Yitzhak Goldman
Yitzhak Goldman, the son of Meir ben Shmuel Goldman (1814-1894) was born in 1839 in the village of Widze in the province of Vilna in the north-west of the Russian Empire (Lithuania; today in Belarus). He had a traditional Jewish education in the city of his birth and then continued to Torah academies in Minsk and Volozhin. He subsequently acquired a general education, especially in the sciences and Hebrew.
In 1861, as a young man, he settled in Vilna which was the most important Jewish center in north-west Russia. He made a name for himself in the intellectual circles and was particularly close to the linguist and poet Adam Ha'cohen. He made a living from commerce and devoted his leisure time to literary pursuits.
He published many poems and articles in Hebrew journals and supplements. In the mid-1870s he published two books of poetry: Hapahad Balelot (The Fear in the Nights) in Warsaw in 1876, a book of satirical poems about customs and superstitions; the second book, Shanim Kadmoniot (The Primeval Years), published in Vilna in 1879, was a historical poetic story about the period of the Spanish Inquisition. The latter was praised by the critics.
In 1886, after he had become renowned as a poet, he was invited by Alexander Zederbaum (Erez) to come to St. Petersburg, the capital, to work alongside Y.L. Gordon on Hamelitz, the Hebrew newspaper. He was assistant editor and published many articles anonymously.
A few months later, he returned to Vilna to his job as manager of the Lipsky-Epstein brewery, where he worked for the rest of his life. His last book of poetry Shivat Zion (Return to Zion) was published in Vilna in 1898; in this book he depicted the rebirth of the Jewish homeland and expressed the hope that there would soon be a return to Zion.
He died at the age of 65 during the Passover holiday and was buried in Vilna. He left both poems and prose as well as a folder of comments for the Otzar Hashorashim (Treasure of Roots) dictionary that was compiled by Yehuda Leib Ben-Ze'ev, a linguist of the first generation of the Enlightenment movement, Dor Hameasfim (The Generation of Collectors).
Despite the fact that Goldman's children all had a sound Jewish education, they grew up in the shadow of the revolutionary movement in Russia in the 19th century and all became revolutionaries.
source: Wikipedia
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