Zevi Scharfstein
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Zevi Scharfstein | |
|---|---|
| צבי שרפשטיין | |
| Born | 15 March 1884 |
| Died | 11 October 1972 (aged 88) |
| Alma mater | Honorary doctorate, Jewish Theological Seminary of America |
| Occupations | educator, writer, lexicographer |
| Organization(s) | Shilo publishing house; Bureau of Jewish Education of NYC |
| Movement | Revival of the Hebrew language |
| Spouse | Rose Goldfarb |
| Children | Ben‐Ami Scharfstein, Shulamith Scharfstein Chernoff |
Zevi Scharfstein (Hebrew: צבי שרפשטיין) was a prolific Hebrew-language educator, writer, and publishing entrepreneur who authored 423 works in 698 publications during his career.[1] The hosts of a special celebration in Detroit honoring Scharfstein on his seventieth birthday in 1954 described him as "one of the country's leading Jewish educators" whose Hebrew instructional materials were in very wide use in the United States.[2] His 1972 obituary in the New York Times attributed a hundred Hebrew textbooks for children to his credit, many of which in the early 1970s were "still considered classics in Hebrew schools."[3]
Scharfstein was educated as a child by private tutors, and his only official academic degree was an honorary Doctor of Hebrew Letters, awarded by the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. But his prolific career and founding of the Shilo publishing house made him "a teacher of teachers" in the Jewish Diaspora.[4]
Scharfstein was born in Dunaivtsi in the Podolia region of the Russian Empire, in present-day Ukraine.[5] During his childhood, he was strongly influenced by the Haskalah movement, and the movement's emphasis on childhood education and the development of a contemporary Hebrew press both shaped his life and career.[6] After witnessing the violence of pogroms in the region followed by the onset of World War I, Scharfstein immigrated to the United States "without a broken heart." He wrote of "writing new textbooks intended and prepared for the young generation of America."[7]
