David Shimoni

Born David Shimonovitch in Bobruisk in the Russian Empire (today Babruysk, Belarus), David Shimoni received his early education from tutors and began writing poetry in Hebrew and Yiddish as an adolescent. Prevented from pursuing university education due to tsarist quotas for Jews, Shimoni moved to Palestine for a year in 1909. His experiences in the new settlements founded by the pioneers of the First and Second Aliyah shaped his poetry in later years. He then moved to Germany, where he studied philosophy and Semitic languages and published his first volume of poetry, Sa‘ar u-demamah (1912). Returning to Russia during World War I, Shimoni remained there for several years, working for the newly established Stybel Hebrew publishing house. Following the Bolshevik Revolution he immigrated to Tel Aviv in 1921, adopting the name Shimoni, becoming a high school Bible and literature teacher, and continuing to publish poems, novels, and translations. He received several awards for his literary output during his career, including the Bialik Prize (1936 and 1949) and the israel Prize (1954).