Loebel Taubes

TAUBES, LOEBEL (1863–1933), pioneer Galician Zionist. Born in Bendery, Bessarabia, Taubes was raised in Galicia, where his father was the rabbi of Otynya. His Zionist activities began at the end of the 1880s, and in 1890 he began publishing the first Yiddish newspapers in Galicia (Di Yidishe Folkstsaytung, and later Der Folksfraynd, first in Kolomiyyo and then in Czernowitz). He was one of the first to fight for the Austrian government's recognition of Yiddish as the spoken language of the Jews of Galicia. For decades Taubes was the best known Zionist propagandist in Galicia and Austria, where his speeches in hundreds of towns and villages attracted mass audiences and did much to spread Zionism, especially among Orthodox circles. He was closely associated with *Herzl and published a Yiddish translation of Der Judenstaat (1897). He was one of the initiators of the Conference for the Yiddish Language and Culture, which met in Czernowitz in 1908. He lived in Kolomyia, in Czernowitz, and from 1914 in Vienna. In 1920 Taubes published the Hebrew version of the proceedings of the *Kattowitz Conference and his memoirs, and in 1928 he brought out a book on talmudic motifs in Yiddish proverbs.

Sources: Encyclopaedia Judaica. © 2007 The Gale Group. All Rights Reserved.