Shmaryahu Levin
Schemarjahu Levin, also Shmarya Levin and Šemaryāhû Lewin (Russian Шмарьяху Хаимович Левин; * 1867 in Swislatsch, Minsk province, Russian Empire, † June 9, 1935 in Haifa ) was a Zionist politician, journalist and writer.
Life
Schemarjahu Levin studied until the age of 15 at several yeshivas, then at the universities of Berlin and Königsberg ( Dr. phil., 1900). Already as a student in Berlin, he was active Zionist and together with Motzkin one of the most ardent champions of the Association of Russian-Jewish Students ( Russian - Jewish scientific association, founded 1887), later emerged from the many leaders of the Zionist movement. In 1903, he stepped on the sixth Zionist Congress on as an opponent of the Uganda plan. In the same year he was also moved to Germany, where he became a dedicated staff in the Relief Association of the German Jews.
Later he was appointed Kronrabbiner in Grodno and Jekaterinoslaw and was particularly involved in the Jewish school system, where he was able to achieve an extension of the Hebrew curriculum. In 1905 he accepted the position of a preacher ( house of prayer Taarath kodesh ) in Vilnius and was out of there a Russian- Jewish Tageblatt. As a member of the first Russian State Duma from 1906 he sensitized in much-publicized speeches a greater public awareness of the Jewish question.
On the 8th Zionist Congress (The Hague 1907), he held a key speech on national education in Palestine. From 1911 to 1918 he was a member of the Restricted Zionist Action Committee (EAC ). During the time of the First World War he developed in the U.S. and Canada a large-scale propaganda activities in favor of Zionism. In 1919 he was part of the leadership of the British Zionists as head of the Office of Education and Culture. Since 1920 he was in the service of the Keren Hayesod and was for a time its director.
In 1924, he moved to Palestine, where he led the Hebrew Publishing Dwir with Bialik.
Schemarjahu Levin has been since 1908 through his tireless propaganda and collecting activities of establishing a technical college in Palestine also one of the founding fathers of the later Technion in Haifa, and was also one of the main pulse of a reconciliation of the Zionist movement with Ahad Ha'am.
Works (selection)
- Siwath Yisrael, 1896 ( anthology of Hebrew poetry )
- Autobiography, in: The Forward, New York 1928 f
- In Milchume times (essays wartime memories, Yiddish and English, . German edition 1932/1933 )
- Youth in revolt. Transmission of Martha Fleischmann. Berlin, Rowohlt 1931.
- Childhood in exile, Dt. Transmission of Martha Fleischmann, Jewish Book Association, Berlin, 1935.
- Youth in Revolt, Engl transfer of Maurice Samuel, George Routledge & Sons, Ltd.. , 2nd edition, London, 1939. 294 S.