Shmuel Lapin, since 1966 the executive secretary of YIVO, the Institute for Jewish Research, died yesterday at Hillcrest General Hospital in Queens after a long illness. He was 43. He was the son of Ber Lapin, a Yiddish poet.
Born in New York, he was educated at City College and at Columbia University where he received a masters degree in comparative literature for his thesis on the Yiddish poets H. Leivick, Jacob Glatstein and Itzik Fefer. From 1960-66 Lapin was national director of the Labor Zionist Farband in Canada.
As YIVO executive secretary, Lapin was instrumental in fostering the growth of the Max Weinreich Center for Advanced Jewish Studies which offers courses in Yiddish and East European Jewish culture and the Uriel Weinreich Summer Program in Yiddish literature and culture, conducted jointly by YIVO and Columbia University.
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