Niger Coming to Europe: Famous Yiddish Literary Critic Sails from New York

Mr. Samuel H. Niger, one of the best known critics in Yiddish literature, has sailed on a visit to Europe.

Niger is the pen-name of Samuel Tcharni a brother of the well known Yiddish poet, Daniel Tcharni, who lives in Berlin. He was born in the province of Minsk, in White Russia, where his father, who was a leather merchant, was an ardent follower of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. He studied till the age of 17 at the Yeshibah in Minsk and obtained his diploma as Rabbi. He became interested in secular studies, joined the Zionist movement and was greatly influenced by Achad Ha’am. He thon took up the study of Russian literature and became active in the Russian revolutionary movement. Afterwards he joined the Poale Zion. He then began to write literary criticisms in Yiddish, in which sphere he has become famous. After taking a degree in philosophy at Berne University in 1910, he returned to Russia, where he was a prominent Jewish social worker, particularly interested in the Yiddish school system. After the Bolshevik revolution he settled in Moscow. On the occupation of Vilna by the Soviet army he was invited to go there as director of the Yiddish Section of the Commissariat of Education of the Lithuanian-White Russian Republic. When the Polish Legions re-occupied Vilna he was taken out to be shot together with Isaac Weiter and Leib Jaffe. Weiter was shot, while Jaffe and Niger were deported to Lida, Marshal Pilsudski giving them a reprieve following the intervention of Jewish social workers. Soon after he went to New York, where he became a regular contributor to the “Forwards” and later to the Yiddish daily, the “Day”.