AVROM-SHMUEL ZAKHER

AVROM-SHMUEL ZAKHER (June 13, 1880-May 26, 1970).

            He was born in Raseyn (Raseiniai), Kovno district, Lithuania.  He studied in religious elementary school and in the yeshivas of Kelm (Kelmė) and Shavel (Šiauliai).  He completed the YIKO (Jewish Cultural Organization) teachers’ course in Grodno, later moving to the United States.  Over the years 1909-1911 he was a teacher in a Talmud Torah in Chicago, later settling in Montreal, Canada.  He was for many years a Yiddish-Hebrew teacher and cultural activist.  He began writing articles in Der veg (The way) in Montreal (1915), edited by Reuven Brainin, and from that time forward he published articles on Jewish education and religious issues in: Hatoran (The duty officer) in New York (1920); Keneder odler (Canadian eagle) in Montreal; and Idisher zhurnal (Jewish journal) in Toronto; among others.  In book form: Idishe geshikhte in fragn un entfers (Jewish history in questions and answers) (Montreal, 1937), 120 pp.—which appeared as well in an English adaptation by Rabbi Perlmuter (New York, 1939).  He died in Montreal.