PAUL ABELSON

PAUL ABELSON (September 27, 1878-November 4, 1953)

Born in Kovne (Kaunus), Lithuania; arrived in the United States in 1892.  Graduated from Columbia University.  By trade, he was a lawyer and teacher.  He was the first person nominated by the New York Board of Education to serve as a lecturer in Yiddish on history and civil rights (1902), so as to help in the Americanization of new immigrants.  From 1991, he was a member of the arbitration commission and arbiter between the unions and the Cloak and Suit industry in New York; chairman of the impartial committee of the furs industry and the furrier union.  From 1915 to 1932, he was arbiter for numerous trades between labor and management in New York and Philadelphia.  He was active as well in other Jewish communal and cultural institutions.  He contributed to various magazines in which he wrote about topics concerning labor.  Editor-in-chief of English-yidishes entsiklopedishes verterbukh (English-Yiddish encyclopedic dictionary) (New York, 1915, 1924), 1749 pp.  He was the author of Seven Liberal Arts (New York: Teachers’ College, Columbia University, 1906).

Source: Universal Jewish Encyclopedia (New York), vol. 2; Who’s Who in World Jewry (1955).