Shtif, Nochum (Baal Dimyon)

(1879-1933)

   Ukrainian Yiddish critic and philologist. He was born in Rovno, Volhynia, and settled in Berlin in 1922. He was one of the founders of the Yiddish Scientific Institute (YIVO) in Vilna in 1925. From 1926 he was in charge of the work of the linguistic section of the Institute for Yiddish Proletarian Culture in Kiev. Eventually he was appointed to the chair of Yiddish at the Kiev State Academy.