BICK, JACOB SAMUEL

BICK, JACOB SAMUEL (1772–1831), Hebrew writer and one of the pioneers of haskalah in Galicia. Bick, a friend of solomon judah rapoport , translated French and English poems into Hebrew and published delightful, satirical letters in Bikkurei ha-Ittim, Kerem Ḥemed, and in the anthology Ha-Ẓefirah, edited by letteris . Bick, like other Galician maskilim of his day, began by scoffing at the boorish Ḥasidim, but his strong attachment to the common people and his love of tradition ledto a change in his views. When tobias feder published his pamphlet Kol Meḥaẓeẓim (1816), criticizing menahem lefin (Levin Mendel of Satanov) for having translated the Book of Proverbs into Yiddish, Bick defended Lefin and argued that one should be pleased that the book had been made accessible to the people in a language that they understood. Most of Bick's literary works were destroyed by fire. However, shortly before World War II, Dov Sadan discovered the manuscripts of three anti-ḥasidic Hebrew plays written by Bick in the Joseph Perl library in Tarnopol. These plays probably belong to Bick's early period. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: S. Werses, in: YIVO Bleter, 13 (1938), 505–36; G. Bader, Medinah va-Ḥakhameha (1934), 36–7; D. Sadan, Mazkeret Levi (1953), 96–108. (Gedalyah Elkoshi)