Rabbi Solomon Klonitsky-Kline

Maternal grandfather of singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen, Rabbi Solomon Klonitsky-Kline wrote a book called Otzar Taamei Hazal (New York 1939) which was a compilation of the various interpretations to biblical verses found in Talmudic literature, arranged according to the order of the Torah, with his own notes.

Rabbi Solomon Klonitsky-Kline was known as "Sar HaDikduki", the Prince of Grammarians. And he wrote a thesaurus of Talmudic interpretation and a dictionary of synonyms and homonyms. They were used in institutions of higher learning until Israel took over the grammatical institution. People travelled long distances to hear him speak. He was the principal of a yeshiva in Kovno, a disciple of Rabbi Yitzchak Elchanan and, in fact closed his teacher's eyes when his teacher died.

He had a very strong secular side to him. He rode, for instance. He liked to ride horses. He was a kind of confrontational teacher, especially when he got to New York, where he ended up. He came first to Atlanta, where his daughter married into the Alexander family of Georgia, who were Jews who arrived in 1708, and he originally moved to Atlanta.

But there was nothing there for him in Atlanta, so he moved to New York and he became part of the Forward and that group of Yiddish writers although didn't contribute to any of the newspapers. But he kept on with his grammatical and Talmudic studies. Source