Alexander Zederbaum

Born in Zamosc, Poland, Alexander Zederbaum was a journalist, editor, and a champion of the Haskalah. Settling in Odessa in 1840, Zederbaum became a central figure in maskilic circles through his role as editor and newspaper publisher. In 1860, he founded Ha-melits, the first Hebrew weekly in the Russian Empire, a paper that he published until the end of his life. In 1862, he established Kol mevaser, a hugely influential Yiddish weekly—the first of its kind in Russia—that provided a space for the development of writing in Yiddish by writers such as Sholem Yankev Abramovitsh and Sholem Aleichem. Zederbaum also established the Russian Jewish newpaper Razsvet. Zederbaum moved to St. Petersburg in 1871; in his later years, he took a more overt political stance in his papers, speaking out against antisemitism and advocating for the early Zionist movement. He also wrote several books of fiction in Hebrew and Yiddish. His grandson Julius Martov became a leading Russian socialist activist.