Yechezkel Kotik (Yekheskel, Ezekiel; March 25, 1847 – August 13, 1921) was a

Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ve ...

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Biography

He was born in

Kamyenyets Kamyanyets (also spelled as Kamianiec, Kamenets, Kamieniec; be, Ка́менец , russian: Ка́менец, uk, Кам'янець, Kamianets', pl, Kamieniec, yi, קאמעניץ ''Kamenits'' (or ''Kaminetz''), lt, Kamianecas; he, קמניץ ...

(Kamenets, Kamieniec Litewski, Kamenets-Litovsk),

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

, modern day

Belarus Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by ...

. He lived in Kiev, but after the 1881 pogroms he fled to

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

, where he founded a

cheder A ''cheder'' ( he, חדר, lit. "room"; Yiddish pronunciation ''kheyder'') is a traditional primary school teaching the basics of Judaism and the Hebrew language. History ''Cheders'' were widely found in Europe before the end of the 18th ...

and later opened a coffeehouse with a

telephone A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into e ...

(one of the first ones in the city). He was a public man and philanthropist, and organized charities ("Achiezer", "Ezrath Holim" and others). He published brochures in Hebrew and Yiddish. His most famous work is his memoirs in Yiddish (2 vols.) where he describes the life of a Jewish

shtetl A shtetl or shtetel (; yi, שטעטל, translit=shtetl (singular); שטעטלעך, romanized: ''shtetlekh'' (plural)) is a Yiddish term for the small towns with predominantly Ashkenazi Jewish populations which existed in Eastern Europe before ...

. The memoirs were highly appreciated by

Sholem Aleichem ) , birth_date = , birth_place = Pereiaslav, Russian Empire , death_date = , death_place = New York City, U.S. , occupation = Writer , nationality = , period = , genre = Novels, sh ...

and I.L. Peretz; they were published in several editions and translated into several languages.

Editions of the memoirs

* ''Mayne zikhroynes'' (''My memories''), Warsaw 1912–13; Berlin 1922. * Translation to German: Jecheskel Kotik, ''Das Haus meiner Grosseltern; Aus Kotiks Lebenserinnerungen'' übersetzt von Leo Hirsch, Berlin: Schocken, 1936. * Translation to English - ''Journey to a Nineteenth-Century Shtetl: The Memoirs of Yekhezkel Kotik''; edited with an introduction and notes by David Assaf; translated from the Yiddish by Margaret Birstein, Detroit: Wayne State University Press in cooperation with The Diaspora Research Institute, Tel Aviv University (Raphael Patai Series in Jewish Folklore and Anthropology), 2002. * Translation to Hebrew by David Assaf (Tel-Aviv, Vol. 1 - 1998, Vol.2 - 2005). * Translation to Russian by Maya Ulanovskaya (Jerusalem, Vol. 1 - 2009, vol. 2 - 2012).

References

External links

* * * Kotik's book in translation to English: https://books.google.com/books/about/Journey_to_a_Nineteenth_century_Shtetl.html?id=knrfpytrp6YC * Kotik's book in translation to Hebrew: http://benyehuda.org/kotik/ * Obituary (in Hebrew): http://jpress.org.il/Olive/APA/NLI_Heb/SharedView.Article.aspx?parm=9sGxiN7%2BVE0p0zrxNmMkX08rgRUqKSnvgoZ5sdRyZL2qhAxIQYxdeqbSWdBViRFtYw%3D%3D&mode=image&href=HZF%2f1921%2f08%2f15&page=4&rtl=true {{DEFAULTSORT:Kotik, Yechezkel Yiddish-language writers 1847 births 1921 deaths