Saul Ginsburg

Saul Ginsburg (Sha'ul Moiseevich Ginsburg, שאול גינזבורג; born Minsk, 1866 – died New York, 16 November 1940) was a Jewish-Belarusian American author, editor, and historian of Russian Jewry.

Biography Ginsburg was born in Minsk, in the Russian Empire. He received both a traditional Jewish and a secular education. In 1891 he graduated with a law degree from the University of St. Petersburg.

In 1892 Ginsburg began writing for the Russian-Jewish periodical Voskhod in St. Petersburg, where he remained for the next several decades. His contributions to Voskhod included articles on Russian Jewish history, and a regularly appearing survey of the Hebrew press (under the pseudonym "Ha-Kore"). In 1899 he became a member of the editorial board. He continued to teach there until the institute closed, in 1925, by which time the Soviet Union had been established (in 1922), and the city had been renamed Leningrad (in 1924).

Ginsburg emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1930, settling at first in Paris. Around 1933 he immigrated to the United States and settled in New York City. Bronislawa Ginsburg sometimes assisted her husband in his research and writing, and the preparation of articles for the newspaper. Michael Ginsburg went on to have a distinguished career in the United States as a professor of Slavic studies.

Published works In Yiddish

Historishe verk [Historical works]. 3 vols. New York: Shoyl Ginzburg 70-Yoriger Yubiley Komitet [Saul Ginsburg Testimonial Committee], 1937–1938. Vol. 1. Fun idishen leben un shafen in Tsarishen Rusland [Jewish struggles and achievements in Czarist Russia]. Part 1. Vol. 2. Fun idishen leben un shafen in Tsarishen Rusland [Jewish struggles and achievements in Czarist Russia]. Part 2. Vol. 3. Idishe layden in Tsarishen Rusland [Jewish martyrdom in Czarist Russia]. Includes a bibliography of Ginsburg's works, 1892-1937, by Isaac Rivkind (p. 377-416). Amolike Petersburg: forshungen un zikhroynes vegn yidishn lebn in der residents-shtot [Petersburg as it was: research and memories about Jewish life in the imperial capital]. New York, Saul Ginsburg shriftn-komitet, 1944. Meshumodim in Tsarishn Rusland [=Jewish apostates in Czarist Russia]. New York: CYCO-bicher-farlag, 1946. Co-authored with P. S. Marek: Yiddish Folksongs in Russia. Photoreproduction of the 1901 St. Petersburg edition. Edited and annotated, and with an introduction by Dov Noy. Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1991. Folksongs in Yiddish characters and romanization; introductions in Russian and Yiddish. Evreskiia narodnyia piesni v Rossii. St. Petersburg: Redaktsiia "Voskhoda", 1901. Original edition, with folksongs in Yiddish characters and romanization; introductions in Russian.

In English

The Drama of Slavuta. Translated from the Yiddish by Ephraim H. Prombaum; with introductory and concluding remarks, glossary, and suggested reading. Lanham: University Press of America, 1991. A series of 12 articles published in the Forverts (Jewish Daily Forward) from Dec. 12, 1937 to Feb. 27, 1938, collectively entitled "Di Slaviter drame."