Ben-Yeḥezki'el, Mordekhai

views updated

BEN-YEḤEZKI'EL, MORDEKHAI

BEN-YEḤEZKI'EL, MORDEKHAI (1883–1971), Hebrew essayist and adapter of folktales. Born in Galicia, he moved in 1906 to Lvov where he was both student and tutor. After visiting Western Europe, he taught for a time in Lvov, and immigrated to Palestine in 1920. At first he taught at the Tel Aviv Teachers' Seminary and from 1925 was an instructor of Hebrew, Bible, and Literature at the Mizrachi Teachers' Seminary in Jerusalem. After the publication of his first article on *Ḥasidism in *Ha-Shilo'aḥ in 1904, he wrote regularly on language, literature, Ḥasidism, etc., in the Hebrew press and was encouraged by Ḥ.N. *Bialik to publish his adaptations of various folktales, which appeared as Sefer ha-Ma'asiyyot ("Book of Folk Tales"; four volumes 1926–29; expanded edition in six volumes, 1957).

bibliography:

G. Bader, Medinah va-Ḥakhameha (1934), 76; Kitvei A. Barash (1957), 131; A. Korekh, Kehillat Glina (1950), 77–80; E.M. Lipschuetz, Ketavim, 3 (1957), 181–4.

[Getzel Kressel]