Kalmanovich Zelik-Girsh (30.10.1881 (1885), Goldingen, Courland Governorate — 1944, near Narva) — linguist, translator, teacher, Yiddish philologist. Born into a glazier's family. Studied at a heder; in 1901, completed the gymnasium in Liepāja as an extern. In 1902–05, studied at Berlin University; in 1909–10, at Königsberg University, where he studied Semitics, philology and other sciences. From 1906, worked as a translator; wrote for “Folkshtime,” “Idishe tsaytung,” “Lebn un visnshaft”; worked at the B. Kletzkin publishing house in Vilna. In 1919, defended his doctoral dissertation at Petrograd University. In 1921, taught Yiddish at teachers' courses in Minsk. In 1922, went to Kaunas; also lived in Berlin and Riga, where he taught Yiddish at schools and edited the daily newspaper “Letste nays.” In 1925–28, taught Hebrew and biblical studies at the Jewish gymnasium in Panevėžys. In 1929, moved to Vilna, where he headed a Jewish school and was one of the directors of the scientific research institute YIVO (Yidisher Visnshaftlekher Institut) and editor of the bulletin “YIVO-bleter.” In 1941–43, was a prisoner in the Vilna Ghetto. On commission from the “Rosenberg Staff,” engaged in translating and sorting valuable Jewish books. In 1941, together with M. Balaban and I. Shipper, gave an expert opinion on the non-Jewish status of the Crimean-Lithuanian Karaites. In 1943, was taken by the Nazis to a concentration camp in Estonia; later transferred to another camp, where he died of exhaustion and disease. In the ghetto, he kept a diary in Hebrew, published in Yiddish in 1951 and in Hebrew in Tel Aviv (“Yoman be-geto Vilne”, 1977). K. was one of the most significant pioneers of modern Yiddish philology. His scholarly works are devoted to the Courland dialect of Yiddish, its syntax and borrowings from Hebrew and German. Translated into Yiddish numerous scholarly and literary works, including S.M. Dubnov's “Jewish History” and “History of Hasidism,” Josephus's “Jewish War,” and H.G. Wells's “World History.” His wife was a sister of Sh. Niger; his son Sh. Luria (b. 1920) is a well-known Israeli scholar of Hebrew and Yiddish literature.

REE; A. Feygmanis