SHMUEL FIDERER

SHMUEL FIDERER (b. 1898)

            The brother of Khayim-Mortkhe Fiderer, he was born in Tłuste, near Chortkiv, Galicia.  He studied with itinerant schoolteachers and private tutors, later working in a publishing house.  He lived in Vienna, Odessa, Prague, and in Germany.  He was active in the left Labor Zionist party and in German trade unions.  He appeared in public as a singer, public speaker, and actor.  When the Nazis seized Vienna, he fled to Zurich.  He spent the years 1938-1940 in Paris.  He was interned for a time in French camps.  In 1941 he came to New York.  From 1957 he was living in Berlin.  He worked with the local Jewish community, mainly in the realm of Jewish education and culture.  He debuted in print with short reportage pieces in Der yidisher arbayter (The Jewish worker) in Vienna in 1918.  He later wrote reportage pieces, articles, travel narratives, reviews of music and theater, among other items, for: Arbeter tsaytung (Workers’ newspaper) in Warsaw; Haynt (Today) and Naye prese (New press) in Paris; Dos idishe velt (The Jewish world) in Philadelphia; and Nyu-yorker vokhnblat (New York weekly newspaper); among others.  From 1957 he was the correspondent for: Keneder odler (Canadian eagle) in Montreal; and Unzer vort (Our word) in Paris.  In 1966 he published letters from Berlin in Forverts (Forward) in New York.  He was a contributor as well to the German-language trade union newspapers in Austria and Germany.

Sources: Information from H. Pentshina; Unzer vort (Paris) (February 20, 1963).

Khayim Leyb Fuks