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1,092 records
Kafka, Franz
(1883–1924), writer. A Jewish writer who was born and lived most of his life in Prague, Franz Kafka was one of the most important contributors to European modernist prose. All of his surviving fiction was composed in Ger…
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Kaganovich, Lazar’ Moiseevich
(1893–1991), Communist Party and Soviet government official. The son of a struggling artisan, Lazar’ Kaganovich was born in the Chernobyl district, Kiev province. An autodidact, from the age of 14 he worked in Kiev as a …
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Kaganovski, Froyim
(1893–1958), author and storyteller. Froyim Kaganovski was born in Warsaw, but few facts about his background and early years are available. It is known that he displayed an aptitude for painting and studied at an art sc…
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Kahana, Yehudah
(ca. 1740–1819), rabbi and author. Born in Kalisz (in what was to become Galicia), Yehudah Kahana was the eldest of four sons of Yosef ha-Kohen, who traced his lineage to the seventeenth-century rabbi Yom Tov Lipmann Hel…
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Kahaneman, Yosef Shelomoh
(1886–1969), rabbi, head of yeshiva, and communal activist. Kahaneman was born in Kool (Kuliai), Lithuania. In 1896 he left home to study in the nearby small town of Plungian (Plunge) and in 1901 continued his education …
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Kalecki, Michał
(1899–1970), economist. Michał Kalecki was born in Łódź to a middle-class Jewish family. His regular studies were made difficult by familial and financial problems, so he mastered mathematics and economics on his own. Hi…
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Kalischer, Tsevi Hirsh
(1795–1874), rabbi and the most prominent “harbinger of Zionism.” Tsevi Hirsh Kalischer was born in Leszno (Lissa) in western Poland. He was a disciple of Ya‘akov Lorbeerbaum of Lissa and of Akiva Eger, two of the leadin…
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Kalmanovitch, Zelig
(1881–1944), Yiddish linguist and translator. Born in Goldingen, Courland, Zelig Kalmanovitch (Yid., Kalmanovitsh) received a traditional education until the age of 15. In 1901, he passed the external examinations for a …
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Kamelhar, Yekuti’el
(1871–1937), rabbi, educator, and publisher. Born in Kołaczyce, Galicia, Yekuti’el Kamelhar was educated in Tarnów, where he was exposed to Hasidism. He gained experience as a religious educator, heading a group of Talmu…
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Kamenev, Iurii
(Lev Borisovich Rosenfel’d; 1883–1936), a principal leader of the Bolshevik party and the early Soviet government. Apprenticed in radical politics during his high school and truncated university careers, Kamenev was an e…
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Kaminer, Yitsḥak
(1834–1901), Hebrew poet, physician, and socialist. Yitsḥak Kaminer was born in Levkiev, near Zhitomir. As a child, he received a traditional education, but also began to read Hebrew scientific and Haskalah literature. H…
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Kaminka, Aharon
(1866–1950), Hebrew poet, playwright, translator, and scholar. Aharon (Armand) Kaminka was born in Berdichev, Kiev province. In 1880, he was sent to Berlin to study at the rabbinical college founded by Esriel Hildesheime…
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Kanfer, Mojżesz
(1880–1942), publicist, literary and theater critic, and translator. Born in Buczacz, Galicia, Mojżesz Kanfer received both a religious and a secular education. He studied law in Lwów, earning a doctorate in 1908. After …
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Kantor, Yehudah Leib
(1849–1915), editor and author; acclaimed for developing the feuilleton as a genre in the Jewish press. Yehudah Leib Kantor was born in Vilna, where his father Yosef served as a cantor in the main synagogue. A promising …
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Kantorovich, Leonid Vital’evich
(1912–1986), Soviet mathematician and economist, Nobel Prize laureate. Born into a family of physicians in Saint Petersburg, Kantorovich went right from his nine-year primary school to the Department of Physics and Mathe…
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Kaplan, Fannie Efimovna
(1890–1918), failed assassin of Vladimir Lenin. On 30 August 1918, Fannie Kaplan was arrested for having shot and wounded Vladimir Lenin in Moscow. At 4:00 A.M. on 4 September, she was executed in a Kremlin parking lot a…
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Kapper, Siegfried
(1821–1879), Czech and German poet, writer, and translator. Siegfried (Salomon) Kapper studied philosophy at Prague University (1837–1839) and medicine in Vienna (1841–1846), earning his doctorate in medicine in 1847. He…
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Kara, Avigdor
(d. 1439), rabbi, Talmudic scholar, kabbalist, and poet. Very little is known about the life of Avigdor Kara, a contemporary of Yom Tov Lipmann Mülhausen. Kara survived the “Bloody Easter” pogrom in Prague during Passove…
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Karelits, Avraham Yesha‘yahu
(1878–1953), Talmudic scholar and Orthodox religious authority. Avraham Yesha‘yahu Karelitz, known as Ḥazon Ish, was one of the most prominent religious authorities of the twentieth century and a major leader of Ḥaredi J…
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Karinthy, Ferenc
(1921–1992), novelist, playwright, and short-story writer. Ferenc Karinthy was part of a literary family whose members have been present on the Hungarian cultural scene for nearly a century. In a two-volume family histor…
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