Maurice Samuel,prize-winning author, essayist and English translator of Yiddish classics, died here today at the age of 77. Funeral services will be held Sunday. Mr. Samuel, author of 25 books in addition to his translations. won the Saturday Review Prize for “The World of Sholom Aleichem” and the 1956 Stephen S. Wise award. On the day of his death, he was to have been awarded the Manger Prize in Yiddish Literature in Israel.
The Rumanian-born author spent four years in England before coming to the United States in 1914. He served with the US Expeditionary Force in France during the first World War and in 1919 served as an interpreter at the Versailles Peace Conference; for the Reparations Commission in Berlin and Vienna and for the Morgenthau Pogrom investigating Commission in Poland.
Mr. Samuel lectured extensively throughout his career and appeared on radio in a Bible discussion program with Mark Van Doren. His books include “In Praise of Yiddish.” “You Gentiles,” “I, The Jew,” “What Happened in Palestine,” “On the Rim of the Wilderness.” “Harvest in the Desert,” “Prince of the Ghetto,” “Certain People of the Book.” and memoires titled, “Little Did I Know.” At the time of his death he had completed two chapters of his 26th book. They appeared in Feb. and March in Midstream magazine.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
