Zalman Shneur

Zalman Shneur was born in 1887 in Shklov

Zalman Shneur was born Shneur Zalkind in Shklov, in the Russian Empire, in 1887. His parents were Isaac Zalkind and Feiga Sussman. He grew up in a traditional home and received both religious and general schooling.

As a teenager he moved to Odessa, where Hayim Nahman Bialik took him in and taught him. In 1902 he moved to Warsaw and worked for a publishing house. In 1904 he moved to Vilnius, and in 1906 he published the poetry book Im Shki'at HaHama.

In 1907 he went to Paris to study literature, philosophy and natural sciences at the Sorbonne. From 1908 to 1913 he traveled in Europe and North Africa. When World War I began he was in Berlin, where he was detained as a Russian citizen.

He settled in France in 1923 and fled to Spain in 1940, then went on to New York. He wrote about 50 books of prose and poetry in Yiddish and Hebrew, including the novel Anshei Shklov. His song Margaritkelekh was recorded by Chava Alberstein.

After immigrating to Israel he wrote for daily newspapers and edited his books. He received the Bialik Prize in 1951 and the Israel Prize in 1955. He died in New York in 1959 and was buried in the Trumpeldor Cemetery in Tel Aviv.