HIRSZOWICZ, ABRAHAM

HIRSZOWICZ, ABRAHAM (second half of the 18th century), wealthy merchant, purveyor to the court, and financial agent to King Stanislas Augustus Poniatowski. Active in   the efforts of the maskilim to improve the status of the Jews, he submitted to the king and the Four Years' Sejm (in 1791) a memorandum on the improvement of the condition of the Jews of Poland. In it he suggested that those Jews who had no means of livelihood should be employed in public works. He also advocated professional training for adolescent Jewish youth; the abolition of the restrictions preventing Jews from engaging in crafts; encouraging the Jews toward agricultural settlement by offering them land in the Ukraine; the prohibition of wearing luxurious clothing (especially of silk); raising the legal age of marriage; the abolition of rabbinical positions in small towns; and the establishment of hospitals for needy Jews in every town, as well as Jewish representation in every province ("syndykatura generalna"). -BIBLIOGRAPHY: W. Smoleński, Ostatni rok Sejmu Wielkiego (1897), 446–51; M. Bałaban, Historja i literatura żydowska, 3 (1925), 421; I. Schiper (ed.), Dzieje handlu żydowskiego na ziemiach polskich (1937), 272, 282–3, 329; N.M. Gelber, in: Miesięcznik żydowski, 2 (1932), 337–9. (Arthur Cygielman)