Meir Balaban - Biography and Initial Studies On Jewish History

Biography and Initial Studies On Jewish History

He studied law, philosophy and history at Lviv University. Accidentally he encountered materials on the history of Jews in Kraków, and on the request of the Kraków Jewish kahal, he wrote the first volume of "The History of Jews in Cracow and Kazimiria 1304-1655" (Kraków, 1912). It gave him some reputation in Lviv University. Balaban then won a high ministry scholarship, and departed for a long scientific trip to Poznań, Berlin and Gdańsk. He stayed for several months in Kraków collecting materials for the second volume of the history of Kraków Jews. Simultaneously he started the publication "The history of Jewish system in Poland" in "Evreiskaia Starina" ("Jewish Old Times", as translated from Russian) magazine. He taught in different schools in the Lviv region and Lviv combining studying with teaching and research. He spent the first year of World War I in Vienna teaching at the gymnasium for Galician refugees. The next three years, he spent in Lublin as a referent (reporter) on Jewish matters by the Austrian General Government. At these posts, he organised many Jewish kahals and gymnasiums. Together with Dr. Ozjasz Thon and Dr. Moses Schorr, Balaban was one of the founders of the Institute of Jewish Sciences in Warsaw. Here Balaban taught Jewish history and led the historical seminar which issued many works on the history of Jews in Poland and in particular in the Polish kingdom. Balaban had also published "The history of Jews in Galicia" in 1916. Since 1903 Balaban led the review of the bibliography of the history of Jews in Poland in the Polish historical magazine "Kwartalnik historyczny" ("History Qarterly"). During nine years Balaban had been administering the Tachkemoni Rabbinical Seminary (1920–1929) and for 1920-1921 he had been also the rector of the gymnasium "Askola". The fate of Balaban was also tragic like Schorr's one. He died in the Warsaw ghetto on December 26, 1942.