LIPSCHUETZ, ELIEZER MEIR

LIPSCHUETZ, ELIEZER MEIR (1879–1946), Hebraist, religious educator, and historical writer in Ereẓ Israel. Lipschuetz was born in Skole (Galicia). He was a businessman in Lemberg, but influenced by S. *Buber, he began studying medieval Jewish history and literature. Lipschuetz had early devoted himself to the revival of Hebrew, not only as a literary medium, but also and above all as a spoken language (in the Sephardi pronunciation). He attracted a circle of like-minded friends, such as Joseph Babad, A. *Barash, Ḥ. *Yalon, Mordecai Ben-Ezekiel, and, especially, S.Y. *Agnon. His wife, too, spoke Hebrew and his child was the first in Lvov to grow up with Hebrew as his mother tongue. In 1910 Lipschuetz began teaching Hebrew and Jewish history at the *Ezra teacher's seminary in Jerusalem. As the result of the Hebrew versus German conflict, he left to take up a post with the Hebrew Teachers Seminary. In 1917 he was expelled from Palestine by the Turks and found refuge in Berlin, where he continued studying and writing to Jewish scholars. In 1920 he returned to Palestine and the following year founded the Mizrachi Teachers' Seminary, which he headed until his death. Lipschuetz worked actively in the religious education department of the Zionist Organization and was one of the architects of the Mizrachi school network. He was also an active member of the Va'ad ha-Lashon, now the Academy of the Hebrew Language. In addition to Lipschuetz' Raschi (1912), a classic biography, he wrote a great number of essays on scholarly educational, literary, and linguistic subjects. Among these is one on S.Y. Agnon (1926), whose importance he was one of the first to recognize. A large part of his work was reissued in his collected writings, Ketavim (3 vols., 1947–57), but much remains in manuscript, including a voluminous correspondence.

bibliography:

A.B. Posner, E.M. Lipschuetz (Heb., 1941); O. Wolfsberg (Aviad), Deyokena'ot (1962), 152–4; A.J. Brawer, Zikhronot (1966), 214–5, 441–6; Kressel, Leksikon, 2 (1967), s.v.