ZMORA, YISRAEL

ZMORA, YISRAEL (1899–1983), Hebrew literary critic. Born in the Belz district of Bessarabia, he immigrated to Palestine in 1925. He was one of a group of modernistic Hebrew writers who, from 1927 to 1939, contributed to Tel Aviv's avant-garde literary periodicals Ketuvim and Turim, and he regularly published critical notices of new Hebrew books and writers in the Palestinian Hebrew press. Zmora founded and edited (1940–54) the literary magazine Maḥbarot le-Sifrut. In 1940 he also founded the publishing house with the same name, which published the works of young Hebrew poets, new editions of Hebrew works from the Middle Ages and the Haskalah period, and translations. He was also active as a translator, particularly from French and Russian. His books include Anshei Shem Mitloẓeẓim, under the pen name of Y. Zeh (1933); Rainer Maria Rilke, a monograph (1933); Avraham Shlonsky, a monograph (1937); Shenei Mesapperim, essays on Ḥ. hazaz and jacob horovitz (1940); Sifrut al Parashat Dorot, essays on literature and writers (3 vols., 1949–50); Ha-Mesapper Kav le-Kav, literary analysis of the works of U.N. Gnessin (1951); and Nevi'im Aḥaronim, essays (1953); a collection of poems (1965), Shloshim Sonetot (1971) and essays entitled Ḥamesh Megilot (1973). -BIBLIOGRAPHY: A. Ben-Or, Toledot ha-Sifrut ha-Ivrit be-Dorenu, 2 (1955), 282–4; Tidhar, 3 (1949), 1362f. (Gedalyah Elkoshi)