Alexander Harkavy ( yi, אַלכּסנדר האַרקאַווי, russian: Александр Гаркави, ''Aleksandr Garkavi''; May 5, 1863 at Nowogrudok (), Minsk guberniya (''governorate''),

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. ...

(now

Navahrudak Novogrudok ( be, Навагрудак, Navahrudak; lt, Naugardukas; pl, Nowogródek; russian: Новогрудок, Novogrudok; yi, נאַוואַראַדאָק, Novhardok, Navaradok) is a town in the Grodno Region, Belarus. In the Middle ...

Hrodna Voblast Grodno Region ( pl, Grodzieńszczyzna) or Grodno Oblast or Hrodna Voblasts ( be, Гродзенская вобласць, ''Hrodzienskaja vobłasć'', , ''Haradzienščyna''; russian: Гродненская область, ''Grodnenskaya oblast' ...

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 ...

) - 1939 in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

) was a Russian-born American

writer A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers produce different forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, books, poetry, travelogues, p ...

lexicographer Lexicography is the study of lexicons, and is divided into two separate academic disciplines. It is the art of compiling dictionaries. * Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries. * Theoretica ...

and

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

Biography

Alexander Harkavy was educated privately, and at an early age evinced a predilection for

philology Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as th ...

. In 1879 he went to

Vilna Vilnius ( , ; see also #Etymology and other names, other names) is the capital and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the munic ...

, where he worked in the printing-office of the Romm Brothers. After the antisemitic pogroms of 1880 in Russia, Harkavy joined the Jewish

Am Olam Am Olam was a movement among Russian Jews to establish agricultural colonies in America. The name means "Eternal People" and is taken from the title of an essay by Peretz Smolenskin. It was founded in Odessa in 1881 by Mania Bakl (Maria Bahal) and ...

(Eternal People)

back-to-the-land movement A back-to-the-land movement is any of various agrarian movements across different historical periods. The common thread is a call for people to take up smallholding and to grow food from the land with an emphasis on a greater degree of self-suffic ...

. Unlike Bilu, which directed its activities towards Palestine, Am Olam saw a Jewish future in the United States. In

1882 Events January–March * January 2 ** The Standard Oil Trust is secretly created in the United States to control multiple corporations set up by John D. Rockefeller and his associates. ** Irish-born author Oscar Wilde arrives in t ...

Harkavy emigrated to the United States. He however did not succeed in joining or establishing an agricultural Am Olam entity, finding himself in search of a living. He was in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

in 1885, New York in 1886,

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple ...

in 1887,

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1889 Events January–March * January 1 ** The total solar eclipse of January 1, 1889 is seen over parts of California and Nevada. ** Paiute spiritual leader Wovoka experiences a vision, leading to the start of the Ghost Dance movement in t ...

and back in New York in 1890. During these years of wandering Harkavy studied, taught, and published his first journalistic and scholarly compositions. In Montreal he achieved some acclaim among local Hebraists, and founded a branch of Chovevei Zion, of which he served as president. Harkavy published in lithograph form one issue of 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 ...

newspaper, ''Die Tzeit'' (The Time), the first Jewish newspaper in Canada. He also wrote the first

history of the Jews in Canada Canadian citizens who follow Judaism as their religion and/or are ethnically Jewish are a part of the greater Jewish diaspora and form the third largest Jewish community in the world, exceeded only by those in Israel and in the United State ...

. Back in the United States he participated in the activities of the anarchist group Pionire der Frayhayt (Pioneers of Liberty). In Baltimore he published ''Der Idisher Progres'' (Jewish Progress) in 1890. He was one of the contributors to the Jewish Encyclopedia. Harkavy also worked on translating Scripture into English, starting with Genesis (published 1915), then

Psalms The Book of Psalms ( or ; he, תְּהִלִּים, , lit. "praises"), also known as the Psalms, or the Psalter, is the first book of the ("Writings"), the third section of the Tanakh, and a book of the Old Testament. The title is derived ...

(1915), then ''The Twenty-Four Books of the Holy Scriptures According to the

Masoretic Text The Masoretic Text (MT or 𝕸; he, נֻסָּח הַמָּסוֹרָה, Nūssāḥ Hammāsōrā, lit. 'Text of the Tradition') is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) in Rabbinic Judaism. ...

'' (1916), with reprintings following.

Work on Yiddish

It is partly due to Harkavy's work that

today is regarded as a language. His Yiddish dictionaries show that its vocabulary is as ample as that of the average modern language, and that, if lacking in technical terms, it is richer in idiomatic and characteristic expressions.The Jewish Encyclopedia
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Works

Among Alexander Harkavy's most important works are: * Alexander Harkavy, The Jews in Canada, Montreal 1887; reprinted in: Canadian Jewish Historical Society - Journal Vol. 7 no 2, S. 59-6

* "Complete English-Jewish Dictionary" (1891); * "Dictionary of the Yiddish Language: Yiddish-English" (1898); * pocket editions of English-Jewish and Jewish-English dictionaries; * "Amerikanischer Briefsteller" (English and Judæo-German, 1899); * "Ollendorf's Method of English: in Yiddish" (1893); * ''"Uchebnik Angliskavo Yazyka"'' (1892); * ''"Torat Leshon Anglit"'', an English grammar in Hebrew (1894); * ''"Ha-Yesh Mishpaṭ Lashon li-Sefat Yehudit?"'' (1896), in which he shows that Yiddish has the essential elements and forms of a living language; * ''"Don Kichot"'', a Judæo-German translation (1897–98);
Yiddish-English (6th edition), English-Yiddish (11th edition) Dictionary (1910)
* ''The Holy Scriptures'' (1916) reprinted 1936 & 1951; * ''Yiddish-English-Hebrew Dictionary'' (4th ed 1928) republished 1968. * "Students' Hebrew and Chaldee Dictionary to the Old Testament" (1914)

Bibliography of Jewish Encyclopedia

* E. Harkavy, ''Dor Yesharim'', New York, 1992 * Benzion Eisenstadt, ''Ḥakme Yisrael be-Ameriḳa'', New York, 1903, p. 33 * ''Ha-Leom'' (Harkavy's autobiography), vol. ii., New York, 1903 * Kenyon Zimmer,
'The Whole World is Our Country': Immigration and Anarchism in the United States, 1885-1940
(dissertation), University of Pittsburgh 2010, p. 78-81. *Jonathan D. Sarna, "Our Distant Brethren" - Alexander Harkavy On Montreal Jews - 1888 (engl.), in: Canadian Jewish Historical Society - Journal Vol. 7 no 2, S. 59-6

References

Alexander Harkavy in Jewish Encyclopedia on the Web (Russian)

Scan of Frontispiece of the 1898 Pocket Edition of ''Harkavy's Jewish-English Dictionary''

Biography

Work on Yiddish

Works

Bibliography of Jewish Encyclopedia

References

See also