He was born in 1862 in Motele, near Pinsk, Poland.

His father was a prominent patrician in the city, conducted a great deal of business.

He learned in a cheder, then spent yearlong in Gemora and Puskim, learning for himself and from a rabbi, at the same time taking up with secular studies and manifesting especially an ability for mathematics. After his marriage, he settled with hardships in Krivoy-Rog, where he became an [eyzenkremer], but he wasn't able to get used to living in the community, and he went away around 1900 to Odessa, where he was ready to graduate, and he entered into a circle of the Odessa Yiddish writers and he went into social work. In 1904-05 he became a teacher.

In 1903 he debuted in "Freynd" with a [fareydishung] of Krilov's, a mashal, and then he became one of the interesting Yiddish writers of meshalim, journalism, popular scientific articles, a translator of literary novels and researcher of Yiddish philology.

During wartime M. remained in Russia, experiencing hunger and goiter, and on 14 January 1917 he passed away from stomach cancer in Yekaterinoslav.

After his death, from Yekaterinoslav's publishing house "Veysnshaft" came his book "Meshulim", and in 1920 his operat "Khn unbya", about which Zalmen Reyzen remarked that fragments of his were earlier published in "Freynd", and in Avraham Reyzen's "dos neye land", and that the book was published from copies, because no original work remains.

A. I. Grodzenski noted [dem hipkh]: the book was published thanks to the efforts of M.'s friend Shapozhnikov, with whom M.'s [ktub-idn] remains, and "after a tragedy: he had written an opera. The first Yiddish original opera "Khn unbya", and his entire life he searched for a Yiddish musical, for which he should write the compositions and not find them (?), because of the royalty for the composer..."

• Z. Reyzen -- "Lexicon of Yiddish Literature", Vol. II, pp. 482-91.

• A. I. Grodzenski -- R' mrdkhi'le (khayim cherminski), "Tsukunft", N. Y., January 1932.

• Nakhman Meyzel -- Tsum onderk a merkvirdiker perzenlekhkeyt, "Literarishe bleter", Warsaw, 6, 1932.