 59-61. ( PDF ).
- Alexander Harkavy: Autobiography, Chapter 1: Chapters From My Life, translated and edited. from American Jewish Archives 33 (April 1981), reprinted in Uri D. Herscher: The East European Jewish Experience in America. Cincinnati 1983, pp. 52-73. ( PDF ).
- Harkavy, Alexander , in: Encyclopaedia Judaica , 1971, Volume 7, Sp. 1341ff.
- Alexander Harkavy , in: Salomon Wininger : Große Jüdische National-Biographie , Volume 3, Cernăuţi, 1928, pp. 1f.
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Harkavy, Alexander |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Harkavi, Garkavi |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Belarusian-American writer, lexicographer, and linguist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 5, 1863 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Nawahrudak |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 2, 1939 |
| Place of death | new York |