LOUIS (LEYB) SILVER

LOUIS (LEYB) SILVER (b. January 20, 1908)

He was born in Zabludove (Zabłudów), near Bialystok, Russian Poland.  He studied in religious elementary school and in a Tachkemoni high school in Bialystok.  At seventeen years of age, he came to the United States and graduated from high school there, before completing the course of study at the Jewish teachers’ seminary in 1928 in New York.  He was active in Workmen’s Circle, for a time serving as executive director of the Workmen’s Circle schools in New York.  He was also active in the Bialystok native-place organization and a member of the director’s council of the Bialystok Center in New York.  He published (1939-1940) a series of articles in Forverts (Forward) in New York on Jews in America, and he published as well in Kinder-tsaytung (Children’s newspaper) in New York a series of articles entitled “Geshikhte fun yidn in amerike” (History of Jews in America); and in Kultur un dertsiung (Culture and education) in New York a series on the history of Jewish education in America.  In 1938 he published in Yorbukh (Yearbook), put out by the American division of YIVO, “Di geshikhte fun tsveytn eltstn yidishn yishev in amerike—albani” (The history of the second oldest Jewish community in America: Albany), and the same appeared in English in YIVO Annual 9 as “The Jews in Albany (1655-1914)” (New York, 1954).  In book form: Yidn in amerike, epizodn un portretn (Jews in America, episodes and portraits) (New York: Workmen’s Circle Education Department, 1955), 128 pp.  Silver co-edited Seyfer byalistok (Volume for Bialystok), and he edited the special edition of Byalistoker shtime (Voice of Bialystok) in New York (1960).  For fifteen years, he was education director at the Workmen’s Circle Home for the Aged.  In February 1964 he was appointed executive director of the Home.  He was editor of the yearbook Undzer heym (Our home), annual publication of Workmen’s Circle Home for the Aged.  He was last living in the Bronx, New York.

Sources: Shmuel Niger, on Silver’s “Jews in Albany,” Der tog (New York) (February 2, 1938); Dr. A. Mukdoni, in Morgn-zhurnal (New York) (January 26, 1938); M. Osherovitsh, in Forverts (New York) (June 12, 1955); Kultur un dertsiung (New York) (March 1958) on Silver’s fiftieth birthday; Y. Fogel, in Forverts (July 5, 1962); Y. Shmulevitsh, in Forverts (February 14, 1964).