Ze'ev Yavetz

Ze'ev Yavetz (also Javetz) (Hebrew: זאב יעבץ‎, 26 September 1847 – 24 January 1924) was a Polish-Jewish historian, teacher and Hebrew linguist.

Biography

Ze'ev (Wolf) Yavetz was born in Kolno in the Russian Empire (today in Poland). He published his first historical article in HaShahar, a Hebrew monthly published by Peretz Smolenskin.[1]

In 1887, at the age of 40, he immigrated to Ottoman-controlled Palestine. He initially worked in a vineyard in the Yehud moshava, before being recruited by Edmond James de Rothschild to be headmaster of a school in Zikhron Ya'akov.[2] On Tu Bishvat that year he took his students to plant trees in Zikhron Ya'akov.[2] This custom was adopted in 1908 by the Jewish Teachers Union and later by the Jewish National Fund.

Yavetz was a member of the Hebrew Language Committee, and coined several modern Hebrew words, including tarbut (culture) and kvish (road).[2]

After falling out with Baron Rothschild's administrators he moved to Vilna. In 1902, he helped to found the Mizrachi movement and became the editor of its periodical "HaMizrachi." In 1903, at a reception for Theodor Herzl, he presented the Zionist leader with a small Torah scroll in a carved holder as a gift of honor from the Vilna community.[3]

Yavetz used the Bible in a new thematic and stylistic manner with the object of reviving ancient ways of life. He has been called a "proto-Orientalist."[4]

In his latter years he moved to England, where he completed his 14-volume history of the Jews Toldot Yisrael.[2] He died in London in 1924.

A moshav in Israel, Kfar Yavetz, is named after him.

References

  1. ↑ Prophets of the Past: Interpreters of Jewish History, Michael Brenner
  2. 1 2 3 4 With Tu Bishvat near, a tree grows in Zichron Yaakov Haaretz, 25 January 2013
  3. ↑ Theodore Herzl: A Biography, Alex Bein, Jewish Publication Society, 1956, p.451
  4. ↑ Orientalism and the Hebrew Imagination, Yaron Peleg
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