Dr. Saul Tchernichovsky, 68, the famous Hebrew poet, died last night from a heart attack while spending the Succoth holiday at Katamon, a suburb of Jerusalem. He was buried today at the Old Cemetery in Tel Aviv by the side of the late Hebrew poet Chaim Nachman Bialik, in accordance with his last will. Thousands of people participated in the funeral.
The body was escorted to Tel Aviv by delegations representing all the national Jewish organizations and institutions. The funeral was arranged by the Jewish National Council of Palestine. Tchernichovsky was a practicing physician on the staff of the Tel Aviv municipality.
Born in Russia, Tchernichovsky studied in German and Swiss universities and later practiced medicine in St. Petersburg under the Czarist regime. In the last World War he was mobilized as an army physician and worked at the front with the Russian army. In 1924-25 he practiced in practiced in Palestine and later in Germany. He left Germany in 1931 and settled in Palestine.
His first Hebrew poem “In My Dream” was published in 1892 in the United States, in the magazine Hapisgah (The Summit) In addition to his original writings in Hebrew, Dr. Tchernichovsky translated into Hebrew Shakespeare’s “Macheth,” Homer’s “Odyssey” and other classical works. He was decorated by the Finnish Government for the translation which he made of the Finnish national epic “Kalevala. During the past year he was working on translation Serbian poetry into Hebrew.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
