NAFTOLI ZILBERBERG

NAFTOLI ZILBERBERG (b. December 4, 1896)

            He was born in Warsaw.  His father was a cofounder of the journal Moment (Moment) in Warsaw.  He graduated from Krinski’s High School in Warsaw and went on to study technical sciences at the Warsaw and Lemberg polytechnics.  He lived in Warsaw over the years 1927-1939, thereafter being confined in the Warsaw Ghetto and in German concentration camps.  He spent 1945-1947 in Regensburg, later settling in Paris.  He was a member of the central committee of the Labor Zionists in France.  He was a member of the administration of the literary union and a councilman in the Jewish community of Paris.  He began publishing reportage pieces and articles on science and technology for Moment.  He was a reporter for the Yiddish press on Polish radio.  He served as editor for the Yiddish-language Radyo-byuletin (Radio bulletin) in Warsaw.  After the war he contributed to: Unzer vort (Our word), also acting as co-editor, and of Kunst un visnshaft (Art and science) and Kiem (Existence)—in Paris; Davar (Word) in Tel Aviv; and elsewhere.  He edited the journals: Der nayer moment (The new moment) (Regensburg, 1946-1947); Der shtriker-fabrikant (The knitting manufacturer) (Paris, 1950-1954).  His books include: Der regn-boygn fun a zhurnalist, tog-eyn tog-oys (The rainbow of a journalist, day in, day out) (Paris, 1978), 509 pp.  He translated into Yiddish Florian Sokolov’s Mayn foter (My father [original: Avi, naḥum sokolov (My father, Nolkhem Sokolov)]) (Tel Aviv, 1972).  He also wrote under the pen name of “N. Kaspi.”

Sources: Dr. R. Feldshuh, Idishe gezelshaftlikher leksikon (Jewish communal handbook), vol. 1 (Warsaw, 1939), pp. 806-7; B. Kutsher, Geven amol varshe (As Warsaw once was) (Paris, 1955), p. 301.

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 262.]