Halperin, Yeḥiel
HALPERIN, YEḤIEL
HALPERIN, YEḤIEL (1880–1942), Hebrew educator. Born in Priluki, Ukraine, Halperin taught in Y. Adler's "progressive ḥeder" in Gomel and later in S.L. *Gordon's in Warsaw. In 1909 he established the first Hebrew kindergarten in Warsaw, and, in 1910, a Hebrew seminary for kindergarten teachers. At the outbreak of World War i (1914) Halperin moved to Odessa where he established a similar seminary. Emigrating to Palestine in 1920, he served as a supervisor of Hebrew kindergartens from 1922 to 1925, and was appointed head of the Kindergarten Department of the Lewinsky Teachers' Seminary in Tel Aviv (1926). In 1936 he founded a special college for kindergarten teaching in Tel Aviv, which continued to function until 1941. Halperin published a journal devoted to the Hebrew kindergarten, Ha-Ginnah (in Odessa, from 1918; then in Jerusalem from 1922). His collected works were published in three volumes: Shi'urim be-Torat Ḥinnukh ha-Tinokot (1944): Be-Keren Zavit (1945), kindergarten play songs; and Mah Sipper Yare'aḥ Li (1952), eight legends. His sons were the poet Yonathan *Ratosh and the philologist Uzzi Ornan.
bibliography:
Epstein, in: Hed ha-Ḥinnukh, 17 (1943), 59–62; 1. Gruenbaum, Penei ha-Dor, 1 (1957), 316–9; Spivak, in: D. Levin (ed.), Al ha-Rishonim (1959), 63–68.
[Gedalyah Elkoshi]