Sol Liptzin


Sol Liptzin was a scholar, author, and educator in Yiddish and German literature.

Life

Liptzin was born in Sataniv, Ukraine, and moved to New York at the age of nine. He graduated from City College of New York and did postgraduate work at the University of Berlin. He earned a master's degree and Ph.D. at Columbia University.
His stay in Berlin interested him in the romantic movement in 19th-century German literature.
Starting in 1923, Liptzin taught at City College. From 1943 to 1958 he served as the chairman of the Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies. He convinced college officials that Yiddish is a Germanic language laced with Hebrew and Russian, and that it should be taught as such in college.
He was active in Jewish affairs and was the honorary president of the Jewish Book Council of America, the editor of the Jewish Book Annual, departmental editor for German literature in the Encyclopaedia Judaica, the National Chairman of the Jewish State Zionists of America, the Academic Secretary of YIVO, and President of the College Yiddish Association. He was a visiting professor at Yeshiva University from 1929 to 1940.
In 1962, he moved to Israel, where he taught at Tel Aviv University and the Technion, where he founded the humanities program.
He was a founder of Bar-Ilan University and the Jerusalem University College and taught at both.
He died on 15 November 1995 in a hospital in Jerusalem.