Naphtali Maskileison

Naphtali Maskileison (1829 - 1897) was a Hebrew book editor and a well-known author in his own right, who lived and worked in the city of Minsk, Belarus.

His Life

Naphtali Maskileison was born in 1829 in Radoshkovich, in the Minsk region of the Russian Empire (Belarus, about 35 km from the city of Minsk), the son of Rabbi Avraham Maskileison (named after his book "Maskil Le-Eison") and Chana Dina, After his birth, his father moved with his family to the city of Hardock to serve as a rabbi there, and when Naphtali became four years old, the family moved again to the large city of Minsk, and since then they have moved to the city of Minsk. Naphtali's entire life and activity were concentrated in this city, where he studied in a number of local Yeshivas and learned from his father. And he began to experiment with writing poetic works of his own, one of which was a lamentation for the premature death of the young poet Micha (the son of Yosef), who wrote while visiting the house His father, the learned Vilna scholar Adam Hacohen, received positive criticism from the latter.

As an adult, he continued to study and read, and at the same time he reached out in commerce. He ran a trade house in Minsk, through which he traded in books and even provided religious objects. Over the years his field of commerce expanded and he entered the etrog market. He gained fame and became known as one of the greatest etrog merchants in the Jewish seat of the Russian Empire.

He worked extensively in composing books and in printing for other authors' books while adding his own notes, grades, indexes, and so forth. Edited and published some of his father's writings after his death. His most prominent literary work is the arrangement and repair of the chronological order of generations by Yechiel Heilperin (according to his own testimony, he worked on this work intermittently for 20 years).

He served as an agent and distributor for the Hebrew newspapers HaMelitz and Hatzfira in Minsk, and supported projects such as the first aliyah settlements in Eretz Israel, the old-age home in Jerusalem and Talmud Torah in Jaffa.

His articles and essays were published in the Jewish periodicals of that period, including the newspapers Hamelitz and Hatzfira, and writings of Yehoshua Meizah's "Garden of Flowers", "Rabinowitz's Knesset Yisrael" and "Haasif" by Nahum Sokolov. He signed several of his poems under the pseudonym "Emunim" - wich means, a man of Minsk, whose name was Naphtali, known as Maskileison.

When the controversy over the Corfu etrogs and the desecrations of the colonies in Palestine took place, he published articles in which he described the matter from his point of view and even argued with several public figures in the newspapers. The controversy, which lasted several years, had a decisive impact on his business. At first he sided with Corfu. Later on, he was also a merchant in Eretz Israel, who were brought to the port city of Trieste in Italy (then within the Austro-Hungarian Empire). After some of the rabbis of Russia had banned Corfu, he abandoned trade in them and adopted trade in the etrogs of the Land of Israel. For this purpose he used to travel during the summer season to Jaffa, which at that time was the center of the etrog trade in the Land of Israel.

At the end of his life, he became ill with cancer, from which he died in his 69th year on Kislev 1898, leaving behind many writings that he did not manage to arrange and publish.

After his death, his sons continued to run their father's books and etrogs together with his son-in-law Yitzhak Leib Levin.

His Family

One of Naphtali Maskileison's grandchildren was American baseball player Tom Maskilieson [!] (1904-1993).