Ze'ev (Wolf) Yavetz was born in
Kolno in the
Russian Empire (today in
Poland). He published his first historical article in
HaShahar, a Hebrew monthly published by
Peretz Smolenskin. In 1887, at the age of 40, he
immigrated to
Ottoman Palestine. He initially worked in a vineyard in the Yehud
moshava, before being recruited by
Edmond James de Rothschild to be headmaster of a school in
Zikhron Ya'akov. This custom was adopted in 1908 by the Jewish Teachers Union and later by the
Jewish National Fund. Yavetz was a member of the
Hebrew Language Committee, and coined several modern Hebrew words, including
tarbut (culture) and
kvish (road). Yavetz used the Bible in a new thematic and stylistic manner with the object of reviving ancient ways of life. He has been called a "proto-Orientalist." In his later years he moved to
England, where he completed his 14-volume history of the Jews entitled
Toldot Yisrael. He died in
London in 1924. A
moshav in
Israel,
Kfar Yavetz, is named after him. ==References==