Horowitz, Aaron Judah Loeb

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HOROWITZ, AARON JUDAH LOEB

HOROWITZ, AARON JUDAH LOEB (Leon ; pseud. Ayalah ; 1847–1926), Hebrew writer born in Minsk. After leaving the yeshivah in Shklov in 1862, he studied in Western Europe and traveled widely before settling in New York in 1870. There he taught Hebrew and contributed prolifically to the European Hebrew press. An advocate of mass immigration to America for Jews suffering persecution in Romania, Horowitz went there to tour the country for this purpose in 1873, sponsored by steamship companies. The book he published subsequently, Rumanyah va-Amerikah (1874), provides many details about the communities Horowitz visited and is a valuable source of information for their situation in this period, and in particular their internal affairs. The second part of the book provides a description of the United States and Jewish settlement there to encourage prospective immigrants. A guide for immigrants is also included. Horowitz himself spent the rest of his life in business in Hamburg.

bibliography:

N. Sokolow (ed.), Sefer Zikkaron le-Soferei Yisrael (1889), 30–31; L.P. Gartner, in: ajhsp, 45 (1955/56), 67–92.

[Lloyd P. Gartner]

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