David Pinski

David Pinski was born in 1872 in Mahilyow

Pinski was born in 1872 in Mogilev, in the Russian Empire, and grew up in nearby Vitebsk. He was first meant to become a rabbi and studied Talmud from a young age.

He left home planning to study medicine in Vienna, but a visit to I.L. Peretz in Warsaw turned him toward writing. In Warsaw he taught, published his first stories and worked in the Jewish labor movement as a supporter of Labor Zionism.

He moved to Berlin in 1896 and to New York in 1899, where he studied at Columbia University. In 1904 he missed his doctoral exam after finishing his play Family Tsvi and never completed the degree. His plays dealt with Jewish workers, family life and sexuality, and The Treasure was staged in Berlin by Max Reinhardt in 1910.

In 1949 he settled in Haifa, where he wrote plays about Samson and King Saul that were hardly staged. He worked to promote Yiddish culture and became an honorary citizen of Haifa in 1952. He died in Haifa in 1959 and was buried in the Hof HaCarmel cemetery.