ELIAS (HILLEL) LIBERMAN (LIEBERMAN)

ELIAS (HILLEL) LIBERMAN (LIEBERMAN) (November 10, 1888-October 1969)

            He was born in Bobr, Mohilev region, Byelorussia.  He attended religious elementary school, the Minsk yeshiva, and later graduated from a Russian high school as an external student.  In 1909 he immigrated to the United States, engaged in a variety of jobs, and at the same time continued his studies and later became a lawyer.  He was active in the trade union movement, and over the years 1915-1917 led the Ladies’ Dressmakers’ Union in New York.  He was a member of the national executive of the Workmen’s Circle (1931-1935) and vice-president (1933-1935).  He debuted in print with a story, “A kind” (A child), in Forverts (Forward) in New York (July 1910), and from that point he published sketches, stories, and articles as well in: Glaykhheyt (Equality), Di naye tsayt (The new times), Der yudisher arbayter (The Jewish worker), and Gerekhtikeyt (Justice), among other periodicals in Yiddish and English in New York.  He was the author of the books: The Collective Labor Agreement: How to Negotiate and Draft the Contract (New York, 1939), 233 pp.; and Unions before the Bar: Historic Trials Showing the Evolution of Labour Rights in the United States (New York, 1950), 371 pp.—the latter of these also appeared in a Japanese translation as: Rōdō kumiai to saibansho: Amerika ni okeru rōdōsha no kihonken no hatten o shimesu rekishiteki na rōdō jiken (Labor unions and the courts, historic labor events showing the development of basic rights for workers in America) (Tokyo, 1958), 410 pp.  He was last living in New York and working as a lawyer.

Sources: Biblyografishe yorbikher fun yivo (Bibliographic yearbooks from YIVO) (Warsaw, 1928), p. 89; Y. Yeshurin and Y. Sh. Herts, 50 yor arbeter ring in yidishn lebn (Fifty years of the Workmen’s Circle in Jewish life) (New York, 1950), p. 395; M. Epshteyn, Jewish Labor in the U.S.A. (New York, 1957), p. 35.

Khayim Leyb Fuks