Simon Lazar

Born in Przemyśl in the Austro-Hungarian Empire (today in Poland) to a traditional Galician Jewish family, Simon Lazar received a fine traditional education. He later turned to modern Hebraism and Zionism, albeit of the religious stream represented by the Mizrachi party, of which he was a founding member. Lazar began his Hebrew literary career at Naḥum Sokolow’s Ha-Asif (1884–1888), became an editor of the weekly Ha-Magid in 1896, and was also published in Ha-Shiloaḥ, among others. In 1904, Lazar established a Hebrew Zionist weekly, Ha-Mitspeh, which challenged the ultra-Orthodox and served as a platform for many Hebrew writers in the Austro-Hungarian ambit, such as S. Y. Agnon, Avigdor Hameiri, and Uri Zvi Greenberg. During World War I, Lazar temporarily closed his press while serving in the military. At the time of his death he was working on a midrashic commentary; he also wrote in Yiddish and German.