He was educated in various Yeshivas and privately by his father, the "Navaredker Mathmid". In 1871 he went to Palestine; but several years later he was obliged to return to Vilna, where he engaged in busyness. Losing his entire fortune, he became first a proofreader, then manager of his wife's stocking factory, a position which necessitated his traveling to distant localities, even as far as Caucasia, where he preached piety and orthodoxy to the scattered Jewish communities.
To counteract the spread of heretical Yiddish literature he began to issue in 1900 a series of modernistic ethical and moralistic tales Maase Alfes. Despite its grave literary defects, the book went through 12 editions, and selections of it were printed in various weekday and festival prayerbooks. Alfes also translated into Yiddish Shaare Teshubah (Gates of Repentance) by Rabbi Jonah Gerondi, Tzavaath Harambam (Ethical Will of Maimonides), and other ethical works. He likewise published books of other authors, which were calculated to inculcate religious sentiment, popular sermons for the festivals and works in Hebrew.
In 1923 he issued a series of pamphlets against "proletarians and radicals". His final years were spent in a home for the aged, Palestine.
Source:
This text was reproduced by Michael E. Alfes (his grand-grandson) from "The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia".
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Last Updated: Apr 3, 1997
