,
Tel Aviv 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. ==Published works==