Eliezer Steinman

Eliezer Steinman was born in 1891 in Obodivka

Steinman was born in December 1891 in Obodivka, in the Podolia Governorate of the Russian Empire. His father, Rabbi Natan, died when he was young, and he grew up with his uncles.

He studied at a yeshiva in Chisinau and received rabbinical ordination. During his studies he began publishing stories, and from 1910 his work appeared in Hebrew and Yiddish newspapers while he earned a living as a teacher. Hayim Nahman Bialik worked to get him released from service in the Russian army.

After the 1917 revolution he adopted communist ideas, moved to Moscow and published his first novel. In 1919 he moved to Odessa, and later he and his wife fled to Warsaw. There he wrote for Ha-Tsefirah and Der Moment and published the magazine Kolot in 1923 and 1924.

In 1924 he immigrated to Mandate Palestine and settled in Tel Aviv. From 1926 he edited Katuvim, the literary magazine of the Hebrew Writers Union, named after a group he founded with Avraham Shlonsky and others. He published essays, novels, children's books and anthologies, and retold Hasidic traditions in the series Be'er HaHasidut.

In his later years he was in close contact with the Lubavitcher Rebbe. He died in Tel Aviv on 7 August 1970. His sons are the writers Nathan Shaham and David Shaham.