gue, 13 February 1933, about a statistical study of fertility rates among Jewish women in the Vilna region before, during, and after World War I. Szabad asks Lestschinsky's advice on finding data and comparative studies. Yiddish. Polish letterhead: Dr. Cemach Szabad, Wilno, Styczniowa 8. RG 339 Jacob Lestschinsky Papers, F72. (YIVO)
Szabad promoted educational opportunities for Jews in Lithuania. Among his varied activities, he established evening schools for women; served as a member of the board of the Vilna Yiddish Educational Association; worked to advance and expand the network of secular Yiddish-language schools; served as head of the board of the vocational training organization ORT; founded a public library in Vilna; and was the Vilna chair of the executive of the Society for the Promotion of Culture (more literally, Dissemination of Enlightenment) among the Jews of Russia (OPE). Szabad was also active in the cultural activities; he was editor of the Vilner zamlbukh (Vilna Collection) between 1917 and 1918, served as a member of the executive of the Historical-Ethnographic Society, and was one of the founders of YIVO, the Yiddish Scientific Institute.
Clearly one of the most important leaders of Vilna’s Jewish community, Szabad was elected chairman of the executive in 1919. Between then and 1927, he served on the Vilna city council; and in 1928 was elected to the Polish senate. Szabad’s political views placed him in the autonomist stream. Together with historian Simon Dubnow he founded the Folkspartey (Folkist Party) to compete in Polish politics, but he later broke with the leadership and went his own way.
Hirsz Abramowicz, “Dr. Cemach Szabad,” in Profiles of a Lost World, trans. Eva Zeitlin Dobkin, ed. Dina Abramowicz and Jeffrey Shandler, pp. 297–300 (Detroit and New York, 1999); Moritz Grosman, ed., Yidishe Vilne in vort un bild: Ilustrirter almanakh (Vilna, 1925); Hirsh Mac, Dr. Tsemakh Shabad: Der visnshaftler un publitsist (Warsaw, 1937); Yulian I. Rafes, Doctor Tsemakh Shabad: A Great Citizen of the Jewish Diaspora (Baltimore, 1999); Zemah Shabad (Tsemakh Szabad), Oytobiografye (Vilna, 1935).
RG 1139, Abraham Cahan, Papers, 1906-1952; RG 19, Zemach Shabad, Papers, ca. 1900-1930s; RG 22, Hevrah Mefitsei Haskalah Society (Vilna), Records, 1909-1938; RG 3, Yiddish Literature and Language, Collection, 1870s-1941; RG 339, Jacob Lestschinsky, Papers, 1900-1958.
Translated from Hebrew by I. Michael Aronson