Rabbi Hillel Zeitlin, Perished in Warsaw ghetto, editor of “Der Sne”, 1920, 1st and only ed., Yiddish
Warsaw, 32pp., 22 x 14 cm., bound in wrapper, brown fragile paper.
Hillel Zeitlin (1871–1942) was a Yiddish and Hebrew writer and poet. A leading pre-Holocaust Jewish journalist, he was a regular contributor to the Yiddish newspaper Moment, among other literary activities. He was the leading thinker in the movement of pre-World War II "philosophical Neo-Hasidism
He was born in the Mogilev Governorate of the Russian Empire (present-day Gomel Region of Belarus) to a Chassidic Chabad family. Already in his childhood, he was recognized for his particularly sharp and analytical mind. When Zeiltin turned 15, his father died and he decided to become a Hebrew teacher.[citation needed]
His exit from the world of the Yeshiva exposed him to the works of the scholars of the Enlightenment. He began studying in earnest the works of both Jewish philosophers (Maimonides, Gersonides, Spinoza etc.) and non-Jewish ones such as Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and others. During this period in his life, he began questioning his religious beliefs and eventually drifted toward secularism.[citation needed]
After World War I, Zeitlin gradually returned to tradition and began leading an Orthodox lifestyle. The reason(s) for this drastic change in his life is not completely clear but may have had something to do with the suffering of Jews during the war.[citation needed] In any case, he shifted from a tragic philosophical outlook to a mystical and spiritual viewpoint. At the same time, Zeitlin remained independent and unconventional in his beliefs and actions. He did not, for instance, hesitate to eulogize his former friend the great writer and thinker Yosef Haim Brenner, who was an ardent secularist.[citation needed]
Zeitlin quoted a wide variety of Hasidic sources, but did not live in a Hasidic community or identify with a particular Hasidic group (although he did visit several prominent Hasidic Rebbes). Zeitlin endeavored to preserve what he called the "treasure" at the core of Hasidic teaching (which he considered to be obscured in his day by pseudo-intellectual trivialities and excessive concern for outward appearance), and to make it accessible not only to Jews of his era but to non-Jews. He considered the core of Hasidim to consist of three "loves": love of God, of Torah, and of Israel. Just as his intended audience consisted of assimilated Jews and non-Jews, he adopted novel formulations of these loves: "love of Torah" would come to encompass inspiring works of "secular" art and literature, while "love of Israel" would be transformed into "love of humanity" (despite which Israel would still be recognized as the "firstborn child of God"). Zeitlin's religious ideal also contained a socialist element: the Hasidim he pictured would refuse to take advantage of workers.[2]
Zeitlin also grew close to the territorialist movement and lent his support to the "Uganda proposal". Zeitlin was of the opinion that it would be impossible to settle in Palestine without removing the half a million Palestinian Arabs and so the Zionist proposals would fail.[3] He was a practical territorialist and his writings took on more urgency after the notorious pogroms in Kishinev and Homel.[citation needed]
When the Nazis began the genocide of Jewish People in Poland in 1942, Zeitlin was 71 years old. He was murdered by Nazis in the Warsaw ghetto[4] while holding a book of the Zohar and wrapped in a Tallit and Tefillin. Most of his family was also murdered; the only survivor was his elder son Aaron, who had settled in New York in 1939.
His sons, Aaron Zeitlin (1898-1973) and Elchanan Zeitlin (1900-1942), were also Yiddish writers.