Solomon Asher Birnbaum, also Salomo Birnbaum ( Shloyme Birnboym, December 24, 1891 – December 28, 1989) was a Yiddish linguist and Hebrew palaeographer who was born in Vienna and died in Toronto.

Biography

Birnbaum, born in Vienna, was the oldest son of Nathan Birnbaum and Rosa Korngut. He was an Austrian Jew of West Galician descent. Solomon Birnbaum served in World War I in the Austro-Hungarian Army, and then studied and attained a doctorate from the University of Würzburg, specializing in languages of Asia. From 1922 to 1933, he was an external lecturer of Yiddish at the University of Hamburg. After the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany, in 1933 Birnbaum emigrated to Great Britain with his wife, Irene Grünwald, and his children, in 1933. From 1936 to 1957, Birnbaum was a lecturer on Hebrew paleography and epigraphy at the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London. He taught Yiddish at the same time at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies of the University of London, from 1939 to 1958. During World War II, Birnbaum worked in the postal censorship for the British authorities. In 1970, he immigrated to Toronto, Canada. Solomon Birnbaum is the father of Jacob Birnbaum, who, after his emigration to New York in 1963, helped to found the Soviet Jewry Movement.

Publications