All About David Frishman

One of the most famous streets in Tel Aviv that each of us knows is Frishman street

But who is that Frishman?

Let’s find out

David Frishman was a Yiddish modernist writer, poet, and translator. He edited several important Hebrew periodicals, and wrote fiction, poetry, essays, feuilletons, literary criticisms, and translations.

Frishman was an outstanding representative of the East European Jewish dream to create “normal” European modern Jewish literature within Eastern Europe, unconnected to the fight for civil rights or plans for a revolutionary solution to the “Jewish question.” He envisioned an elitist, refined Hebrew literature that could parallel the achievements of classic works of Western literature. He was skeptical about the value of Jewish cultural heritage and believed that the development of taste and aesthetic sensitivity was the key to a modern Jewish renaissance.