Eisig Silberschlag

Eisig (Yitzhak) Silberschlag was born in Stry, eastern Galicia, to Ḥasidic parents Bertha (née Pomerantz) and David Silberschlag.[2] He studied Greek and Latin in the local gymnasium, and was active in the Hashomer Hatzair movement.[3] Silberschlag immigrated with his family to New York City in 1920,[4] publishing his first poem in the weekly Hadar in 1925.[3] That same year he returned to Europe, where he completed a doctorate at the University of Vienna with a dissertation on Anglo-Russian relations during the reign of Catherine the Great.[5]

He died at the age of 85 at St. David's Hospital in Austin,[6] and was buried at the Mount of Olives Cemetery in Jerusalem.[7]

In the early 1930s, Silberschlag taught at the Jewish Institute of Religion and at the Teachers Institute of the Jewish Theological Seminary.[1] He published his first volume of poetry, Bi-shevilim bodedim, in 1931.[4] He also edited, along with Aaron Zeitlin, several volumes of the Hebrew quarterly Ha-Tekufah.[8]

Silberschlag joined the faculty of Hebrew College in 1944, rising to become dean, in which role he oversaw the college's accreditation from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges,[9] and then president.[10] Silberschlag was a candidate to succeed Joseph Klausner as chair of modern Hebrew literature at the Hebrew University upon the latter's retirement,[11] but remained in the United States when Simon Halkin was hired in this position.[5]

After his retirement and the death of his wife Milkah,[5] Silberschlag moved from Boston to Austin, Texas, where he was appointed professor of Hebrew literature at the University of Texas at Austin.[12] During this period he also served as president of the National Association of Professors of Hebrew.[3]