Language Hebrew Role Author Name Shlomo Zemach | Citizenship Israeli Ethnicity Jewish Died November 6, 1974, Israel | |
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Books An introduction to the history of labour settlement in Palestine Notable awards Bialik Prize (1944), Israel Prize (1965) | ||
Shlomo Zemach (Hebrew: שלמה צמח; born 2 June 1886, died 6 November 1974) was an Israeli author, agriculturalist and early Zionist pioneer.
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Biography
Zemach was born in 1886 in Płońsk, Poland, then part of the Russian Empire, and was a descendant of Rabbi Avraham Gombiner (known as the "Magen Avraham") and his descendant, Rabbi Zvi Hirsch HaLevi of Plonsk (known as the "Plant (Zemach) of Avraham", from where Zemach's surname originates). He was a childhood friend of David Ben-Gurion. Zemach received a traditional Jewish education at cheder and beit midrash. In 1900, at the age of 14, Ben-Gurion and Zemach founded a Zionist youth association in Płońsk, under the name Ezra Association, whose members spoke only Hebrew.
In 1904, Zemach emigrated to Ottoman Palestine. He worked as an agricultural worker for five years. In 1905, he was among the founders of the Hapoel Hatzair Zionist organization.
From 1909 to 1914, Zemach studied agriculture, literature and philosophy in France. In 1914, he qualified as an agricultural engineer, and went to visit his parents' home in Płońsk, where he was caught up in the outbreak of the First World War. He was engaged in literary work in Warsaw and later on in Odessa. In 1921, he returned to then British-administered Palestine. He was employed as a teacher at the Mikveh Israel agricultural school and, in 1933, he was the principal founder of the Kadoorie Agricultural High School and served as its first headmaster.
He wrote a number of books and articles on agriculture. He was also a literary critic and edited the literary journal Maazanim.