ZALMAN BEN-TOVIM (February 13, 1876-February 3, 1957)
He was born in Bialystok.
His father, Yitskhok-Ayzik, was a follower of the Jewish Enlightenment
movement and an early Zionist; in the early 1880s he changed his surname Bendet
to Ben-Tovim, and in a booklet he wrote, entitled Etsat shalom (Advice
for peace), he signed his name Even Tovim.
Serving as R. Shmuel Mohilever’s secretary, the elder Ben-Tovim in 1890 accompanied
him on a trip to Palestine and settled there.
In 1891 he brought his family to Palestine as well. In the same year, Zalmen Ben-Tovim began to
write for Ḥabatselet
(Lily) and to send in correspondence pieces to Hatsfira (The siren) and Hamelits
(The advocate). Later he contributed to
Ben-Yehuda’s newspapers, to Avraham-Moshe Luntz’s Luaḥ (Calendar), and to Haḥerut (The
liberation), Hamoriya ([Mount] Moriah), Doar hayom (Today’s mail),
Haaretz (The land), Luaḥ
yerushalaim
(Jerusalem calendar), and other newspapers and magazines, signing his name with
the pseudonyms: Hatsofe (The spectator), Abi-Zvi, Z. Ben-Yitzḥak, and
Ish-Yehudi. For many years he was the
Jerusalem correspondent for Morgn-zhurnal (Morning journal) in New York,
and he published in Amerikaner (American) original articles and
translated from Arabic folklore. From
early on, he worked as a teacher in schools in Jaffa, Ekron, and Jerusalem. He was also active in the community and took
part in the founding of Ḥevrat yishuv eretz yisrael hakedosha (Society
for the settlement of the sacred Land of Israel), the Aḥava Association, and
the Mizrachi organization in Jerusalem. Among
his books: Hakadish lifne kol-nidre (The kaddish prayer before Kol
Nidre), a translation from German of Sh. Cohen’s stories; Hanegef (The plague),
translated from the Russian; and two booklets concerning the history of old-age
homes and Shaare-Zedek Hospital in Jerusalem.
He died in Jerusalem.
Source: D. Tidhar, Entsiklopedyah leḥalutse hayishuv uvonav (Encyclopedia of the founders and builders of Israel), vol. 2, p. 614.
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