NATHAN (NOSN) ZVIRIN

NATHAN (NOSN) ZVIRIN (April 8, 1873-June 24, 1933)

            He was born in Minsk, Byelorussia.  He studied in religious elementary school and secular subject matter in a Russian school.  In 1893 he moved to the United States.  He lived in New York and studied in evening classes and later at New York University, where he graduated as a lawyer in 1908.  Already in 1893 he was active (under the leadership of Joseph Schlossberg) in restructuring the coat makers’ union.  He was later one of the high officials of the new International Cloak Makers’ Union and for a time its secretary.  He was one of the founders of Forverts (Forward) in New York, and a regular contributor there, 1898-1899.  Over the years, 1901-1913, he was news editor at Morgn-zhurnal (Morning journal) in New York, and for Di idishe velt (The Jewish world), 1914-1915, in Philadelphia.  He also placed work in: Yidishes tageblat (Jewish daily newspaper); Di yidishe arbayter shtime (The voice of Jewish labor), a monthly of the National Workers’ Alliance (1914).  He was editor and publisher, 1915-1920, of Der butsher zhurnal (The butchers’ journal) in New York, and of Butshers nayes (Butchers’ news), 1920-1921.  He also published articles in: Der idisher kemfer (The Jewish fighter), Tsukunft (Future), Der firer (The leader), and Bronx and Harlem News (in English) which he founded and edited, among others.  From 1921 he turned his full attention to work as a lawyer.  Together with William Edlinen, he helped obtain the charter for the Y. L. Peretz Writers Association in New York.  For many years he served as treasurer and for a certain period of time the vice president of the Jewish National Workers’ Alliance, secretary of the American ORT (Association for the Promotion of Skilled Trades), vice-president of HIAS (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society), and leader in the Jewish Congress, the Jewish Tsedaka Federation, the Jewish Publication Society, the Jewish teachers’ seminary, and other Jewish organizations.  He died in Brooklyn.

Sources: Dr. B. Hofman (Tsvien), Fuftsik yor kloukmakher-yunyon (Fifty years of the cloak makers’ union) (New York, 1936); Y. Khaykin, Yidishe bleter in amerike (Yiddish newspapers in America) (New York, 1946), p. 368; Sh. S., in Idisher kemfer (New York) (July 7, 1933); obituary notices in the Yiddish press; information from his daughter, Pauline Kaplan, in New York; Who’s Who in American Jewry (New York, 1926), p. 672.

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