Zev Wolf ben Jacob Mendlin (; 10 June 1842 – 10 August 1912) was a Russian economist. He is considered the first to write in

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

about the economic situation of Jews in the Russian Empire.

Biography

Wolf Mendlin was born into a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

family in

Mogilev Mogilev (russian: Могилёв, Mogilyov, ; yi, מאָלעוו, Molev, ) or Mahilyow ( be, Магілёў, Mahilioŭ, ) is a city in eastern Belarus, on the Dnieper River, about from the border with Russia's Smolensk Oblast and from the bor ...

in 1842. In about 1862 he went to Germany, where he studied the

labour movement The labour movement or labor movement consists of two main wings: the trade union movement (British English) or labor union movement (American English) on the one hand, and the political labour movement on the other. * The trade union movement ...

under

Ferdinand Lassalle Ferdinand Lassalle (; 11 April 1825 – 31 August 1864) was a Prussian-German jurist, philosopher, socialist and political activist best remembered as the initiator of the social democratic movement in Germany. "Lassalle was the first man in Ger ...

. This experience roused his ambition to delve more deeply into the study of economics and

co-operation Cooperation (written as co-operation in British English) is the process of groups of organisms working or acting together for common, mutual, or some underlying benefit, as opposed to working in competition for selfish benefit. Many animal a ...

. In 1879, Mendlin made his first appearance as a writer, contributing an article on the economic circumstances of Russian Jews to ''

Ha-Melitz ''Ha-Melitz'' or ''HaMelitz'' (Hebrew: ) was the first Hebrew newspaper in the Russian Empire. It was founded by Alexander Zederbaum in Odessa in 1860. History ''Ha-Melitz'' first appeared as a weekly, and it began to appear daily in 1886. From 18 ...

''. Subsequently, he continued to provide insights on related topics in such publications as '' Ha-Tzefirah'', ''Ha-Melitz'', ''Ruskii Yevrei'', '' Voskhod'', and ''Ulei''. Mendlin's also wrote ''Ba-meh nivasheʻa'' (St. Petersburg, 1883), a collection of four essays on the improvement of the economic condition of Russian Jews; ''Meḳore ha-ʻosher'' (Odessa, 1898), a politico-economic study; and ''Di kvalen zikh zelbst tsu helfen'' (in Yiddish; Odessa, 1894). Across these writings, Mendlin advocated for mutual aid and co-operative organizations as the most effective means of improving the dire conditions of the Jewish masses in Russia. Mendlin played also a central role in founding charitable institutions within the Jewish community of

Odessa Odesa (also spelled Odessa) is the third most populous city and municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern shore of the Black Sea. The city is also the administrativ ...

Selected publications

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mendlin, Wolf 1842 births 1912 deaths 19th-century economists 19th-century Jews from the Russian Empire Economists from the Russian Empire Hebrew-language writers Jewish writers from the Russian Empire People of the Haskalah