Zichronoth Bath Ami [“Memoirs of My People”: Deinard’s personal recollections of Judaism in Russia]

DEINARD, EPHRAIM.

Moinester

St. Louis

1920

FIRST EDITION. Two volumes. First volume contains an inscription from Ephraim Deinard to his niece Rachel Deinard (Isaacson), datelined “Arlington, Isru Chag ha-Pesach, 1921.” In it, the author expresses his wish that his niece and her posterity, adhere to the original Hebrew language of Holy Scripture and “not Hebrew-translated-Tartars-Hittites-like, as invented by hooligans in the Land of Israel, that will lead to our Torah and the language of our Prophets to be forgotten by the young generation.”

Whatever one may think of this idiosyncratic author, the fact is that Deinard is a treasure-trove of information concerning a bygone era in Jewish history. In Vol. I we learn of his experiences as a “yeshiva bochur” in the academy of R. Shlomo Broda in Mohilev (pp. 103, 184). Having spent time in Mohilev, he was exposed to its one time rabbi Meir Leibush Malbim, as well as to R. Meir Berlin. In Vol. II Deinard lets loose a torrent of abuse upon the Chassidic movement in Russia - especially Chabad - with which he claims to have been intimately familiar