MOYSHE SHAPIRO (May 6, 1899-December 28, 1973)
He was a
linguist, born in Khmelnik (Khmil'nyk), Podolia, Ukraine; his father was a
Yiddish teacher. He attended religious
elementary school and the Berdichev yeshiva, graduating from a high school in 1917. In 1923 he was appointed director of a Jewish
school, while he at the same time taught Yiddish language and literature,
Russian language and literature, and mathematics. He debuted in print in 1928 with an article
on language teaching in Ratnbildung
(Soviet education) in Kharkov. Two years
later he brought out, with Ruvn Lerner, an auxiliary booklet on orthography
entitled Shrayb on grayzn, hilfbukh far
shiler (Write without error, an auxiliary text for pupils) (Moscow: Central
Publ.), 94 pp. In 1933 he began a period
as a research student in the philology section of the institute for Jewish
culture at the Ukrainian Academy of Science.
In 1937 he defended his dissertation and became a candidate in philological
science. He published works, primarily
on Yiddish grammar. He published in: Afn shprakhfront (On the language front)
(1937-1940)—among other items, a study entitled “A gramatisher min in yidish”
(A grammatical gender in Yiddish).
During the Stalinist persecutions of Jewish culture, he published on
Russian morphology. He contributed to: Ukrainish-yidisher matematisher verterbukh
(Ukrainian-Yiddish mathematics dictionary) (Kiev, 1935). He also co-authored a series of textbooks: with
Moyshe Maydanski, Ortografye un
punktuatsye (Orthography and punctuation) (Kiev: USSR state publishers for national minorities,
1936-1938), 151 pp.; Leyenbukh far shuln
fun gramote (Reader for schools on grammar) (Kiev-Kharkov: USSR
state publishers for national minorities, 1936), 68 pp.; with Khayim
Loytsker, Gramatik (Grammar) (Kiev: State
Publ., 1938-1940), on morphology, three editions (one in Kovno); Zamlung sistematishe diktantn, far der
onfang un mitlshul (Collection of systematic dictations, for primary and
middle school) (Kiev: USSR state publishers for national minorities,
1939-1940), two printings.
During
WWII he worked in the Uzbeki state pedagogical institute in Bukhara. Returning to Kiev in 1944, he returned to his
language research in the office of Yiddish language, literature, and folklore. In 1946 he and a group of leading linguists,
under the direction of Elye Spivak, began compiling a Russian-Yiddish
dictionary, but with the Stalinist persecution of Jewish culture, it was
discontinued, the office closed, the manuscript confiscated, and the dictionary
(in a considerably reworked form) only appeared in 1984, long after the death
of the compilers. In line with the
persecutions, he was deported to a labor camp in 1949, returning in the
mid-1950s. In 1964 he began working in
the Moldavian pedagogical institute as a lecturer in the department of Russian
language. He later lived in Moscow, and
in his last years he published articles in Sovetish
heymland (Soviet homeland) in Moscow on normative grammar, as well as offering
Yiddish lessons in a regular column entitled “Shmuesn vegn yidisher shprakh”
(Chats about the Yiddish language) (1969-1973).
He died in Moscow.
Sources: Chone Shmeruk, comp., Pirsumim yehudiim babrit-hamoatsot, 1917-1961 (Jewish publications
in the Soviet Union, 1917-1961) (Jerusalem, 1962), see index (he erroneously
confuses Moyshe with Monye Shapiro); Yudel Mark, in Yivo-bleter (New York) 7 (1941); Sovetish heymland (Moscow) 1 (1969); Yankev Glatshteyn, In der velt mit
yidish, eseyen (In the world with
Yiddish, essays) (New York, 1972), pp. 375-77; M. Itkovitsh, in Morgn frayhayt (New York) (March 10,
1947); Yidishe shprakh (New York) 1-3
(1975).
Dr. Avrom Grinboym
[Additional information from: Chaim Beider, Leksikon fun yidishe shrayber in
ratn-farband (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers in the Soviet
Union), ed. Boris Sandler and Gennady Estraikh (New York: Congress for Jewish
Culture, Inc., 2011), pp. 374-75.]
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