SHOYEL ZILBER

SHOYEL ZILBER (1881-September 1946)

           He was born in Aleksandrovsk, Kovno district, Lithuania.  He studied in the yeshivas of Dvinsk (Daugavpils) and Lide (Lida).  In 1900 he departed for the United States, served as the rabbi of Columbus, Ohio (1904-1910), and later worked as the rabbi of the Ohave Shalom (Lovers of peace) Congregation in Chicago.  He contributed to the founding of the American Jewish Congress and served as a member of the executive of American Central Relief of Mizraḥi.  He was also a member of the organization committee of the Jewish Agency.  In 1935 the twenty-fifth anniversary of his rabbinate was celebrated in Chicago, and to honor him a jubilee volume, entitled Givat shaul (Saul’s hill), was published with an assortment of articles on in the field of Jewish studies.  In book form he published: Ketavim nivḥarim (Selected writings), a volume of essays in Yiddish, Hebrew, and English (Chicago, 1950), 176 pp. in Yiddish.  He died in Chicago.

Yankev Kahan