Schapiro, Israel
SCHAPIRO, ISRAEL
SCHAPIRO, ISRAEL (1882–1957), bibliographer, Orientalist, and librarian. Schapiro, born in Sejny, *Poland, was the son of R. Toviyyah Pesah Schapiro (1845–1924), a Hebrew and Yiddish writer and educator in *Russia and the U.S. Israel Schapiro studied at the Telsiai (Telz) Yeshivah, Strasbourg University, and the Hochschule (Lehranstalt) fuer die Wissenschaft des Judentums, Berlin. From 1907 to 1910 he taught at the Jerusalem Teachers' Training College and from 1911 to 1913 in New York, where he also coedited the Hebrew weekly Ha-Deror. From 1913 to 1944 he headed the newly created Semitic division of the Library of Congress, Washington, d.c., which he built up into a collection of over 40,000 volumes, including incunabula and other rare editions, and lectured on Semitics at George Washington University (1916–27). In 1950 he settled in Israel. Schapiro wrote extensively on subjects of Jewish history and bibliography for the Hebrew and Yiddish press.
His published work includes Die haggadischen Elemente im erzaehlenden Teil des Korans (1907); "Bibliography of Hebrew Translations of English Works" (in: Studies in Jewish Bibliography in Memory of A.S. Freidus, 1929); Bibliography of Hebrew Translations of German Works (1934); and "Schiller und Goethe im Hebraeischen" (in: Festschrift fuer A. Freimann zum 60. Geburtstag (1935)). He also edited his father's Mashal ha-Kadmoni (with biography, 1925) and Pitgamim shel Ḥakhamim (1927).