GERSHON-MEYER BOYARSKI (GERSHON-MEIR BOJARSKI)

GERSHON-MEYER BOYARSKI (GERSHON-MEIR BOJARSKI) (b. 1861/1862)

     He was the rabbi of Vasilkov (Vasylkiv), Grodno region.  In 1911, Mordechai Tsederboym of Petrikov (Pietrykaŭ) in Poland published Boyarski’s edifying book, Dem yeytser hore's shuhle (shul), in ziben klasen (The school of the evil inclination, in seven levels), 40 pp., an excerpt from his text, Regesh amarenu (Sermons) (Vilna, 1898, 1904).  On the title page: “This explains the evil inclination’s cunning to bring down American Jews from their parents’ Judaism bit by bit and over the long haul.”  Due to the “serious trouble facing our simple brethren,… I have not written my work in zhargon [Yiddish].”  Thus, he produced the simpler portion of this work in Yiddish.  Di falshkeyt fun der kefire sistem (The falsity of the system of atheism) is not the same work and appeared in a separate pamphlet (Petrikov, 1910/1911): “This teaches and explains the falsity of…the heretics of our time, who are simple, short-sighted, lustful men…”

[With some information drawn from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 50.]