Salomon Gepstein

Salomon Gepstein was born in 1882 in Odesa

Salomon Gepstein was born in Odesa in 1882. His mother Yocheved was the daughter of a beverage maker from Crimea, and his father Kalman was a lawyer from Simferopol. The family moved back to Crimea when he was a baby, and he grew up there.

He received a Jewish education in a cheder and from private teachers until his bar mitzvah. He then studied at a state school in Odesa and at the academy of art and architecture in Saint Petersburg. He qualified as an architect in 1912 and worked in Saint Petersburg.

He began writing for newspapers while still a student, including the Russian paper Krym and Zionist papers in Russian. After the October Revolution he managed the publishing of law books for the justice commissariat in Moscow. Around that time he married Margalit, sister of Julius and Boris Dov Brutzkus.

In the Land of Israel he designed apartment buildings in Tel Aviv until 1950. He also designed the New Commercial Center near the old Central Bus Station and the Allenby Cinema building. He was president of the Jabotinsky Institute and editor in chief of the Russian-language Jewish journal Rassvet.

Later he left architecture and devoted himself to writing. His wife Margalit died in 1952. He died in Tel Aviv in 1961 and was buried in Nahalat Yitzhak Cemetery.