Israel Ḥayim Taviov

Born in Druya, Russian Empire (today in Belarus), Israel Ḥayim Taviov was brought up in Riga (today in Latvia). He was first published in the Hebrew journal Ha-Levanon at a young age, well before he established his career in journalism and publishing. In 1889, Taviov contributed to Ha-Melits, weighing in on the debate playing out at the time on the status of Yiddish in literary and social movements. A committed Hebraist, he saw no place for “jargon” (Yiddish) in the realm of literature, and he reserved his more scholarly pieces—especially in philology—for publication in the Hebrew press. Despite his opposition, Taviov did publish widely in Yiddish, especially after moving to Vilna in 1905. Using the pen name “A trakhter” (“a thinker”), he wrote for the Yiddish daily Di tsayt. Taviov also played an important role in the development of modern, secular-national literary and pedagogical materials for Jewish children, producing children’s literature and textbooks in Yiddish, Russian, and especially Hebrew, and founding a pioneering Hebrew-language daily newspaper for children in Vilna in 1908, He-Ḥaver. Taviov returned to Riga in 1908. At the outbreak of World War I, he moved to Moscow, continuing his career in publishing throughout. He also worked as a translator, producing a well-regarded Hebrew translation of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray as part of an ambitious effort by Russia’s Hebraist writers and publishers to translate the classics of European and world literature into Hebrew before, during, and after the war. Taviov faced significant personal hardship following the Bolshevik Revolution.