Chaim Hurwitz

Chaim Huwitz was a lumber merchant, a Yiddish writer and pioneer of the Haskalah in Russia, born in Uman, Ukraine. As a lumber merchant he made frequent trips to Germany, where he came into contact with the followers of the German Haskalah. In 1817 he published a free Yiddish adaptation of Joachim Campe’s “Entdeckung von Amerika” (“Discovery of America”) which he called “Tsofnas Paneakh” (“Revealer of Secrets”). The purpose of the publication was to inform the Jewish readers about the New World, and was popular among the Jews of Russia, Poland, and Galicia. The work is considered as an important part of the pre-classical period of Yiddish literature.