HICKL, MAX

HICKL, MAX (1873–1924), one of the early Zionists in Moravia and a founder of the Po'alei Zion\>\> world movement. Born in Bruenn (now Brno), Hickl joined Herzl as soon as the latter appeared on the scene. He was also the chief organizer of the Jewish clerks in the Austrian commercial houses and eventually formed the first Po'alei Zion group out of this organization. Hickl was the founder of Juedische Volksstimme, a German-language Zionist weekly that made its first appearance in 1900, and he edited it for a quarter of a century; in the paper's early years, B. Feiwel\>\> and R. Stricker\>\> were Hickl's assistants. For a number of years he published Juedischer Volkskalender, an almanac that included outstanding Zionist writers among its contributors and German translations of Hebrew and Yiddish literature. During World War I, when he moved to Vienna, Hickl founded a publishing company that put out German-language Zionist books as well as Hebrew books and the Hebrew monthly Gevulot. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: M. Singer, Be-Reshit ha-Ẓiyyonut ha-Soẓyalistit (1958), 446; The Jews of Czechoslovakia, 1 (1968), index; Wininger, Biog, 3 (1928), 100. (Getzel Kressel)