Arye Myer (Arnold) Kaizer was a writer, humourist, journalist and also an Anglo-Jewish communal leader. However, the story starts with his father, Rabbi Alter Noah Michalensky, who was born in 1852 in Neschitz, near Kovel. He was the first Chassidic Rebbe to settle in London. In January 1895 he came to London, bringing his three year old son, Arye Myer. At some point Rabbi Michalensky changed his name to Kaizer, and so his son wrote as ‘A. M. Kaizer’.
Arnold Kaizer served in the Jewish Legion in World War I and was chairman of the Association of Jewish Writers and Journalists in England. He emigrated to Tel Aviv in 1967, but died there a few months later.
As well as being a journalist and author, A.M. Kaizer was the Secretary of the Federation of Jewish Relief Organizations, which was based in Woburn House, London, and did serious relief work for the Jews of Europe.
This is a nice book – readable and entertaining. In the 1930s and 1940s, Kaizer was a regular contributor to the Yiddish daily newspaper Di Zeit and wrote weekly humorous sketches about life in the Jewish community of the East End of London. This book, Bei Unz in Veitshepel, is a collection of these articles. My copy has a signed inscription.
I am often asked if I can translate some of my Yiddish books – but in this case I don’t have to. Those who are interested should read ‘London Yiddishtown’, an absolutely excellent book which I recommend by Vivi Lachs, in which she not only introduces the reader to some of London’s Yiddish writers, but translates a number of sections of this book. These include the three that I have scanned below – The Introduction, Whitechapel in the Spring and Moses (Moshe Rabbenu) in London.
Jewish Miscellanies 