SHMUEL HER

SHMUEL HER (January 30, 1887-March 16, 1950)

            He was born in Kamay, Lithuania.  His father was a rabbi.  He studied in religious elementary schools, in the Ponevezh (Panevezys) Yeshiva, and later secular subjects as an external student.  He lived later in Riga where he was a teacher, contributed to the Hebrew-language Haḥaver (The friend), edited by Y.-Kh. Tavyov in Riga (1908), and to Yudishe shtime (Jewish voice), edited by Bal-Makhshoves in Riga (1910).  At the start of 1917, he was a student in St. Petersburg and at the same time a leader of the Labor Zionists.  In Petrograd he placed work in Togblat (Daily newspaper), edited by Yitskhok Grinberg.  He took part in Zionist and Labor Zionist conferences in Kiev and Minsk.  He later moved from St. Petersburg to Vitebsk, where he devoted himself to Zionist activities and, together with Sh. Kivin, edited the newspaper Der yudisher arbeter (The Jewish laborer), struggled against the [Soviet] “Jewish section,” and was arrested and exiled to Latvia.  Over the years 1921-1927, he taught in a Hebrew high school in Riga and lectured on Hebrew pedagogy.  In 1927 he made aliya to Israel, became a teacher there, and devoted himself to research on old Hebrew literature.  He author the Hebrew books: Mul har elohim (Facing the mountain of God) and Ester hamalka (Queen Esther).  With Shmuel Shrira, he published: Mavo lasifrut hayisraelit haatika (Introduction to the ancient literature of Israel) (Tel Aviv, 1946); and Mavo hasifrut hatalmudit (Introduction to Talmudic literature) (Tel Aviv, 1937).  He also translated from other languages into Hebrew.  He died in Tel Aviv.

Source: D. Tidhar, in Entsiklopedyah leḥalutse hayishuv uvonav (Encyclopedia of the pioneers and builders of the yishuv), vol. 6 (Tel Aviv, 1955), see index.