Friedland, Moses Aryeh Löb

Russian philanthropist; born at Dünaburg, government of Vitebsk, Jan. 8, 1826; died at St. Petersburg Nov. 21, 1899. He was for more than thirty years general army-contractor for the Russian government; he was an honorary citizen of St. Petersburg, and received several medals from the government. An orphan asylum, to which a school of handicrafts is attached, was founded at St. Petersburg by Friedland, as well as a home for aged Jews (Moshab Zeḳenim) at Jerusalem. But his name is chiefly connected with the Bibliotheca Friedlandiana, a large library of Hebrew books, which Friedland presented (1890) to the Asiatic Museum of the Imperial Academy of Sciences. It contains three hundred volumes in manuscript, most of them on parchment, and more than ten thousand printed volumes, representing altogether 14,000 works, a great many of which are incunabula. The catalogue was compiled by Samuel Wiener; at present (1903) only the first four fascicles (through the letter ק, Nos. 1-3711), printed at the expense of Friedland, and under the title of "Ḳehillat Mosheh," have appeared.

Bibliography:

  * Ḥehillat Mosheh, Preface to part ii., St. Petersburg, 1896;
  * Jew. Chron. Dec. 8, 1899.



H. R. M. Sel.