SHLOYME-ZAYNVL SHREBERK

SHLOYME-ZAYNVL SHREBERK (October 1866-November 5, 1944)

            He was a publisher, born in Postav (Pastavy), near Vilna.  He attended religious elementary school and yeshiva.  In 1900 he opened a publishing house in Vilna, which brought out over one hundred Hebrew and Yiddish books by 1908, among them writings by Bal-Makhshoves, Shmuel Niger, Lipman Levin, Yitskhok-Meyer Vaysenberg, Mendele Moykher-Sforim, and others.  In 1911 he founded—with the publishers Yankev Lidski (“Progres”), Avrom Leyb Shalkovitsh (“Tushiya”), Benyomen Shimin, and Mortkhe Kaplan (“Hashaḥar”)—the immense publishers’ association “Tsentral” (Central).  In 1919 he was living in Warsaw and there revived his publishing activities by bringing out Shimon Dubnov’s history of the Jews in ten volumes, Shmuel-Leyb Tsitron’s Hebrew and Yiddish works, and Sh. An-ski’s writings (fifteen volumes).  Together with partners, he established in 1926 “Aḥiasef,” which published the collected works of Mortkhe Spektor (13 vols.), Yankev Dinezon (9 vols.), Der Lebediker (Khayim Gutman) (7 vols.), and Dr. Avrom Koralnik (5 vols.).  With his partners and the publisher B. Kletskin, he organized a cooperative of bookdealers, “Bikher.”  In 1935 he settled in Tel Aviv and there continued his publishing work through “Yizrael,” which he had created, but it only published Hebrew-language works.  He had published over 300 Yiddish volumes.  Either alone or with partners, he helped to publish the monthly Leben un visnshaft (Life and science) in Vilna, edited by A. Litvin, the daily newspaper Dos leben (The life) (1914, though it ceased publication that same year because of WWI), and Vilner tog (Vilna day) in 1919.  After his death in Tel Aviv, there appeared in print Zikhronot hamotsi laor shelomo shreberḳ (Memoirs of the publisher, Shloyme Shreberk) (Tel Aviv, 1954), 232 pp.—some of the articles are in Yiddish.

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 4; Getzel Kressel, Leksikon hasifrut haivrit (Handbook of Hebrew literature), vol. 2 (Merḥavya, 1967); D. Tidhar, in Entsiklopedyah leḥalutse hayishuv uvonav (Encyclopedia of the pioneers and builders of the yishuv), vol. 4 (Tel Aviv, 1950); A. V. Shir, in Keneder odler (Montreal) (April 22, 1955); H. Shimoni, in Amerikaner (New York) (May 20, 1955); Yeshurin archive, YIVO (New York).

Yekhezkl Lifshits