Doctor Judith Lieberman, (August 14, 1904 — December 1978), was an American educator and school administrator. She served as Hebrew principal and later dean of Hebrew studies of

Shulamith School for Girls Shulamith School for Girls is a Centrist Orthodox Jewish school. It was the first Orthodox Jewish elementary school for girls in North America. The name ''Shulamith'' () is a feminine form of the Hebrew name Solomon, which loosely translates to ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

, the first Jewish day school for girls in North America. Her tenure there started in 1941 and lasted over 25 years. She was the granddaughter of Rabbi

Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin (20 November 1816 – 10 August 1893), also known as Reb Hirsch Leib Berlin, and commonly known by the acronym Netziv, was a Russian Orthodox rabbi, rosh yeshiva ( dean) of the Volozhin Yeshiva and author of several work ...

, daughter of Rabbi

Meir Meir () is a Jewish male given name and an occasional surname. It means "one who shines". It is often Germanized as Maier, Mayer, Mayr, Meier, Meyer, Meijer, Italianized as Miagro, or Anglicized as Mayer, Meyer, or Myer. Alfred J. Kolatch, ''T ...

Bar-Ilan (leader of the Mizrachi), and second wife of Jewish religious scholar

Saul Lieberman Saul Lieberman (; May 28, 1898 – March 23, 1983), also known as Rabbi Shaul Lieberman or, among some of his students, the ''Gra״sh'' (''Gaon Rabbeinu Shaul''), was a rabbi and a Talmudic scholar. He served as Professor of Talmud at the Jewish T ...

. Lieberman spent World War I with her paternal grandmother, the unofficial administrator of the Volozhiner Yeshiva. She joined her immediate family after the war in the United States, and graduated from New York City public high school. Lieberman studied for her bachelor's degree at

Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City, United States. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools ...

and then moved to

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

under Professor Hates and Professor David S. Muzzey. She completed a

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

comparative literature Comparative literature studies is an academic field dealing with the study of literature and cultural expression across language, linguistic, national, geographic, and discipline, disciplinary boundaries. Comparative literature "performs a role ...

at the

University of Zurich The University of Zurich (UZH, ) is a public university, public research university in Zurich, Switzerland. It is the largest university in Switzerland, with its 28,000 enrolled students. It was founded in 1833 from the existing colleges of the ...

in 1931. In 1932, she married Saul Lieberman, who had been widowed two years earlier. She spent the remainder of the decade in

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

with her husband, and then moved back to New York's

Upper West Side The Upper West Side (UWS) is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by Central Park on the east, the Hudson River on the west, West 59th Street to the south, and West 110th Street to the north. The Upper We ...

with him. She quickly gained a position at Shulamith, then based in Borough Park. Among her publications were ''

Robert Browning Robert Browning (7 May 1812 – 12 December 1889) was an English poet and playwright whose dramatic monologues put him high among the Victorian literature, Victorian poets. He was noted for irony, characterization, dark humour, social commentar ...

and

Hebraism Hebraism is a lexical item, usage or trait characteristic of the Hebrew language. By successive extension it is often applied to the Jewish people, their faith, national ideology or culture. Similarly, in paleolinguistics, a Semitism is a gramm ...

'' (1934), and an autobiographical chapter which was included in ''Thirteen Americans, Their Spiritual Autobiographies'' (1953), edited by

Louis Finkelstein Louis Finkelstein (June 14, 1895, in Cincinnati, Ohio – 29 November 1991) was a Talmud scholar, an expert in Jewish law, and a leader of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS) and Conservative Judaism. Biography Louis (Eliezer) Finkel ...

References

1904 births 1978 deaths 20th-century American academics 20th-century American Jews 20th-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century American women writers American women academics American women non-fiction writers Columbia University alumni Hunter College alumni Jewish American academics Jewish American non-fiction writers Jewish women writers {{US-academic-administrator-stub