Abraham Dubzhevitch

Born in Pinsk in the Russian Empire (today in Belarus), Abraham Dov Dubzhevitch (Dubsewitz) joined a small circle of local maskilim. In the 1860s, he moved to Ekaterinoslav (today Dnipro, Ukraine), where he made a living as Hebrew teacher. A religious-maskilic scholar, commentator, and interpreter of Talmud and Midrash, his most famous work, Sefer ha-metsaref: hagahot ve-tikunim le-agadot ḥazal (The Book of Purifications: Annotations and Corrections to the Legends of the Sages; Odessa, 1870) was a collection of critical essays about talmudic literature; it was republished in several editions. Around 1875, Dubzhevitch moved to Kiev (Kyiv), where he would live for the next fifteen years. Continuing to write primarily in Hebrew in an increasingly old-fashioned maskilic vein, he also got involved in Sholem Aleichem’s short-lived but catalyzing Yiddish publishing efforts in Kiev; Dubzhevitch’s 1890 “Letter to Adolf Neubauer” shows him turning his attention in pioneering fashion to the history of medieval and early modern Yiddish writing. In 1891 he left Eastern Europe and immigrated to the United States. He spent his last years there, trying to earn a living as a Hebrew teacher, cultural activist, and editor of Hebrew publications.