Kipnis was born in the
shtetl of Ushomir,
Volhynian Governorate which was part of the
Pale of Settlement of the
Russian Empire, in the
Russian Partition of Poland (now in
Korosten Raion of
Zhytomyr Oblast,
Ukraine), into a family of 12. His father, Pessach, who was a
shaliach tzibbur (Jewsih public prayer leader), sent him to study in a
cheder, which he didn't like because of the strict discipline. He showed a passion for the arts from a young age, painting and woodcarving. His father, who saw his potential, encouraged him to become a
sofer stam (Jewish religious scribe). He wrote
mezuzot to provide additional income for the family. He decided to become a writer at the age of 13, after seeing the Hebrew children's magazine "Haprachim" ("the flowers"). In his attic, he wrote, illustrated and produced his own magazine, later submitting one of his stories, "the sick child" to the children's magazine. The story was published in 1910. Kipnis completed his education in
Zhytomyr and
Warsaw, then went back to his hometown, where he founded a
cheder metukan ("improved
cheder"), established a Hebrew library and wrote and directed plays. In 1913, he
emigrated to Ottoman Palestine and continued his arts education at the
Bezalel Academy of Art and Design. The lack of content for children of kindergarten age convinced him to write songs suited for preschoolers. With the outbreak of
World War I, Kipnis established the "Little Library for Children" publisher in
Jaffa, while concurrently doing agricultural
forced labor for the
Ottoman military. After the war he returned to
Jerusalem at the invitation of Bezalel to write and edit content for preschoolers and published story and song collections for children as well as the first magazine for preschool teachers "Ganenu" ("our garden" or "our kindergarten"). In 1921, he managed an orphanage in
Safed. In 1922, he traveled to
Berlin, Germany for advanced studies in art and craftsmanship. There he published three books in
German. He returned in 1923 and began teaching at the
Levinsky Teacher's College in
Tel Aviv (now part of the ). In 1928, Kipnis wrote plays and participated actively in the foundation of a children's theater, later known as "Teatron Hagananot" ("the preschool-teacher theater"), where some well known Hebrew performers such as
Bracha Zefira and
Sara Levi-Tanai participated. In 1956, he retired from his job as an educator and dedicated his time to writing. Kipnis's writing is characterized by a light and happy style, devoid of pathos, yet rich and aesthetic. His collections in Hebrew encompass about 800 stories and 600 poems. Kipnis also wrote songs in Hebrew, including
Shanah Tova. He also wrote children's books in Yiddish, publishing a collection in 1961. His work was translated into
English,
French,
German,
Russian,
Arabic and Yiddish. He was active as a writer for 80 years, from 1910 to 1990. Kipnis died in 1990 in Tel Aviv. The archive of his work is at the Levin Kipnis Center for Children's Literature, Levinsky Teachers' College. The center awards a bi-annual prize named after Kipnis for a research project about children's literature. In 2020 a poem, written by Kipnis as a boy in 1905, was found in the Boris Schatz Archives at the
Information Center for Israeli Art. == Awards and honors ==