Gelber was born on May 27, 1891, in
Lviv,
Galicia,
Austria-Hungary, the son of Nachman Gelber. Gelber moved to
Brody with his family in 1901. He graduated from the Brody high school in 1910, after which he began studying history and philosophy at the
University of Berlin and the
University of Vienna. He received a Ph.D. from the latter university in 1914. He then fought in
World War I as a lieutenant in the
Austro-Hungarian Army, serving in
Serbia and
Italy and receiving several war medals. He returned to
Vienna in November 1918. He edited
Wiener Morgenzeitung and
Die Stimme during that time. He also co-founded the Academic Zionist Youth Organization in Galicia and Hatechiya in Vienna, was director of the
World Zionist Congress Vienna office, served as secretary general of the 1927, 1929, and 1933 World Zionist Congresses, and edited
Warsaw's Novoe Slovo from 1930 to 1931. He published close to a thousand books and articles in Hebrew, German, Yiddish, and Polish on Jewish history and contemporary Jewish life. He was also a contributor to, among other encyclopedias, the
Juedisches Lexikon, the
Encyclopaedia Judaica, and the
Encyclopaedia Hebraica. == References ==