Zalman Shneour

Zalman Shneour (born Shneur Zalkind; 1887 – 20 February 1959) was a prolific Yiddish and Hebrew poet and writer. In 1955, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Biography
Zalman Shneour was born in Shklow (Škłoŭ) in Belarus (then part of the Russian Empire) in 1887. His parents were Isaac Zalkind and Feiga Sussman. At age 13, he left for Odessa, the center of literature and Zionism during this time. Shneour moved to Warsaw in 1902, and was hired by a successful publishing house. He moved to Vilnius in 1904, where he published his first book and a collection of stories.

In 1907, Shneour moved to Paris to study Natural Sciences, Philosophy, and Literature, at the Sorbonne. He traveled throughout Europe from 1908 to 1913, and visited North Africa. When World War I erupted, Shneour was in Berlin where the Germans detained him as a Russian citizen. There he wrote his famous Hebrew epic, “Vilna”, a poetic reconstruction of bygone Jewish life. During the years of the war, he worked in a hospital and studied at the University of Berlin. Shneour returned to Paris in 1923. He stayed there until 1940, when Hitler's troops invaded France. Shneour then fled to Spain, and from there he went to New York City in 1941. He immigrated to Israel in 1951.

He died in 1959 in New York.

He is remembered among lovers of Yiddish songs for his expression of longing and lust, “Tra-la-la-la,” known as Margaritkelekh, Daisies. Artists such as Chava Alberstein have recorded it.

Shneour had two children: the American neurochemist and biophysicist Elie A. Shneour, and Renée Rebecca, who became the Spanish dancer Laura Toledo.

Translations into English

 * Song of the Dnieper, translated by Joseph Leftwich. Roy Publishers: New York, 1945.
 * Restless spirit: Selected Writings of Zalman Shneour, translated by Moshe Spiegel. Thomas Yoseloff: New York, 1963.
 * A Death: Notes of a Suicide, translated by Daniel Kennedy. Wakefield Press: Cambridge, 2019. ISBN 9781939663450.

Awards and recognition

 * In 1951, Shneour was awarded the Bialik Prize for Literature.
 * In 1955, he was awarded the Israel Prize for literature.