YOYEL LIBLING

YOYEL LIBLING (February 15, 1853-May 7, 1933)

            He was born in Bodzanów (according to Zalmen Reyzen, in Husiatyn), Plotsk (Płock) district, Poland, into a well-pedigreed family.  He studied in religious elementary school and yeshiva.  At age thirteen he left the classroom for Tarnopol and there frequently visited the editor of Hayareaḥ (The moon), Dov-Ber Goldberg, who taught him Tanakh and Hebrew and stimulated him to write.  Over the years 1870-1876, he was a Hebrew teacher in Proskurov.  In 1887 he moved to the United States, settled in Pittsburgh, and initially took up business, but he did not succeed at it and became a teacher at a Talmud Torah.  He was the editor and publisher of Der blumengorten (The flower garden), “weekly Yiddish newspaper for the Jewish community” (Pittsburgh, 1888-1896), in which he published writings on education, the Jewish settlement in the land of Israel, and other topics, and he ran the column entitled “A bletel idishe geshikhte” (A little page of Jewish history).  For a time he lived in Cleveland, and there he edited the Orthodox weekly newspaper Di yudishe presse un der yudisher progres (The Jewish press and Jewish progress) (1890-1894).  From 1897 he was living in Chicago, where he served as editor of the semi-weekly Yudishe prese un progres (Jewish press and progress), which later changed into a daily newspaper, Di yudishe presse (The Jewish press), then Teglekhe yudishe presse (Daily Jewish press), with the weekly supplement Der yudisher progres (The Jewish progress), in Chicago (1903-1906).  He also contributed work to: Yidishes tageblat (Jewish daily newspaper) and Morgn-zhurnal (Morning journal) in New York; and Di idishe velt (The Jewish world) in Philadelphia; among others.  He also published under such pen names as: Akhiezer and Yoyel.  His son, AVROM LIBLING, who published a series of recreational novels in his father newspapers, took over in 1910 the editing of Teglekhe yudishe presse and led it until it collapsed in August 1914.

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 2; B. Ts. Ayzenshtadt, Ḥakhame yisrael beamerika (Wise men of Israel in America) (New York, 1903), p. 66; Morgn-zhurnal (New York) (May 9, 1933); Gershon Bader, Medina veḥakhameha (The state and its sages) (New York, 1934), pp. 129-30; E. R. Malachi, in Hadoar (New York) (March 9, 1945); M. Ḥizkuni, in Pinkas shikago (Records of Chicago) (1951/1952), pp. 74-76.

Khayim Leyb Fuks