Nathan Michael Gelber

Nathan Michael Gelber (May 27, 1891 – September 24, 1966) was a Galician Jewish historian, author, and Zionist activist who worked in Austria and Israel.

Life Gelber was born on May 27, 1891, in Lviv, Galicia, Austria-Hungary, the son of Nachman Gelber.

Gelber moved to Brody with his family in 1901. He graduated from the Brody high school in 1910, after which he began studying history and philosophy at the University of Berlin and the University of Vienna. He received a Ph.D. from the latter university in 1914. He then fought in World War I as a lieutenant in the Austro-Hungarian Army, serving in Serbia and Italy and receiving several war medals. He returned to Vienna in November 1918. He edited Wiener Morgenzeitung and Die Stimme during that time. He also co-founded the Academic Zionist Youth Organization in Galicia and Hatechiya in Vienna, was director of the World Zionist Congress Vienna office, served as secretary general of the 1927, 1929, and 1933 World Zionist Congresses, and edited Warsaw's Novoe Slovo from 1930 to 1931. He published close to a thousand books and articles in Hebrew, German, Yiddish, and Polish on Jewish history and contemporary Jewish life. He was also a contributor to, among other encyclopedias, the Juedisches Lexikon, the Encyclopaedia Judaica, and the Encyclopaedia Hebraica.