Julius Eisenstein

Julius (Judah David) Eisenstein (November 12, 1854 – May 17, 1956) () was a Polish-Jewish-American anthologist, diarist, encyclopedist, Hebraist, historian, philanthropist, and Orthodox polemicist born in Międzyrzec Podlaski (known in Yiddish as ''Mezritch d'Lita''), a town with a large Jewish majority in what was then Congress Poland. He died in New York City at the age of 101.

Lineage, education and early years

Yehuda Dovid Eizensztejn, as he was named at birth, was the second of two children born to Rabbi Zeev Wolf and Toba Bluma (née Barg). His sister, Henna, was a year and a half older. When he was ten years old, his father became the first Jew from Mezritch to emigrate to the United States.

As a child, therefore, his education in Talmud was left to his paternal grandfather, Azriel Zelig, the son of Noson Neta Eizensztejn, a Talmudic scholar and dyer of indigo originally from the village of Stawiska (in Yiddish, Stavisk). His antecedents had moved there from Königsberg and claimed to be direct descendants of Rashi.

In 1872, Toba Bluma emigrated to the United States with her son and daughter and joined Zeev Wolf in New York. There, Yehuda Dovid anglicized his first name to Julius and adopted the American spelling of his family name. He married the following year.

Eisenstein's parents eventually divorced, after which his father made ''aliyah'' to Jerusalem, where he remarried and raised a second family. Both Zeev Wolf and Toiba Bluma's family were proto-Zionists. Her maternal grandfather, Rabbi Tzvi Zeev (in Yiddish, Hirsch Wolf) Fiszbejn, had already moved to Jerusalem with his two sons, Abraham and Isaac, and other descendants in 1863. Tzvi Zeev was a wealthy brush manufacturer in Mezritch and financed the construction of the original Etz Chaim Yeshiva in the Old City.url=http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/10816-miedzyrzecz They and Zeev Wolf are all buried near each other in the Mount of Olives Jewish Cemetery.

Hebraist and historian

Eisenstein loved Hebrew and established America's first society for the Hebrew language, ''Shoharei Sfat Ever.'' He was also the first to translate the Constitution of the United States into Hebrew and Yiddish (New York, 1891). Other early writings of his are ''Ma'amarei BaMasoret,'' ib. 1897, and ''The Classified Psalter'' (''Pesukei dezimra''), a Hebrew text with a new translation (1899). He also attempted to translate and explain a modified text of the ''Shulchan Aruch.''

In ''HaModi'a laHadashim'' (New York) for 1901, he published, under the title ''LeDorot Golei Russiya b'America,'' a sketch of the history of Russo-Jewish emigration to America. His ''History of the First Russo-American Jewish Congregation'' appeared in No. 9 of the ''Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society,'' in 1901.

Primary works

Eisenstein was a scholar of extraordinarily broad learning. He contributed more than 150 entries to the 1901–190
Jewish Encyclopedia
from which much of the above biography was based, and he authored thousands of articles in newspapers, journals, encyclopedias, and anthologies.

His memories are contained in a 1929 volume called ''Otzar Zikhronotai'' (אוצר זיכרונותי).

Other works, most of which can be downloaded a
HebrewBooks.org
are as follows:
* ''Otzar Perushim we-Ziyurim'' (1920) (אוצר פירושים וציורים להגדה של פסח), an illustrated Passover haggadah
* ''Otzar Dinim u-Minhagim'' (1917) (אוצר דינים ומנהגים), a digest of Jewish laws (''halakha'') and customs (''minhagim'')
* ''Otzar D'rushim Nibharim'' (1918) (אוצר דרושים נבחרים), an anthology of ''midrashic'' literature
* ''Otzar Maamare Hazal'' (1922) (אוצר מאמרי חז"ל), a concordance of rabbinical quotations, sayings and phrases
* ''Otzar Ma'amare Tanakh'' (1925) (אוצר מאמרי התנ"ך), a concordance of words, phrases and idioms in the Tanakh

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