RAUSUK, SAMSON:

By: Joseph Jacobs, Goodman Lipkind

Hebrew poet; born at Wilkowiski, Lithuania, in 1793; died in London Sept. 11, 1877. He pursued at his native place the career of a merchant. On the occasion of the visit of Sir Moses Montefiore to Russia in 1846, Rausuk was one of the delegates appointed to receive him. He went to London in 1848, and held the post of librarian to the bet ha-midrash for nearly a quarter of a century. He was an erudite Hebraist and Talmudist, and possessed poetic powers of some werit. Many of his Hebrew compositions, dealing with subjects of passing interest, were published; he was regarded as the poet laureate of the London community for nearly thirty years.

J. G. L.