His father, a fervent Lubavitcher Hasid, died in 1889, leaving Shmuel’s mother a widow with five sons (he being the third) and a daughter.

He was imprisoned and tortured for his political activity several times in Minsk, Kiev, Warsaw, Daugavpils (Dvinsk), Odessa, and Vilna, but he avoided execution after the intervention of family and friends.

After initial literary forays in Russian and Hebrew, he wrote, published and worked as an editor for many different Yiddish periodicals in Vilna, St. Petersburg and Moscow.

[8] Niger died in New York City on 24 December 1955, returning from a YIVO Executive Committee meeting.

His funeral was attended by well over 1,000 people and news of his death led to the publication in the Jewish press of hundreds of articles about him worldwide.