Zebi Hirsch Scherschewski

Zebi Hirsch ha-Kohen Scherschewski^[1] (1840–1909) was a Russian Hebrew writer.

Life

Scherschewski was born at Pinsk in 1840. While still a boy he studied Hebrew grammar and archaeology without a teacher. After serving as secretary of the Jewish community of Pinsk, he went to the Crimea, where, at Melitopol, he entered the service of a merchant named Seidener. Later he became assistant editor of Zederbaum's Ha-Meliẓ. During the Russo-Turkish war he followed the Russian army as a sutler; and after a second short stay with his former employer, Seidener, he settled in 1883 at Rostov-on-the-Don, where he opened a bookstore.

In addition to numerous contributions to current Hebrew journals, Scherschewski wrote Boser Avot (Odessa, 1877), a satirical poem on the neglect of the education of Jewish children in Russia, and 'Iyyun Sifrut (Vilnius, 1881), on the development of Jewish literature and its significance as a cultural element for raising the Jews to a higher moral standing. His notes to the Midrash Shocher Tov are printed in Padua's Warsaw edition of that midrash, and his rhymed parodies are to be found in Keneset Yisrael (i. 408 et seq., ii. 2-6).

References

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Isidore Singer and M. Seligsohn (1901–1906). "Scherschewski, Zebi Hirsch ha-Kohen". In Singer, Isidore; et al. Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company. 

Jewish Encyclopedia bibliography

• Sokolow, Sefer Zikkaron, pp. 114-115;
• Zeitlin, Bibliotheca Hebraica Post-Mendelssohniana p. 341.