Leksikon fun der Nayer Yidisher Literatur

לעקסיקאָן פֿון דער נײַער ייִדישער ליטעראַטור

Born in Prosnits, Mern[?].

He was the greatest of Hebrew bibliographers. His Jewish given name was Moshe. Although his attitude toward “zhargon” [Yiddish] was one of enmity and contempt, nonetheless his bibliographic work with Yiddish literature was such that a Yiddish bibliographer or philologist cannot do without it.

He described 385 published Yiddish books before 1740 (in Serapeum [1848-1849]). Fifteen years later he provided a description of sixty-four manuscripts in Yiddish (Serapeum 1-12 [1866]); and he wrote about the Mayse-Bukh (Story Book), about the old Germanicized Yiddish translations of the Pentateuch and Yiddish translations of Tanakh generally; and a series of articles on Yiddish religious texts, thirty-one publications of Purim plays, and the like.

He died in Berlin.