DOVID-DUBER SVIREN

DOVID-DUBER SVIREN (January 5, 1889-March 3, 1944)

            He was born in Smargon (Smarhon, Smorgon), Vilna district, into a rabbinical family.  He studied in religious elementary school and the Volozhin and Kovno yeshivas.  In 1905 he came to the United States and studied in New York at the yeshiva of Rabbi Yitskhok Elkhonen and at City College.  From 1922 he was a rabbi in Waterbury, Wilmington, Philadelphia, and New York.  He was active in the Mizrachi organization and was a member of the top leadership of the Agudat Harabanim (Union of Orthodox rabbis) in America.  He was the author of religious texts and books in Hebrew, Yiddish, and English.  He published articles, poetry, and scholarly works in: Hameasef (The collector) in Jerusalem (1908); Hauma (The nation), Hadevora (The bee), Hapardes (The orchard), Hamesila (The roadway), Hayehudi (The Jew), Dos idishe folk (The Jewish people), Dos idishe likht (The Jewish light), Unzer shtime (Our voice), Der mizrakhi-veg (The Mizrachi way), and Morgn-zhurnal (Morning journal)—in New York; Di idishe velt (The Jewish world) in Philadelphia; and others.  In Ayzenshtayn’s Otsar yisrael (Treasury of Israel), he published a series of writings on Judaism and ethical Jewish issues.  In book form, he published: Mir yiden farn lebens-shpigel (We Jews before the mirror of life) (New York, 1936), 234 pp.; Divre david (The words of David) (New York, 1942), 142 pp.  He was also the author of an English-language book on Jewish customs and practices: Our Life Is Like That, Studies in the Customs, Ceremonies, and Symbols of Israel, and Other Essays (New York: Block Publ. Co., 1931), 199 pp.  He died in Philadelphia.

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 2, with a bibliography; P. Vyernik, in Morgn-zhurnal (New York) (January 16, 1936); Y. Tsuzmer, Beikve hador (In the footprints of a generation) (New York, 1957), p. 219; Bet eked sefarim; Universal Jewish Encyclopedia (New York), vol. 10, p. 144; American Jewish Yearbook (5705), p. 346.

Khayim Leyb Fuks