MOYSHE-ZEKHARYE BEKER (ZACHARY M. BAKER)

MOYSHE-ZEKHARYE BEKER (ZACHARY M. BAKER) (b. June 8, 1950)

            He was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  He received his B. A. degree in 1972 from the University of Chicago.  In 1974 he received his M. A. degree from Brandeis University in American history, and in 1975 a master’s diploma in bibliographic science from the University of Minnesota.  He studied in the Uriel Weinreich Yiddish Program at Columbia University.  Over the years 1976-1981, he was cataloguer in the Library of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research (New York), and from 1981-1987 he was head of the Yiddish department of the Jewish Public Library in Montreal.  From 1976 until 1999 he served as the compiler of the bibliographic listing of Yiddish books for the Jewish Book Annual (New York).  From 1987 to 1999 he was head librarian of the YIVO Institute.  Since 1999 he has been the Curator of Judaica and Hebraica Collections in the Stanford University Libraries.  In book form he published a bibliographic list of memorial books, entitled From a Ruined Garden: Memorial Books of Polish Jewry (New York, 1983).  He has also published a number of articles in Fraye arbeter shtime (Free voice of labor), Afn shvel (On the threshold), Veker (Alarm), and Yugntruf (Appeal for Yiddish)—all in New York.

Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 101.