Alexander Ziskind Rabinovitz

Born in Liady to a poor, traditional family, Alexander Ziskind Rabinovitz (Azar) embraced Russian and maskilic Hebrew literature as a teenager. He worked as a Hebrew teacher in Viazma (near Smolensk) while writing articles for the Jewish Russian-language press. His first book, ‘Al ha-perek (1887), blamed Haskalah literature for weakening traditional Jewish culture. In 1888, Rabinovitz moved to Poltava to teach Hebrew while developing as a socialist Zionist essayist, publishing in Ha-Melits and other papers. He also wrote short stories, primarily in Hebrew but also in Yiddish and Russian. Rabinovitz immigrated to Palestine in 1906 and helped guide Second Aliyah Hebrew writers, including Y. H. Brenner and Shmuel Yosef Agnon, while working as a translator, editor, and biographer.