SHMUEL (SAMUEL) TALPIS

SHMUEL (SAMUEL) TALPIS (June 29, 1877-November 21, 1951)

            He was born in Nayshtot-Sugind (Žemaičių Naumiestis), Lithuania.  He studied in religious elementary school and for three years at the Telz yeshiva.  He lived in Germany, England, and from 1894 Montreal.  For a time he took up business, later devoting himself to community and literary matters.  From the founding of the Zionist Organization in Canada, he was active in Jewish colonization in Israel.  He wrote numerous articles on the Jewish wisdom, historical figures, Jewish history, travel impressions, and contemporary community topics.  He wrote for a string of Hebrew serials: Hamelits (The advocate), Hatsfira (The siren), Hatsofe (The spectator), Haolam (The world), and others, as well as for Anglophone Jewish ones.  In Yiddish he wrote primarily for: Yidishes tageblat (Jewish daily newspaper) and Morgn-zhurnal (Morning journal) in New York; Keneder odler (Canadian eagle) in Montreal; and from time to time for other Yiddish publications—in Forverts (Forward) in New York under the pen name K. Bernard.  He edited the illustrated weekly newspaper Folks-tsaytung (People’s newspaper).  In book form: Geklibene shriften fun shmuel talpis, a zamlung ophandlungen iber khokhmes yisroel (Selected writings of Shmuel Talpis, a collection of treatments of Jewish wisdom) (Montreal., 1939), 303 pp.  He died in Montreal.

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 4; Y. Y. Sigal, in Keneder odler (Montreal) (January 11, 1935); Benyomen-Gutel Zak, in Lite (Lithuania), vol. 2 (Tel Aviv, 1965), p. 238; N. Goren, ed., Yahadut lita (Jews of Lithuania), vol. 3 (Tel Aviv: Am hasefer, 1967), p. 251 (his given name is incorrectly given as “Shloyme”); Yeshrin archive, YIVO (New York).

Khayim Leyb Fuks