Three famous Jews from Odessa

Chaim Nachman Bialik Chaim Nachman Bialik (1873-1934), Hebrew author; the father of modern Hebrew poetry. Born in the village of Radi, near Zhitomir, he lost his father at age seven and was send to Zhitomir to be raised by his sternly Orthodox grandfather. At the age of 15 he entered Volozhin yeshiva where he began to write Hebrew poetry and prose. He also came under the influence of Achad Ha-Am and joined a secret Zionist society. Finding the yeshiva too stifling, Bialik made his way to the great cultural metropolis of Odessa where he began to gain recognition as a Hebrew poet.

For four years he returned to Zhitomir, working as a timber merchant for his father-in-law, but then went back to Odessa where he lived for the next 20 years and taught in a Hebrew school. With the rise of Zionism, he was acclaimed as the poet-prophet of Jewish nationalism and was very influential. Some of his greatest works were written in the early part of the 20th century, such as The City of Slaughter, written after the 1903 Kishinev pogrom which was a major factor in inspiring the Jewish self-defense movement. Already before World War I, he stopped writing poetry and concentrated on producing anthologies of classical Hebrew literature. After three years in Berlin, Bialik settled in Tel Aviv in 1924, becoming a national and universally admired figure. He instituted the Sabbath afternoon Oneg Shabbat cultural gatherings and was chairman of the Hebrew Language Council. He died while on a visit to Vienna and was buried in Tel Aviv where his home is now the Bialik Museum.

Further reading:

Chaim Nachman Bialik. Complete poetic works, translated from Hebrew. Edited with introduction by Israel Efros: illus. by Lionel S. Reiss. 1948

Chaim Nachman Bialik. And it came to pass: legends and stories about King David and King Solomon / told by Hayyim Nahman Bialik. Translated by Herbert Dandy; with woodcuts by Howard Simon. 1938

Chaim Nachman Bialik. Far over the Sea; poems and jingles for children. Translated by Jessie Sampler, illustrated by Louis Kabrin. 1939

Chaim Nachman Bialik. Law and Legend: or Halakah and Aggada. Translated from Hebrew by Julius L. Seigel 1923

Chaim Nachman Bialik. Stories of the Sages, selected, translated and annotated by Chaim Pearl from Sefer ha-Agadah, the book of Jewish folklore and legend by H.N. Bialik and Y.H. Rawnitzky. 1991

Links:

H.N. Bialik

H.N. Bialik

Vladimir (Ze'ev) Jabotinsky Vladimir (Ze'ev) Jabotinsky ( 1880-1940), Zionist leader. Born in Odessa, he received a Jewish and general education and was early attracted to journalism and literature. He studied law in Rome, Italy, where he served as correspondent for Odessa newspapers. Returning to Russia in 1901, he became involved in Zionist activities, making his mark with his literary and oratorical skills and forceful ideology. In 1915, during World War I, he reached Egypt and, together with Josef Trumpeldor, advocated the establishment of a Jewish army that would fight on the side of the allies and helped to liberate Eretz Israel.

His efforts were successful when Britain formed the Jewish Legion in which Jabotinsky served as an officer. He remained in uniform and in 1920 served as commander of Jewish defense during the Arab riots in 1920. For this the British sentenced him to fifteen years hard labor, but he was released within a few weeks. He was a founder of the Keren HaYesod and in 1921 was elected to the Zionist Executive. He resigned in 1923 in protest over Chaim Weizmann's pro-British policy and two years later founded the Revisionist organization (and its youth movement, Betar), stressing action to establish a Jewish state on both banks of the Jordan river. In 1935 he seceded from the World Zionist Organization, establishing the New Zionist Organization which in the 1930s stressed the need to evacuate Jews from Europe to Palestine. During the 1936-39 Arab rebellion, he founded the underground Irgun Tzvai Leumi (Etzel) in Palestine, directing it from abroad. He died in New York. Jabotinsky was a prolific author in Hebrew, Russian, and English.

Further reading:

Vladimir Jabotinsky. The political and social philosophy of Ze’ev Jabotinsky: selected writings / edited by Mordechai Sarig; translated by Shimshon Feder; foreword by Daniel Carpi; preface by Ze’ev Benyamin Begin. 1999

Vladimir Jabotinsky. Samson. Translated from German by Cyrus Brooks. 1986 (originally published in 1930)

Vladimir Jabotinsky. Evidence submitted to the Palestine Royal Commission, House of Lords, February 11^th, 1937, by M. V. Jabotinsky, on behalf of the New Zionist Organization. 1937

Vladimir Jabotinsky. The Story of the Jewish Legion. Translated by Samuel Katz, with a foreword by Col. John Henry Patterson. 1945

Vladimir Jabotinsky. The War and the Jew. With a foreword by Pierre van Paassen and a conclusion by John Henry Patterson; new introductions by Menachem Begin and Dov Shilansky, biography by Charles Shapiro

Links:

Jabotinsky Institute in Israel

Ze'ev (Vladimir) Jabotinsky Home Page

Biography of Jabotinsky

Ze’ev (Vladimir) Jabotinsky

Further reading:

Isaac Babel. 1920 Diary. Edited and with an introduction and notes by carol J. Avins, translated from Russian by H.T. Willets. 1995

Isaac Babel. Benya Krik the gangster and other stories. Ed. by Avraham Yarmolinsky. New York: Schoken Books, 1970

Isaac Babel. Collected stories. Translated from Russian by Walter Morison with an introduction by Lionel Trilling. Penguin twentieth-century classics, 1961

Isaac Babel. The lonely years, 1925 - 1939. Unpublished and private correspondence. Translated from Russian by Andrew R. MacAndrew and Max Hayward. Edited and with and introduction by Nathalie Babel. 1964.

Links:

Isaac Babel

Isaac Babel Page

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