Nehemiah Dov Hoffman

Born in the Lithuanian reaches of the Russian Empire, Nehemiah Dov Hoffman received his primary education both from religious tutors and in a Russian public school. Hoffman was exposed to the maskilic outlook after his family moved to Birz (today Biržai in Lithuania); there he studied philosophy and natural sciences alongside Hebrew and German. He moved to New York in 1885 to work on the newspaper Di yidishe gazeten, although he returned to Europe within a year. In 1889, he immigrated to South Africa, for a short time self-publishing the country’s first Yiddish serial, Der Afrikaner Israelit. When the newspaper failed to find an audience, Hoffman worked as an itinerant trader for several years, before returning to publishing in Cape Town. He spent the rest of his life publishing newspapers and journals in both Yiddish and Hebrew, helping lay the foundation for the broader Jewish press in South Africa.