Literatureיעקב פיכמן

Jacob Fichman

Jacob Fichman was a Hebrew poet, essayist, editor and literary critic who received the Israel Prize for literature in 1957.

1881 to 1958Lyric Hebrew poetryEditing the magazine MoledetEssays on Hebrew writersIsrael Prize for literature

Born: 25 November 1881, Bălți
Died: 18 May 1958, Tel Aviv
Occupation: poet, children's writer, journalist, translator

Jacob Fichman was born in 1881 in Bălți

Fichman was born in Bălți, Bessarabia, in 1881. His father Eliyahu was a merchant, land leaseholder and sheep breeder, and his mother was Feiga. He studied in a heder, later studied Russian and general subjects in Kishinev, and began writing poems in Hebrew, Yiddish and Russian.

In 1901 he moved to Odessa to be near Hayim Nahman Bialik and other writers, and from 1903 he worked in Warsaw as well. He published poems and essays in Hebrew periodicals and began editing the collected works of other writers. His first book of poems, Giv'olim, appeared in Warsaw.

In 1912 he came to Ottoman Palestine to edit the children's magazine Moledet. He was in Europe when World War I began in 1914 and could not return until 1919. He then edited Moledet again and the journal Ma'abarot, and later worked as an editor for Stybel Publications.

After settling again in Palestine, he edited Moznaim, the journal of the Hebrew Writers Association. His poetry followed a lyric Romantic style, and his essays on Hebrew writers dealt with their lives as well as their work. He died in 1958.