Literatureזלדה

Zelda

Zelda Schneurson Mishkovsky, known as Zelda, was an Israeli poet and teacher whose poetry drew on Hasidism and Jewish mysticism.

1914 to 1984Hebrew poetry rooted in HasidismThe poetry collection PenaiThe poem Every Man Has a Name

Born: 20 June 1914, Dnipro
Died: 30 April 1984, Jerusalem
Occupation: poet, pedagogue, writer

Zelda was born in 1914 in Dnipro

Zelda was born in 1914 in Yekaterinoslav, in the Russian Empire. Her parents were Shalom Shlomo Schneerson and Rachel Hen, and both came from Chabad rabbinical families. Her first cousin was Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the seventh Chabad Rebbe.

The family moved to the Land of Israel and settled in Jerusalem. She went to a religious girls' school and then studied at the Mizrachi teachers' college. She graduated in 1932.

She worked as a teacher in Haifa and in Jerusalem, and studied painting in Tel Aviv. The writer Amos Oz was one of her students and later wrote about her in his memoir. In 1950 she married Hayim Mishkovsky and turned to writing.

Her first poetry collection, Penai, appeared in 1967. Her poems are written in free verse and use motifs of the Hasidic tale. She won the Brenner Prize, the Prime Minister's Prize and the Bialik Prize.

Her husband died in 1970, and she dedicated many poems of her second book to him. In 1976 she moved to the Shaarei Hesed neighborhood of Jerusalem. She died in 1984.