Creator Bio
Fritz Kaufmann
1888–1922
Born in Eschweiler, German Empire, Fritz Moritz (Mordechai) Kaufmann studied to become a physician before encountering Yiddish culture through a Zionist student group in Leipzig. Attracted to ideas of Jewish national identity and cultural revival incipient at the time, Kaufmann began writing essays on Yiddish language, history, and culture for German-speaking Jewish audiences. In 1913, he formed the journal Die Freistatt, the first German periodical oriented toward the development of Yiddish letters. Alongside scholarly works, the journal included transcriptions and translations of Yiddish poetry and literature. Kaufmann died by suicide in Berlin.
Entries in the Posen Library by This Creator
Primary Source
The Invigoration of Western Jewishness
The best of the Western Jews have gradually become used to talking about the existence of a Jewish people as if it were a logical and historically proven fact.
But they have not yet arrived at the…