Judah Löb Davidovich (1855, in

Vilna Vilnius ( , ; see also other names) is the capital and largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the municipality of Vilnius). The population of Vilnius's functional u ...

– 1 January 1898, in

Odessa Odesa (also spelled Odessa) is the third most populous city and municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern shore of the Black Sea. The city is also the administrativ ...

) was a Russian

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

writer and translator. After serving in the

Imperial Russian Army The Imperial Russian Army (russian: Ру́сская импера́торская а́рмия, tr. ) was the armed land force of the Russian Empire, active from around 1721 to the Russian Revolution of 1917. In the early 1850s, the Russian Ar ...

, Davidovich studied surgery, but failed to find work as a ''

feldsher According to the World Health Organization, a feldsher (german: Feldscher, pl, Felczer, cs, Felčar, russian: фельдшер, sv, Fältskär, Finnish: ''Välskäri'') is a health care professional who provides various medical services limit ...

''. After a futile attempt to make a career as a singer, he settled in Odessa about 1885 as a private

teacher A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching. ''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. whe ...

. There he was influenced by

Ahad Ha'am Asher Zvi Hirsch Ginsberg (18 August 1856 – 2 January 1927), primarily known by his Hebrew name and pen name Ahad Ha'am ( he, אחד העם, lit. 'one of the people', Genesis 26:10), was a Hebrew essayist, and one of the foremost pre-state Zi ...

to turn his attention to

Hebrew literature Hebrew literature consists of ancient, medieval, and modern writings in the Hebrew language. It is one of the primary forms of Jewish literature, though there have been cases of literature written in Hebrew by non-Jews. Hebrew literature was pro ...

. Davidovich translated into Hebrew

Herbert Spencer Herbert Spencer (27 April 1820 – 8 December 1903) was an English philosopher, psychologist, biologist, anthropologist, and sociologist famous for his hypothesis of social Darwinism. Spencer originated the expression "survival of the fittest" ...

's essay on education, with preface and explanatory notes, published by Aḥiasaf under the name ''Ha-Ḥinnukh'' (Warsaw, 1894). He also wrote two articles on educational subjects in ''

Ha-Shiloaḥ ''Ha-Shiloaḥ'' () was a Hebrew-language literary journal, founded by Ahad Ha'am and the Ahi'asaf Publishing House in 1896. He edited the journal until December 1902, whereupon it came under the editorship of historian Joseph Klausner. It ceased ...

'' (vols. i., ii.).

References

1855 births 1898 deaths English–Hebrew translators Jews from the Russian Empire Writers from Vilnius 19th-century translators {{Judaism-bio-stub