Boris Klatzkin — Association of Jews of Vilna and vicinity in Israel

Boris Klatzkin (1875-1937) was one of the greatest Yiddish publishers before the Holocaust. He came from a wealthy, well-connected Jewish family who could trace their rabbinic ancestry back ten generations. Boris's father broke the rabbinic dynasty, became a wood merchant and prospered. Boris began as a salesman of Yiddish books in working circles and with members of the Bund in Vilna and the vicinity. With his father's help he set up a small publishing house, buying a printing business and publishing low-cost books for the poor.

In 1910 he set up a large publishing house Boris Klatzkin's Vilna Publishing House which became very famous. He published the books of the leading writers of the period (Shalom Ash, Shalom Aleichem, Moyshe Kulbak,  Joseph Opatoshu, Isaac Leib Peretz etc. )as well as the first children's newspaper in Yiddish Grinninke Beimalach which appeared regularly from 1914 to 1939. In 1931 he accumulated massive debts, went bankrupt and, because of the changing market conditions, the publishing house was closed and thousands of books were left unsold.

He died in 1936, embittered, laden with debts and disappointed by the Jewish readers and book buyers.

In the National Library in Jerusalem there are several catalogs in Yiddish from his publishing house.

In his novel The Strong and the Weak, Alter Katzina, a friend of Klatzkin's, based Berl Pudolski, the hero, on Klatzkin.

Translated from: Wikipedia