Monday 18 September 2017

YANKEV AND MENASHE MUSHKAT

YANKEV AND MENASHE MUSHKAT
            They were born in Prage (Praga), near Warsaw, nephews of the Praga rabbi, Shaye Mushkat.  In the 1860s both brothers Mushkat were teachers in the Jewish community schools in Praga and Warsaw.  Together they translated into Judeo-German the Hebrew textbook of Shalom Cohen, Kitsur torat lashon ivrit (Shortened rules of the Hebrew language), “or an abridged Hebrew language textbook,” a shortened version of the Vienna edition (1816), which to be used in the community schools as a Hebrew grammar in Yiddish (Warsaw, 1843), 128 pp.
            Yankev Mushkat would also have been the author of the reader Lehr bukh af yidish-daytsh (Textbook for Judeo-German), “to study the German language” (Warsaw, 1853), 73 pp.,[1] for which Mushkat wrote “moralistic tales, fables, poems, and songs, letters, compliments, and mathematical instruction.”

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 2; dedication (in Polish) to the banker Matisyohu Rozen, in Lehr bukh af yidish-daytsh.
Khayim Leyb Fuks




[1] Translator’s note.  This may be the same work as Yidish daytshes leze bukh (Judeo-German reader) (Warsaw, 1853), 77 pp., listed on WorldCat. (JAF)

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