Shmuel Niger 1907-1950s
This collection contains the personal and professional papers of Shmuel Niger, including correspondence with many important literary figures, as well as manuscripts by Niger, writings about Niger written by others, Niger’s speeches and lectures, selections from his published writings, and biograph...
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| Format: | Manuscript |
| Language: | English German Russian Spanish |
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| Online Access: | http://digital.cjh.org/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=426473&custom_att_2=simple_viewer |
| Summary: | This collection contains the personal and professional papers of Shmuel Niger, including correspondence with many important literary figures, as well as manuscripts by Niger, writings about Niger written by others, Niger’s speeches and lectures, selections from his published writings, and biographical materials. These materials serve to illustrate Niger’s great importance to Yiddish literary criticism and Jewish historical writing as well as his role as a writer on contemporary themes, a teacher and lecturer, editor and communal leader. Correspondence with several thousand individuals, 1907-1961, including S. An-Ski, Shalom Asch, David Bergelson, Nathan Birnbaum, Menahem Boraisha, Ber Borochov, Marc Chagall, Jacob Dinesohn, Simon Dubnow, Aaron Glanz- Leieles, Jacob Glatstein, Chaim Grade, Reuben Iceland, Leon Kobrin, Louis Lamed, Leibush Lehrer, H. Leivick, Jacob Lestschinsky, Abraham Liessin, Joseph Opatoshu, Isaac Leib Peretz, David Pinsky, Alexander Pomerantz, Moshe Starkman, Isaac Nachman Steinberg, Abraham Sutzkever, Max Weinreich, Chaim Zhitlowsky. Family correspondence, 1909-1960, with Niger's mother, wife, children, brothers Daniel Charney and Baruch Vladeck, other relatives. Letters from readers of Niger's columns. Correspondence with hundreds of organizations including Yiddish periodicals, publishing houses, educational and cultural institutions, professional associations, especially institutions he was closely involved with such as the YIVO, Congress for Jewish Culture, Louis Lamed Fund, *The Day*, I. L. Peretz Yiddish Writers' Union, *Zukunft*. Manuscripts and typescripts of major works by Niger on Isaac Leib Peretz, Shalom Asch, H. Leivick, Isaac Meir Dick. Bibliographical materials on various topics in Yiddish literature. Speeches and lectures. Manuscripts of other writers, including Salo Baron, Daniel Charney, Philip Friedman, Szmerke Kaczerginski, Yona Rosenfeld, Abraham Reisen. Clippings of Niger's regular columns published in *The Day* (*Der tog*), *Day-Morning Journal* (*Der tog-morgn zhurnal*), *Di yidishe velt*. Niger's aricles pertaining to other writers, or on topics of Jewish interest, such as Jewish education, Yiddish literature, Zionism, religious issues, the Holocaust, Niger's travels. Clippings by other writers about Niger. Biographical materials about Niger, 1907-1957. Manuscripts and notebooks of Niger's diary. Materials on Niger's activities in Russia during World War I, and his immigration to the U.S. Personal documents suc in vitation to the Czernowitz Conference on Yiddish, 1908. Materials relating to copyright. Obituaries. Labeled Inventory, English, 64 pp., typed Pen name of Shmuel Charney. Prominent Yiddish literary critic and historian. Active in Yiddish cultural and community organizations. Contributed to numerous newspapers and periodicals, among them *Di yidishe velt* (Vilna), *Der tog* (New York), and the *Jewish Daily Forward* (New York). Edited or co-edited periodicals and books, including: the first volume of the *Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur un prese*, edited by Zalmen Reisen, Vilna, 1914; *Zukunft*, New York; *Kinder zhurnal*, New York; *Dos naye lebn*, New York; *Zhitlovski-zamlbukh*, New York; *Ale verk fun I.L. Peretz*; first volume of the *Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literature*, New York, 1956. Niger held important positions in many Jewish organizations, among them, the following: president, Sholem Aleichem Folk Institute; member of the Research Commission and of the Executive Board of the YIVO Institute; founder and president of the Louis Lamed Fund for Jewish Literature in Yiddish and Hebrew; co-founder of the World Congress for Jewish Culture; chairman of the *Groyser verterbukh fun der yidisher shprakh* (Great Dictionary of the Yiddish Language). Teacher of Yiddish literature at the Jewish Teacher's Seminary, New York. Niger was also active in CYCO (Central Yiddish Culture Organization), Jewish Writers Union, Yiddish Pen Club, Jewish Publication Society of America. Born in Dukor, District of Minsk, Byelorussia. Immigrated to the U.S. in 1919 and settled in New York. Shmuel (Samuel) Niger, pen name of Samuel Charney (Niger is the Latin equivalent for the Polish word "czarny" meaning black), a major Yiddish literary critic and historian and leading communal leader, was born on June 15, 1883 (in his passports the erroneous date is 1885) in the town of Dukor, Minsk region, White Russia. His father, Zev-Wolf, a Lubavitch Hasid, who was a leather shopkeeper, died at a young age in 1889, and his mother Brokhe, nee Hurevitz, raised her six children alone, including Borukh-Nakhman, later B. Charney Vladeck, general manager of the Jewish Daily Forward and New York City alderman, and Donye, later Daniel Charney, Yiddish poet, writer and journalist. Up to the age of 13, Niger studied in kheyder (religious Hebrew elementary school) and in the yeshiva (institution of higher Talmudic learning) of Berezin. In 1898 he went to Minsk and studied in the Tatar Synagogue and in the House of Study. He also studied among the Musernikes (adherents of a Jewish religious movement which stresses moral edification) in Kameroika, a suburb of Minsk, where he was regarded as â€the prodigy of Dukor.†He was accredited to receive ordination as a rabbi, but became instead attracted to secular culture and Zionism. He joined the circle of the first Poale Zionists in Minsk, became active in the group and wrote propagandistic materials for it. In 1904-1905 he participated in the founding conference of the Zionist-Socialist party (S.S.) in Odessa, becoming one of its leaders. Due in part to these activities, he was arrested a number of times and was imprisoned in Minsk, Warsaw, Dvinsk (Daugavpils) and Odessa. From 1909-1911 he attended the Universities of Berlin and Berne, where he studied philosophy. |
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