Moshe Smilansky

Born in Telepino, Russian Empire (today Telepyne, Ukraine), into a family of farmers, Moshe Smilansky received his education from tutors, among them members of the proto-Zionist group BILU. Smilansky traveled to Palestine in 1890, working on agricultural projects there, including the founding of the moshavah Hadera. He settled in Rehovot and purchased land on which he maintained orchards. Influenced by the cultural Zionist thinker Ahad Ha-Am, whose Zionism emphasized the importance of Hebrew cultural revival over mere large-scale settlement, Smilansky became an active commentator in the Hebrew press, both in the Russian Empire and in the Yishuv. He also became an advocate of political and economic cooperation with Palestine’s Arab population, opposing the demand by Second Aliyah Zionist activists that Jewish employers should hire only Jewish laborers so as to build a Jewish working class. Beginning in 1906, he wrote a series of short stories under the pen name Khawaga Musa, portraying Arab society in Palestine. The stories were later collected under the title Bene ‘arav (Children of Arabia or, simply, Arabs). Following World War I, Smilansky remained involved with Zionist political efforts and continued to publish novels and nonfiction, including several histories of Zionist agricultural settlements.