SHMUEL LEVIN

SHMUEL LEVIN (1883-October 28, 1941)

            He was born in Vilkovishki (Vilkaviškis), Kovno district, Lithuania.  He was orphaned in his youth.  He attended religious elementary school until age twelve.  He graduated from the Vilna teachers’ institute in 1908, and for a time he worked as a teacher in a Russian state school in Cherikov, Byelorussia.  In 1913 he received his doctoral degree in philosophy and law from the University of Geneva.  After WWI he moved to Kovno where he was an active leader in secular Jewish schools and culture, a member of the psychology and pedagogy section of YIVO, and a cofounder of the Kultur-lige (Culture League), the Jewish middle school, and the people’s university.  Over the years 1930-1939, he was director of the Jewish commercial high school in Kovno.  He published articles on psychological and pedagogical issues in: Folksblat (People’s newspaper) in Kovno; and Vilner tog (Vilna day); among other serials.  In the Shriftn far psikhologye un pedagogye (Writings on psychology and pedagogy) (Vilna) 1 (1933), he published his essay: “Di psikhologye fun leyenen” (The psychology of reading), pp. 143-72.  Together with Y. Mark, Dr. M. Sudarski, and others, he edited the publication Der veg tsu der yidisher visnshaft (The path to Jewish scholarship); and alone he edited 10 yor yidishe komerts-shul in kovne (Ten years of the Jewish commercial school in Kovno) (1936), 96 pp.  He was murdered by the Nazis during the great Aktion of October 28, 1941 in Kovno.

Sources: Biblyografishe yorbikher fun yivo (Bibliographic yearbooks from YIVO) (Warsaw, 1928), see index; Dr. M. Sudarski, in Litvisher yid (New York) (April-May 1946); M. Mandelman, in the anthology Lite (Lithuania) (New York, 1951), see index; A. Golomb, A halber yorhundert yidishe dertsiung (A half-century of Jewish education) (Rio de Janeiro, 1957), p. 102; Y. Gar, Viderklangen, oytobyografishe fartseykhenungen (Echoes, autobiographical jottings) (Tel Aviv: Perets Publ., 1961), pp. 105-14; information from Yudel Mark in New York.