GRINBERG Origin of surname
Surnames derive from one of many different origins. Sometimes there may be more than one explanation for the same name. This family name derives from an artificial (or ornamental) name (a made-up name often in compound with two roots). It is also a toponymic (derived from a geographic name of a town, city, region or country). Surnames that are based on place names do not always testify to direct origin from that place, but may indicate an indirect relation between the name-bearer or his ancestors and the place, such as birth place, temporary residence, trade, or family-relatives.
Grinberg is a Yiddish variant of Gruenberg, literally "green mountain" in German, a town in Hesse, Germany, which had a Jewish community in the 14th century. Gruenberg is also the German name of the Polish town of Zielona Gora, near Poznan/Posen in lower Silesia. Greenberg/Grinberg and Greenburg are Anglicized forms of the name. The German/Yiddish suffix "-er" means "of/from" and indicates origin from Gruenberg.
Distinguished 19th/20th century bearers of the name include the Romanian-born German hebraist and Bible researcher, Samuel Gruenberg, the Polish-born American pianist and composer, Louis T. Gruenberg, the Galician-born Israeli politician and Hebrew Yiddish poet, Uri Zvi Gruenberg; the American-born Israeli educator, Moshe Greenberg, the English journalist and Zionist Leopold J. Greenberg, publisher of the 'Jewish Chronicle' and the 'Jewish World', the American painter, Joseph Emanuel Greenberg, the Ukrainian-born American artist and teacher, Samuel Greenburg, and the American author, Dan Greenburg, the Hungarian rabbi and author, Samuel Greenberg (born 1861?-1913) a Russian-born second class passenger (ticket number 250647) on the Titanic, Aaron Ben Simcha Gruenberger (1811-1892), the Bessarabian-born Zionist leader Abraham Grinberg (1841-1906), also known as Grunberg. During World War II the name is recorded with Fernande Grinberg, who was deported from France to the German death camp at Auschwitz in September 1942, and with David Grinberg, chief of staff of the first Krakow Brigade of the Armia Ludowa (Polish People's Army). Grimberg is the Yiddish variant of Grinberg, recorded as a Jewish family name in the 20th century with Polish-born Lena Grimberg, who was deported from France to the German death camp at Auschwitz in September 1942.
Leon Grinberg
(Personality)Leon Grinberg (1921-2007), psychoanalyst, born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. After studying medicine, he turned to psychoanalysis and engaged in research. He quickly became a leading practitioner and innovator. He was particularly interested in the transfer of guilt and depression. In 1976 he went into exile in Spain, when then military junta came to power in Argentina, and became well known throughout Europe as the result participation in numerous conferences. He wrote a widely read book on the psychoanalysis of the immigrant and exile. He died in Spain.
Vladimir Medem
(Personality)Vladimir Davidovich Medem (born Grinberg) (1879-1923), politician, Marxist theoretician, ideolog and leader of the Bund party, born in Liepaja (Libau), Latvia (then part of the Russian Empire). His parents converted to Christianity and he grew up far from the Jewish traditions. He received his education at a grammar school in Minsk, Belarus, and later at the University of Kiev, where he became increasingly interested in the Yiddish-speaking proletariat and their oppressed living conditions. Medem joined the Minsk Socialists in 1898 after being inspired by Marxist friends and was quickly recognized as the leading ideologue of the Jewish socialist General Jewish Workers' Federation (Bund). He fought for the cultural and national rights of Jews in Eastern Europe, a stance that put him at odds with Russian Marxists. In 1901, because of his political activities he was arrested in Minsk and sentenced to five years of hard labor in Siberia, but managed to flee to Switzerland where he continued his activities in Basel and Geneva. He returned to Russia in 1905 settling in Vilna (Vilnius). He became the leader of the Bund party in Poland during WW I. In 1921, Medem immigrated to United States, settling in New York after spending years advocating for Jewish cultural rights in Europe. His memoirs were published in Zihroines un artiklen (“Memoirs and Articles”, 1917) and Fun Mein Lebn (“From My Life”, 2 vols., 1924).
The Bund, which he helped lead, had gained support among Central and Western European Marxists and Jewish immigrant workers' clubs in Paris, where they identified as Bundists. These clubs were particularly focused on education for workers and became known as the Arbeter-klub afn nomen Vladimir Medem (Workers' club in the name of Vladimir Medem). Medem's educational policy ambitions culminated in the founding of the Medem Library in Paris in 1929, which is now the largest Yiddish cultural institution in Europe with 30,000 volumes. Additionally, a children's sanatorium named after Medem was established in Miedzeszyn near Warsaw, Poland, in the 1930s. The sanatorium was portrayed in the Yiddish film Mir kumen on (1936) by Aleksander Ford.