Moshe Smilansky

Moshe Smilansky (Hebrew: משה סמילנסקי‎‎)(February 24, 1874 – October 6, 1953) was a pioneer of the First Aliyah, a Zionist leader who advocated peaceful coexistence with the Arabs in Mandatory Palestine, a farmer, and a prolific author of fiction and non-fiction literary works.

Born in 1874 to a family of farmers in Telepino, a village in Kiev Governorate, then part of the Russian Empire (present-day Ukraine), Smilansky emigrated to Ottoman Palestine in 1890. Smilansky planned to study at Mikve Israel, but then purchased with his family's assistance and in Hadera in 1891. After his family's return to Russia Smilansky became an agricultural worker in Rishon LeZion before settling in Rehovot in 1893.

Smilansky, who considered himself a disciple of Ahad Ha'am, was an active Zionist whose cultural output include many essays and articles, which he has contributed to Hebrew periodicals published in Russia and in Germany (Ha-Tsefirah, Ha-Meliẓ, Ha-Tzofeh, Lu'aḥ Aḥiasaf, Ha-Shilo'aḥ, and Ha-Olam), sometimes under the pen name "Ben Hava". Smilansky also published in Hebrew periodicals in Ereẓ Israel, where he was one of the first contributors (writing under the pen name "Heruti") to the journal of Ha-Po'el ha-Tsa'ir and a co-founder of Ha-Omer literary journal together with David Yellin and S. Ben Zion (Simha Alter Guttman). Smilansky was a delegate to the Seventh Zionist Congress in Basel in 1905.

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