ISSACHAR-DOV BAR-DRORA

ISSACHAR-DOV BAR-DRORA (February 13, 1883 [1882?]-March 16, 1941)

     His earlier family name was Frayer.  He was born in Kutno, Poland, into a merchant household.  He studied in religious primary school, yeshiva, and was an external student.  At age seventeen he moved to Warsaw and, thanks to Sholem Ash, was introduced to Y. L. Peretz’s writers’ circle.  From 1906 he was living in Palestine.  He was one of the first builders of Tel Aviv.  In 1909 he was elected into the Council of the Settlement (Va’ad hayishuv).  He was the founder of the association The Planter, the bank “Bnei Binyamin,” and the cities of Netanya and Even-Yehuda.  He began writing at age seventeen in Hebrew and published in Hatsfira (The siren) and Hatsofe (The spectator), and later he wrote in Yiddish for Der veg (The way) in 1905-1906.  From 1920 to 1936, he was one of the main contributors and an editor of Doar-hayom (Today’s mail) in Tel Aviv, editor of Hayishuv (The settlement) (1925-1928), and from 1936 until his death a contributor to Haboker (This morning) and Yediot aḥaronot (Late news), among others.  He died in Tel Aviv.

Source: D. Tidhar, in Entsiklopedyah leḥalutse hayishuv uvonav (Encyclopedia of the founders and builders of Israel), vol. 1 (Tel Aviv, 1947), pp. 183-84.