- Museum of Jewish Montreal
- Reuben Brainin
- Reuben Brainin - Yidishe Folks Bibliotek and Folks-Universitat (3545 St-Urbain)
Reuben Brainin - Yidishe Folks Bibliotek and Folks-Universitat (3545 St-Urbain)
file1914
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Where
- Held by
- Museum of Jewish Montreal via Museum of Jewish Montreal — map of Jewish Montreal
- Creator
- Richard Kreitner
- Dates
- 1914 (indexed as 1914)
- Level
- file (source: Exhibit)
- Scope & content
- Reuben Brainin, Hebraist, writer and editor of Hebrew and Yiddish, was born in 1862 in Liady (present-day Belarus), the town of Rabbi Schneur Zalman, the founder of Chabad Lubavitch . Brainin studied in nearby Vitebsk, first reading traditional religious texts and then more secular and Zionist works related to the Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment). He later moved to Vienna, where he became an increasingly prominent figure in Jewish intellectual life, writing prolifically and editing a journal. It was there that he became an early convert to Herzlian Zionism. He continued to edit Hebrew and Yiddish intellectual journals, translate, and produce his own works after relocating to Berlin in 1896. When Brainin moved to New York in 1910, he was one of the world’s most prominent proponents of the Hebrew language. In 1912, Brainin moved again to Montreal, where he began a three-year stint editing the Yiddish-language community paper Keneder Adler and thereafter the rival daily Der Veg , which was formed to challenge the more affluent, assimilationist members of the Jewish community, and to support the creation of a national Jewish congress. Brainin became involved in community politics, including labour strife in 1914 (during which he acted as a mediator between the two sides), and refugee relief efforts during World War I. Along with Yehudah Kaufman, Brainin opened a Jewish reading room in 1914, which eventually became Montreal’s renowned Jewish Public Library . In that same year, he also played an important role in creating the Yidishe Folks Shule (Jewish People’s School) . For the fledgling Montreal Jewish intellectual community, Brainin was a central figure, a pioneer, and an inspiration to the generations of writers who would, in the ensuing decades, make the community the locus of Jewish literary activity it eventually became. In 1916, Brainin returned to New York to edit the Hebrew journal Ha-Toren . He remained influential until a public dispute in the late 1920s over his support of Jewish settlement in Soviet Birobidzan. This led to a failed lawsuit against Chaim Nachman Bialik and his complete estrangement from the Hebraist-Zionist movement. Brainin then turned almost exclusively to writing in Yiddish. Though based in New York, he kept close ties to Montreal, where his children resided, and he often spent summers in the Laurentians. He died in 1939, with the request that he be buried in Montreal, and that his books be donated to the Jewish Public Library, where his archive still exists. Compiled by Richard Kreitner
- Places
- 3545 St-Urbain, Montreal; 3545 rue St-Urbain, Montreal
- Location
- 3545 rue Saint-Urbain · address · confidence 90% · address:exact · found as “3545 St-Urbain”
- Keneder Adler · landmark · confidence 80% · landmark:curated · found as “keneder adler”
- Subjects
- Literature
- Language
- English
- Harvested
- 2026-10-17T06:33:35Z · source datestamp n/a · mjm