MENDLIN, JACOB WOLF:
Russian Hebrew economist; born at Moghilef-on-the-Dnieper 1842. He was the first of the Hebrew writers to treat of economic questions in their application to the condition of the Jewish masses in Russia. About 1862 he went to Germany, where he studied the labor movement under Lassalle. This movement roused his ambition to go more deeply into the study of economics and cooperation.
In 1879 Mendlin made his first appearance as a writer in "Ha-Meliẓ," with an article on the economic condition of the Russian Jews; and since then he has contributed articles on the same and allied questions to "Ha-Ẓefirah," "Ha-Meliẓ," "Ruskii Yevrei," "Voskhod," and "Ulei." Mendlin hasalso written: "Ba-Meh Niwwashea'" (St. Petersburg, 1883), four essays on the improvement of the economic condition of the Jews in Russia; "Meḳore ha-'Osher" (Odessa, 1898), a politico-economic study; and "Quellen fun Selbsthilfe" (in Yiddish), ib. 1894. In these writings Mendlin points to the mutual aid and cooperative organizations as the most effective means of improving the wretched condition of the Jewish masses in Russia. Mendlin also effected the founding of certain charitable institutions in the Jewish community of Odessa, where he is now (1904) living.
- Khronika Voskhoda, 1904, No. 15.
