Gerson Rosenzweig
{{short description|Russian-American editor, author, and poet}}
{{Infobox writer
| name=Gerson Rosenzweig
| image=Gerson Rosenzweig.png
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| birth_date={{birth date text|April 1861}}
| birth_place=Białystok, Grodno Governorate, Russian Empire
| death_date={{death-date and age|14 February 1914|April 1861}}
| death_place=New York City, United States
| resting_place=Bayside Cemetery, Queens
| occupation=Editor, author, poet
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| notableworks=Masekhet Amerika (1892)
| spouse=Hannah Abramson
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Gerson Rosenzweig ({{Langx|yi|גרשון ראָזענצװייג|translit=Gershon Rozentsvayg}}; April 1861 – 14 February 1914) was a Russian-American editor, author, and poet. He is best known for his Hebrew- and Yiddish-language satires, poems, and epigrams.{{r|EJ}}{{r|fogel}}
Biography
Born in Białystok, Rosenzweig received his education in Berlin, Kraków, and other cities of the Russian Empire.{{r|JE}}
He conducted a Hebrew school in Suwałki, Russian Poland, before emigrating to the United States in 1888. After settling in New York City, Rosenzweig became joint editor of the Yidishes tageblatt ('Jewish Daily News'), Yidishe gazetten ('Jewish Gazette'), and Idishe velt ('Jewish World'), a position he held until 1905.{{r|fogel}} He edited and published a weekly, Ha-Ivri ('The Hebrew'), from 1891 to 1898, a monthly, Kadimah ('Forward'), from 1898 to 1902, and Ha-Devorah from 1911 to 1912. He also contributed to the leading Hebrew and Yiddish papers of his time.{{r|fogel}}{{r|JE}}
Rosenzweig died on 14 February 1914, after four months at the New York Skin and Cancer Hospital.{{r|tribune_obit}} The funeral, conducted by Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Masliansky, was attended by some 5,000 people.{{r|lebanon_obit}} He was survived by his wife, six daughters, and one son.{{r|tribune_obit}}
Work
Rosenzweig's "masterpiece" was Massekhet Amerika, published by A. Ginsberg in New York in 1891 and by the Romm publishing house in Vilna in 1894.{{r|nissan_2014}} It was later included in his 1907 book Talmud Yankaʼi ('The Yankee Talmud').{{r|boerner-klein}} The popular satire, written in the style of a Talmudic tractate, critiques the social conditions in New York's immigrant Jewish community.{{r|nissan_2012}}{{r|afroasiatic}}{{r|nissan_2008}} Portions of the work were printed in translation in The Sun and other New York papers.{{r|JE}}
He published several works of poetry. These include Shirim u-meshalim (New York, 1893), a volume of poetry; Ḥamishah ve-elef mikhtamim mekoriyim (New York, 1903), a collection of 1,005 of his Hebrew epigrams and poems;{{r|JE}} and Mi-zimrat ha-aretz (1898), Hebrew translations of American national songs.{{r|gottlieb}}{{r|leksikon}}
Partial bibliography
- {{cite journal|title=Lekha dodi|journal=Ha-Tzefira|date=12 August 1887|url=https://www.nli.org.il/en/newspapers/hzf/1887/08/12/01/article/12/?e=-------en-20--1--img-txIN%7ctxTI--------------1|volume=14|number=72|page=4}}
- {{cite book|title=Masekhet Amerika|trans-title=Tractate America|location=New York|publisher=A. Ginsberg|date=1892|hdl=2027/uc1.$b151563|url=https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.$b151563}}
- {{cite book|title=Shirim: meshalim u-mikhtamim|series=Poems.Sefer 1|volume=1|location=New York|publisher=S. Levine|date=1893|hdl=2027/uc1.aa0012446480|url=https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.aa0012446480}}
- {{cite book|title=Mi-zimrat ha-aretz: American National Songs in Hebrew|location=New York|publisher=s.n.|date=1898|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I5YSAAAAYAAJ}}
- {{cite book|title=Ḥamishah ve-elef mikhtamim mekoriyim|location=New York|publisher=A. Ḥ. Rosenberg|date=1903}}
- {{cite book|title=Talmud Yankaʼi: mekhil be-kirbo shesh mamakhhot|location=New York|publisher=A. Ḥ. Rosenberg|date=1907|trans-title=The Yankee Talmud}}
References
{{Jewish Encyclopedia|article=Rosenzweig, Gerson|url=https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/12882|first1=Cyrus|last1=Adler|first2=Frederick T.|last2=Haneman|volume=10|page=482}}
{{Reflist|refs=
{{cite news|title=Obituary: Gerson Rosenzweig|url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/79048054/|newspaper=New-York Tribune|date=15 February 1914|page=11|location=New York|volume=73|number=24563}}
{{cite news|title=5,000 at Poet's Funeral: Stand in Snow to Pay Last Honors to Gerson Rosenzweig|date=16 February 1914|newspaper=Lebanon Daily News|location=Lebanon, Penn.|page=3|volume=42|issue=163|url=https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/13314210/}}
{{cite web|editor-first=Joseph|editor-last=Galron-Goldschläger|publisher=Ohio State University|website=Leksikon ha-sifrut ha-'ivrit ha-ḥadasha|language=he|title=Gershon Rozentzveig|access-date=2 August 2021|url=https://library.osu.edu/projects/hebrew-lexicon/02352.php}}
}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rosenzweig, Gerson}}
Category:19th-century American male writers
Category:19th-century American non-fiction writers
Category:19th-century American poets
Category:19th-century American translators
Category:American male non-fiction writers
Category:American people of Lithuanian-Jewish descent
Category:American magazine editors
Category:Deaths from cancer in New York (state)
Category:Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States
Category:English–Hebrew translators
Category:Hebrew-language poets
Category:Jewish American non-fiction writers
Category:Jewish American poets
Category:Writers from Białystok
Category:Satirists from the Russian Empire