TSVI SHPIRN

TSVI SHPIRN (b. May 22, 1893)

            He was a journalist, born in Tarnovzheg (Tarnobrzeg), Galicia.  He attended religious elementary school and public school, and he studied (1911-1914) at a commercial school.  In 1914 he left for Budapest, and in 1921 he settled in Mielec, Galicia.  He was a member of the local city council and founder of the Jewish cooperative people’s bank.  He was a community leader and Zionist activist.  He published numerous feuilletons and journalistic articles in: Cracow’s Tog (Day) from 1910; Lemberg’s Togblat (Daily newspaper) and Morgen (Morning); Sanok’s Folks fraynd (Friend of the people); Vieder morgentsaytung (Tomorrow’s newspaper), later Yudishe morgenpost (Jewish morning mail); Prager yidishe tsaytung (Prague Jewish newspaper); Lubiner togblat (Lublin daily newspaper); Der yudisher krigs-gefangener (The Jewish war captive); Moment (Moment); and New York’s Tog and Yivo-bleter (Pages from YIVO); among others.  Over the years 1915-1918, he edited Budapest’s Algemeyne yidishe tsaytung (General Jewish newspaper)—in German but printed in the Jewish alphabet, as well as the collections Yudishe zamelbikher (Jewish anthologies) (Budapest: Akhdes, 1918/1919), 44 pp.  He published works on Yiddish and the Yiddish press, such as: “Di iden in di idishe tsaytungen in ungarn” (Jews in the Yiddish newspapers in Hungary), Tsukunft (Future) 5 (1923); “Di ershte idishe tog-tsaytungen” (The first Yiddish daily newspapers), Haynt (Today) (January 1928); “Di ershte poylishe tsaytung un ire idishe konkurentn” (The first Polish newspaper and its Yiddish rivals), in Yoyvl-bukh fun haynt (Jubilee volume from Haynt) (Warsaw, 1928); “Di idishe shprakh in ungarn” (The Yiddish language in Hungary), in Landoy-bukh (Volume for [Alfred] Landau) (Vilna, 1926); “Di role fun nemen in unzer mame-loshn” (The role of names in our mother tongue), in Filologishe shriftn (Philological writings), vol. 2; Vegn a yidish vitsblat (On a Yiddish newspaper of jokes), Pinkes (Records) (New York) 2 (1929).  His pen names included: Tsvi ben Khayim, Perets Beyshn, Ts. Sh. and Z. S-n.

Source: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 4.

Berl Cohen