SALKIND, JACOB MEIR

SALKIND, JACOB MEIR (Zalkind, Yankev-Meyer ; 1875–1937), Hebrew and Yiddish writer. Born in Kobrin (Belorussia), Salkind studied at the Volozhin yeshiva and at German and Swiss universities. After the *Kishinev pogroms in 1903, he organized a self-defense group in Bern. Moving to England around 1904, he organized in London a Zionist group, Aḥuzah ("Estate"), on behalf of whose members he went to Palestine in 1913 and obtained land at Karkur, on which they were able to settle in 1921. During World War i, he led the anti-war agitation among the Russian Jews in England and opposed *Jabotinsky's efforts to form a Jewish Legion. For this purpose, he founded and edited Di Yidishe Shtime (1916), first as a weekly, then as a daily. After becoming an anarchist, he edited, along with Rudolf *Rocker, the anarchist organ, Der Arbayter Fraynd (1920–23). Salkind's literary contributions began in Ha-Tsefira in 1900; he knew and published in many languages, chiefly Hebrew and Yiddish. His Hebrew plays for children (1903–22) were often staged in Jewish schools. He translated four tractates of the Talmud into Yiddish: Berakhot ("Blessings") from the Babylonian Talmud; Pe'ah ("[Field]-Corner"), Demai ("Doubtfully Tithed Crops") and Kilayim ("Hybrid") from the Jerusalem Talmud (1922–32). He died in Haifa.

bibliography:

Rejzen, Leksikon, 1 (1926), 1030–4; lnyl, 3 (1960), 535–40; M. Goldwasser, in: Studies in the Cultural Life of the Jews in England 5 (1975), 61–75; L. Prager, Yiddish Culture in Britain (1980), 717.

[Jerucham Tolkes /

Leonard Prager (2^nd ed.)]