MICHA JOSEF BERDICHEVSKY (later Ben-Gurion,
1865-1921) was the descendant of a line of Chassidic rabbis. In 1886 he began studying at the Volozhin Yeshiva. It was there that he began his literary career, infuriating his teachers.
In 1892 he moved to Berlin, where he combined both Jewish and secular studies. Opposed to both Ahad Ha-Am and Herzl, and encouraged by his friends and other Hebrew writers there, by 1900
Berdichevsky had firmly established himself with the publication of nine volumes of articles and stories.
After a short stay in Warsaw, he returned to Breslau where he continued to write in Hebrew, but embarked upon several new ventures - writing articles and stories in Yiddish, systematically collecting rabbinic legends, and studying the origins of Judaism with particular emphasis on the Samaritans.
Berdichevsky wrote some of his major stories after the war, notably his short novel, Miriam, which he completed shortly before his death.
Introduction by Professor Avner Holtzman, professor of Hebrew Literature at Tel Aviv University.
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