Slatkine, Menahem Mendel
SLATKINE, MENAHEM MENDEL
SLATKINE, MENAHEM MENDEL (1875–1965), bibliographer. Born in Rostov on the Don, Russia, Slatkine studied at the yeshivah in Volozhin. He evinced an early interest in Hebrew bibliography and in 1903 published in the Hebrew daily Ha-Meliẓ (no. 241) an article, "Pinnah Nishkaḥat" ("A Forgotten Corner"), in which he drew attention to the need for an updated bibliography of Hebrew literature. In 1905 he settled in Switzerland where he engaged in the sale of old Hebrew books. He died in Geneva.
Slatkine was the author of Shemot ha-Sefarim ha-Ivrim (2 vols., 1950–54), on the titles of Hebrew books; Reshit Bikkurei ha-Bibliografyah ba-Safrut ha-Ivrit (1958), about Shabbetai *Bass and his Siftei Yeshenim, the first Hebrew bibliographical work; and Oẓar ha-Sefarim, Ḥelek Sheni (1965), which contains notes, corrections, additions, and an author index of Isaac Ben Jacob's Oẓar ha-Sefarim. Slatkine also wrote Mi-Sefer ha-Zikhronot shel Rav Litai. The book, which was published in Paris in the years following World War ii, describes Jewish life in the 18th century in the form of "selected chapters" from the "memoirs" of the Lithuanian rabbis of the time.
bibliography:
G. Kressel, in: Moznayim, 20 (1964–65), 420–1; S. Herman in: Aresheth, 4 (1966), 558.
[Tovia Preschel]