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Exercises for raising children. The text begins by informing that this discourse is a free translation from a work by Dr. Paul Radeshtak. The original, essentially a small work with voluminous notes in small letters, is here only the essentials of that work without the notes, for to translate the entire work would be a long and onerous task. Among his foirst observations is that a healthy intellect requires a healthy body. With that in mind, ha-Tirgelet is intended to establish a program for developing for the well being of the child.
The translator, Solomon Zalman Minor, (Zalkind; 1826–1900), was a writer and scholar, one of the pioneers of the Russian-Jewish intelligentsia. As a youth, he entered the newly opened government rabbinical seminary in Vilna and was one of its first two graduates—he was later a Talmud teacher in his seminary. Through the efforts of the maskilim he was elected kazyonny ravvin ("government-appointed rabbi") of the Minsk community in 1859. One of the first to preach in Russian in the synagogue, he became well known for his sermons, which were published in book form and served as models for other rabbis. Minor was active in the promotion of Haskalah in Minsk, and in 1869 he was invited to serve as rabbi in Moscow. In the early 1890s, when the Jews of Moscow were persecuted, he interceded with the authorities on behalf of his community and was consequently expelled from Moscow on the order of the governor of the city, the Grand Duke Sergei. He then returned to Vilna and continued his literary activity there. Minor published many articles in the Russian-Jewish and the Hebrew press, for the most part under the name "Remez."
Ha-Tirgelet was brought to press by Yehudah Leib Rabinovich (1862–1937), who served as editor of Ha-Meliz and later contributed articles to the Jewish press in the United States.
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