Selig Schachnowitz
Swiss-Jewish writer (1874–1952)
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Selig Schachnowitz (May 27, 1874 – January 23, 1952) was a Russian-born Swiss-Jewish writer and publicist.
Biography
Schachnowitz was born in 1874 in Russian-controlled Lithuania under the Vilna Governorate to Isaak Schachnowitz and Lea Riszmann. He had a brother, Pinchas, who was also a writer but remained in Russia. He was trained as a teacher in Lithuania and received additional education in Frankfurt. From 1901 to 1908, he worked as a cantor at the synagogue in Endingen, Switzerland.[1] During a trip to Baden, Switzerland, he presented his first work, Chayim Moshiach, to a hotelier for examination, and had found it printed the next week in the Mainz Israelite.[2]
In 1908, he started as an editor at Der Israelit magazine in Frankfurt,[3] where he also worked as a teacher at Solomon Breuer's yeshiva.[4] He married Zessi Löb, and they had one daughter, Gertrud (1910–2007). After visiting Eretz Yisrael, he wrote Zwischen Ruinen und Aufbau in Erez-Israel in 1931. He emigrated to Switzerland in 1938 after Der Israelit closed due to sanctions by the Nazi Party.[4]
Selected works
- Schachnowitz, Selig (1911). Skizzen aus Litthauen (in German). Jüdischer Volksschriftenverlag.
- Schachnowitz, Selig (1912). Luftmenschen: Roman aus der Gegenwart (in German). Frankfurt: Verlag des "Israelit".
- Schachnowitz, Selig (1922). בממלכת כוזר היהודית: רומן הסטורי (in Hebrew). אמנות.
- Schachnowitz, Selig (1923). Salomo der Falascha: eine Geschichte aus der Gegenwart (in German). Frankfurt: I. Kauffmann.
- Schachnowitz, Selig (1936). דאס בלימל פון גליק (in Yiddish). farlag "Grininḳe beymelekh".