Isaac Dov Berkowitz
BornOctober 1885
Slutsk, Russian Empire
Died29 March 1967
Occupation(s)Author, translator

Isaac Dov Berkowitz (Hebrew: יצחק דב ברקוביץ; 16 October 1885 – 29 March 1967), was a Hebrew and Yiddish author and translator.

Biography

Isaac Dov Berkowitz was born in Slutsk, Russian Empire. He immigrated to the United States in 1913, before moving permanently to Mandatory Palestine in 1928.

Berkowitz's first short story, On the eve of Yom Kippur (בערב יום הכיפורים), was published in the Warsaw Hebrew newspaper HaTzofe in 1903. In 1905, Berkowitz moved to Vilna, where he worked as an editor for the Hebrew newspaper HaZman. It was there that he met and later married Sholom Aleichem's daughter in 1906.

In 1910, Berkowitz published his first Collected stories and soon thereafter he began to translate Sholom Aleichem's writings from Yiddish into Hebrew. Two years later, he translated Leo Tolstoy's Childhood from Russian into Hebrew. Berkowitz emigrated to the United States in 1913, on the eve of the First World War.[1] From 1916 to 1919 he edited HaToren (The Mast), a Zionist-oriented periodical of high literary quality, and in 1919 he edited the short-lived journal Miklat (shelter, asylum, refuge or haven).[1]

After arriving in Palestinian Mandate in 1928, he co-edited the weekly newspaper Moznayim with Fishel Lachower, while also adapting to the stage several of Sholom Aleichem's plays for Habima Theater.

Awards

Berkowitz with Scholem Aleichem
  • In 1944, Berkowitz was awarded the Tchernichovsky Prize for exemplary translation, for his translations of Sholom Aleichem's Collected works.
  • In 1952, he was awarded the Bialik Prize[2] (literary award named after the poet Hayyim Nahman Bialik) for his Stories and plays (סיפורים ומחזות).
  • In 1958, he was awarded the Israel Prize, for literature.[3]
  • In 1965, Berkowitz was awarded the Bialik Prize a second time,[2] for his Childhood chapters (פירקי ילדות).

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Marcus, Jacob Rader (1993). United States Jewry 1776–1985. Vol. 4: The East European Period: The Emergence of the American Jew; Epilogue. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. ISBN 9780814321898. p. 364.
  2. 1 2 "List of Bialik Prize recipients 1933–2004 (in Hebrew), Tel Aviv Municipality website" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2007-12-17.
  3. ↑ "Israel Prize recipients in 1958 (in Hebrew)". Israel Prize Official Site. Archived from the original on February 8, 2012.
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