JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

safe houses, and he himself avoided identification and deportation;
he also took part in the Warsaw ghetto uprising. After
the war he wrote as a correspondent for Israeli and American
newspapers, and for the European Yiddish press.
Immigrating to New York via Paris, he began a lifelong
friendship with Chaim *Grade. In 1948 he arrived in New
York and became active in Zionist causes. Shortly after the
death of his first wife in 1955 he moved to Montreal, where he
remained until his death.
Although he wrote belles lettres from the beginning
of his career and published a book of short stories, Unter
Kuperne Himlen (“Under Copper Skies”), in 1951, his greatest
literary works came later in life. The novel Afn Shpits fun
a Mast (Ship of the Hunted) appeared in 1974, followed in
quick succession by five more novels and two collections of
short stories between 1976 and 1987. His masterwork was
the 1983 Kalman Kalikes Imperye (The Empire of Kalman the
Cripple). In the 1990s he turned his attention to translating
his work, publishing both Ship of the Hunted and The Empire
of Kalman the Cripple in 1997. His short story “837” was
made into a play and is frequently anthologized. These three
works constitute his most important contributions to Yiddish
literature. They have appeared in Spanish, Hebrew, French,
and German as well as English. During the 1980s he won the
Manger Prize and Israel’s Prime Minister’s Award for literature.
Bibliography: B.E. Galli, “Yehuda Elberg’s Wounded Words
Unfolding: Uttering the Holocaust’s Unutterability,” in: Literature and
Theology, 15:4 (2001), 396f; LNYL, 6, 587f; C.L. Fuks, 100 Yor Yidishe un
Hebreishe Literatur in Kanade (1980), 191f; Forward (Oct. 31, 2003).
[Faith Jones (2nd ed.)]
ELBLAG (Ger. Elbing), a city near Gdansk (Danzig), Poland,
from 1772 to 1945 in Germany. Jews were reported to have
been burned there during the *Black Death. There were no
Jews living in Elblag after the first partition of Poland in 1772,
but in 1783 Moses Simon was permitted to settle in the city
and provide for visiting Jewish merchants, obtaining a trade
license in 1800. There were 33 Jewish families in 1812 and 42
in 1816, all of whom had been granted the right of settlement
despite opposition from the local merchants. The community
opened a cemetery in 1811, an elementary school in 1823, and
a synagogue and mikveh in 1824. A rabbi was engaged from
1879. In 1932 the community numbered 460 and maintained
three charitable and five welfare organizations, and a school
attended by 60 children. The synagogue was burned down by
the Nazis on Nov. 10, 1938, and most of the homes and shops
of the Jews there were looted. Part of the communal archives
(1811–1936) are in the Central Archives for the History of the
Jewish People in Jerusalem. There has not been an organized
Jewish community in Elblag since World War II.
Bibliography: Neufeld, in: Zeitschrift fuer die Geschichte
der Juden, 2 (1965), 1–14; 5 (1968), 127–49; 7 (1970), 131f.; Neufeld, in:
AWJD (March 25, 1966); Germ Jud, 2 (1968), 200.
[Ze’ev Wilhem Falk]
elcan, marcus
ELBOGEN, ISMAR (1874–1943), scholar, teacher, and public
figure. Elbogen was born in Schildberg, Posen province, and
studied at the Breslau Rabbinical Seminary. Israel *Lewy, the
famous Talmud critic, was the teacher who most influenced
him. In 1899 he began teaching Jewish history and biblical exegesis
at the Collegio Rabbinico Italiano in Florence. While in
Italy he perfected his knowledge in Italian Jewish history and
literature. In 1903 he joined the faculty of the Hochschule fuer
die Wissenschaft des Judentums in Berlin, teaching many subjects
and for many years was involved unofficially in directing
the institution. He was involved in the organizational life of
German Jews, heading important committees and commissions.
In 1938, in the wake of Nazi persecution, Elbogen immigrated
to New York. He was appointed research professor
simultaneously at four institutions: Jewish Theological Seminary,
Hebrew Union College, Jewish Institute of Religion, and
Dropsie College.
His scholarly interests were chiefly in Jewish history and
the history of Jewish liturgy. His major work, Derjuedische
Gottesdienst in seiner geschichtliehen Entwicklung (19133), is
a comprehensive and important work on Jewish liturgy; it
traces the history of the prayers said in the synagogue. His
other works are devoted to Jewish history and are written in
a popular style. His Century of Jewish Life (1944) was planned
as a sequel to *Graetz’s history. Elbogen devoted his attention
also to the history of *Wissenschaft des Judentums and
set forth a program for Jewish scholarship that, in addition
to describing the Jewish past, would be a guide for the Jewish
present and future. He was one of the editors for the periodical
Devir (1923–24); Germania Judaica (2 vols., 1917–34); the
jubilee edition of Moses Mendelssohn’s collected works, of
which only six volumes appeared (1929–32); Zeitschrift fuer die
Geschichte der Juden in Deutschland (vols. 1–7, 1929–38); Juedisches
Lexikon (4 vols. in 5, 1927–30); Encyclopaedia Judaica
(vols. 1–9, 1928–34); Eshkol (2 vols., 1929–32); and Universal
Jewish Encyclopedia (10 vols., 1939–43). He was an active participant
in the Liberal movement in the German Jewish community.
He took part in writing the Liberal prayer book for
German Jews, Tefillot le-Kol ha-Shanah: Gebetbuch fuer das
ganze Jahr bearbeitet im Auftrage des Liberalen Kultus (1932),
which in the main reflects his spirit. He restored to the liturgy
those prayers that had been removed by the reformers
in their desire to eradicate the concept of Jewish peoplehood
from the Jewish religion. He also wrote Geschichte der Juden
in Deutschland (1935).
Bibliography: R. Elbogen, in: HJ, 8 (1946), 69–94, a bibliography
of I. Elbogen’s writings; A. Marx, in: I. Elbogen, Century
of Jewish Life (1944), xi–xx; M. Wiener, in: HJ, 6 (1944), 95–98; S.W.
Baron, in: JSS, 6 (1944), 91–92; E. Rosenthal, in: YLBI, 8 (1963), 3–28;
J.H. Kaplan, in: CCARY, 25 (1915), 403–13, a review of Elbogen’s major
work. Add. Bibliography: M.A. Meyer, The Life and Thought of
the Jewish Historian Ismar Elbogen (2004).
ELCAN, MARCUS (c. 1757–1808), early settler of Richmond,
Virginia. Elcan probably was born in Germany. He arrived
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