Literatureלאה גולדברג

Leah Goldberg

Leah Goldberg was a Hebrew poet, children's author, playwright and translator, and a professor of literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

1911 to 1970Hebrew poetryThe children's book Room for RentHebrew translation of War and Peace

Born: 29 May 1911, Königsberg
Died: 15 January 1970, Jerusalem
Occupation: poet, pedagogue, translator, playwright
Education: Vytautas Magnus University, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, University of Bonn

Leah Goldberg was born in 1911 in Königsberg

Leah Goldberg was born in Königsberg in 1911 to a Jewish family from Kaunas. During World War I the family fled into Russia. On their return, her father was tortured by Lithuanian soldiers and later became mentally ill.

She attended a Hebrew school and began a Hebrew diary at 10. She studied Semitic languages at the universities of Berlin and Bonn and earned a PhD on the Samaritan Targum. She then taught literature at a Hebrew high school in Lithuania.

In 1935 she settled in Tel Aviv, joined the Yachdav poets' group led by Avraham Shlonsky, and published her first poetry book. She worked as an editor at Davar and Al HaMishmar and edited children's books at Sifriyat Po'alim. She wrote poetry, plays, a novel and children's books, and translated works such as War and Peace into Hebrew.

She moved to Jerusalem with her mother and taught at the Hebrew University, where she headed the Department of Comparative Literature. She never married and lived with her mother all her life. She died of cancer in 1970 and was awarded the Israel Prize that year, which her mother accepted.