Literatureאלכסנדר פן

Alexander Penn

Alexander Penn was an Israeli poet who wrote in Hebrew and was a member of the Communist Party, known for poems such as "Vidui" (My Confession).

1906 to 1972The poem "Vidui" (My Confession)Hebrew poetry and communist politicsTel Aviv Bohemian life

Born: 14 February 1906, Nizhnekolymsk
Died: 19 April 1972, Tel Aviv
Occupation: poet, literary editor, painter, writer
Party: Palestine Communist Party, Maki

Alexander Penn was born in 1906 in Nizhnekolymsk

Penn was born Avraham Pepliker-Stern in 1906 in Yakymivka, in the Russian Empire. His father, Yosef Stern, ran a heder and taught Hebrew. Later in life Penn told an invented story that he was born in Nizhnekolymsk on the Arctic coast.

In 1920 he moved to Moscow to study cinema and published his first poems in Russian. He trained in boxing at the Maccabi club there. In 1926 he was arrested for Zionist activity, and in 1927 he left the Soviet Union.

He arrived in Mandatory Palestine in 1927. He worked as a boxing trainer in Tel Aviv, a farm hand, a construction worker and a guard. In 1928 he married Bella Don, and he later married Rachel Luftglass.

Penn began writing Hebrew poetry in Palestine and published in Davar and in literary magazines. As a Communist, he edited the literary section of the party paper Kol Ha'am. His poem "Vidui" was set to music in the early 1970s and recorded by many Israeli singers.

From 1940 he lived in a small apartment on northern Dizengoff Street in Tel Aviv. He was known for a Bohemian lifestyle. He died in 1972.