Ernest Klein (1899-1983) was born in Szatmar in the eastern part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Romania). In 1925 he was awarded a Ph.D. from the University of Vienna. His specialized fields were Semitic languages and literature, Romance languages and literature, and Philosophy.
In 1931 he became Rabbi of Nove Zamke in the former Czechoslovakia. Here he remained until deported by the Nazis in World War II, first to Auschwitz and later to the concentration camp Allach-Dachau. He was liberated by American troops in 1945; his father, wife, only son and two of his three sisters had perished in the concentration camps.
After the Holocaust he returned to his birthplace, but shortly afterwards he went to Paris, and finally moved to Canada in 1951. For the next 20 years Dr. Klein devoted himself to the study of the history of the English language. Since English has roots in some forty spoken and extinct languages, and Klein had mastered these languages, he was uniquely qualified to compile his comprehensive etymological dictionary of the English language - the most exhaustive of its kind. The next ten years of his life he devoted to A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language for Readers of English.
