Adler, Selig

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ADLER, SELIG

ADLER, SELIG (1909–1984), U.S. historian. Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Adler graduated from the University of Buffalo in 1931. He was appointed to the history faculty of the University of Buffalo in 1938 and subsequently named Samuel Paul Capen Professor of American History at the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1959. He specialized in American diplomatic and American Jewish history. His Isolationist Impulse (1957) is a study of isolationist thinking in the United States between the two World Wars. American Foreign Policy Between the Wars (1965) is a judicious, widely accepted account of that contentious subject. From Ararat to Suburbia: A History of the Jewish Community of Buffalo (with Thomas E. Connolly; 1960) is one of the most extensive and exact histories of any Jewish community. He was also the archivist for the Buffalo Jewish community archives that bear his name, which are located in the Butler Library at Buffalo State College. Active in Jewish communal and cultural affairs, Adler was a member of the New York Kosher Law Advisory Board and of the executive board of the American Jewish Historical Society.

[Lloyd P. Gartner /

Ruth Beloff (2nd ed.)]