Sokolow, Nahum (1859-1936)

Sokolow wrote so much and on so many topics that the Hebrew poet Hayyim Nahman Bialik once remarked that it would take 300 camels to bring all his writings together in one place.

Born in Poland into a rabbinic family, Sokolow received both a traditional Jewish and a general education. At the age of 17 he began writing reports for the Hebrew newspaper Ha-Zefirah and soon became regular columnist and finally its editor. He was unique in being able to attract as his reading public both Westernized Jewish intellectuals and extreme, anti-Haskalah Orthodox rabbis. Sokolow translated Herzl's Zionist novel Altneuland ("Old-New Land") into Hebrew under the symbolic title Tel-Aviv (tel meaning a hill of ruins, and aviv meaning spring), and thus inspired the name for the first Jewish city in modern Erez Israel.

After being invited to serve as general secretary of the World Zionist Organization in 1906, Sokolow began working ardently for the Zionist cause. He traveled throughout Europe and America, winning the support of many Jews and non-Jews. With the outbreak of World War I he moved to London where he played an important role in influencing the British government to issue the Balfour Declaration. From 1931 until a year before his death, he served as president of the World Zionist Organization.

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