Nathan Ausubel (June 15, 1898 – November, 1986) was an American historian, folklorist and humorist. He specialized in Jewish culture.

Biography

Ausubel was born in

Leżajsk Leżajsk (; yi, ליזשענסק-Lizhensk; uk, Лежа́йськ, Lezháysʹk), officially the Free Royal City of Leżajsk ( pl, Wolne Królewskie Miasto Leżajsk), is a town in southeastern Poland with 13,871 inhabitants. It has been situated ...

, Galicia, the sixth of eight children in a Jewish family, and immigrated as a child with his family to Brooklyn,

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

in 1902. He later attended

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. Ausubel enlisted in the

Jewish Legion The Jewish Legion (1917–1921) is an unofficial name used to refer to five battalions of Jewish volunteers, the 38th to 42nd (Service) Battalions of the Royal Fusiliers in the British Army, raised to fight against the Ottoman Empire during ...

's 39th Battalion during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

and fought in the

Jordan Valley The Jordan Valley ( ar, غور الأردن, ''Ghor al-Urdun''; he, עֵמֶק הַיַרְדֵּן, ''Emek HaYarden'') forms part of the larger Jordan Rift Valley. Unlike most other river valleys, the term "Jordan Valley" often applies just to ...

. He was married briefly to Manya Schrager, and then Marynn Ausubel till her death in 1980; they had one daughter, Ethel Ausubel Frimmet. His nephew David P. Ausubel became a noted professor, educator, ethnographer, and a pioneer in cognitive educational psychology.

Bibliography

Ausubel is best known for his two books, ''A Treasury of Jewish Folklore'', which went through over twenty editions, and ''Pictorial History Of The Jewish People.'' This included detailed descriptions of previously unknown

Lost Tribes of Israel The ten lost tribes were the ten of the Twelve Tribes of Israel that were said to have been exiled from the Kingdom of Israel after its conquest by the Neo-Assyrian Empire BCE. These are the tribes of Reuben, Simeon, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Ashe ...

, as well as information on the

Khazars The Khazars ; he, כּוּזָרִים, Kūzārīm; la, Gazari, or ; zh, 突厥曷薩 ; 突厥可薩 ''Tūjué Kěsà'', () were a semi-nomadic Turkic people that in the late 6th-century CE established a major commercial empire coverin ...

. A partial bibliography follows: * ''Superman; The Life Of Frederick The Great'', I. Washburn, 1931. * ''A Treasury Of Jewish Folklore; Stories, Traditions, Legends, Humor, Wisdom And Folk Songs Of The Jewish People'' (originally published 1948), Crown Publishers, 1989 * ''Jewish Culture in America: Weapon for Jewish Survival and Progress'', New Century Publishers, 1948. * ''Pictorial History Of The Jewish People, From Bible Times To Our Own Day Throughout The World'' (originally published 1953), Crown Publishers, 1984. * ''The Book of Jewish Knowledge;: An encyclopedia of Judaism and the Jewish people, covering all elements of Jewish life from Biblical times to the present'', Crown Publishers, 1964. * ''A Treasury of Jewish Poetry'', 1970. * ''A Treasury of Jewish Humor'', (originally published 1951), M. Evans and Company, 1988. "A Treasury of Jewish Humor" (Review)
Kirkus Reviews, 1951 Ausubel translated several works of

Yiddish literature Yiddish literature encompasses all those belles-lettres written in Yiddish language, Yiddish, the language of Ashkenazim, Ashkenazic Jewry which is related to Middle High German. The history of Yiddish, with its roots in central Europe and locus ...

, most notably ''Mother'', by

Sholom Asch Sholem Asch ( yi, שלום אַש, pl, Szalom Asz; 1 November 1880 – 10 July 1957), also written Shalom Ash, was a Polish-Jewish novelist, dramatist, and essayist in the Yiddish language who settled in the United States. Life and work Asch ...

. He also co-edited the annual series ''Voices of History''.

References

Sources

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ausubel, Nathan 1898 births 1986 deaths People from the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria People from Leżajsk Austro-Hungarian Jews Jewish American writers Columbia University alumni Emigrants from Austria-Hungary to the United States Jews from Galicia (Eastern Europe) Jewish Legion 20th-century American Jews