On his mother's side, he was descended from the Maharshal, the Ba'al Halevushim, and Rabbi Raphael Cohen.
[2] Liessin received a traditional Jewish education, but he developed heretical views that lead to his expulsion from the Volozhin Yeshiva.
[3] Before leaving, he established himself among the Russian Jewish workers and socialist leaders as a revolutionary Yiddish poet and social satirist.
As a delegate of the seventh Bund congress in Lemberg in 1906, he demanded a positive stance on Jewish ethnic issues and supported "neutralism" on the nationality question.
[1] Seeking to articulate positive role models for revolution from Jewish tradition, Liessin wrote about Jewish religious and national figures like Judah Maccabee, Bar Kochba, Solomon Molcho, Rabbi Meir of Rothenburg, and Hirsh Lekert.
[6] In 1901, he married Libe Ginzburg, who was descended from a rabbinical family in Smarhonʹ and was forced to leave Russia for her involvement in the socialist movement.
[6] A few days before his death from a heart attack, he collapsed while reading a poem at the funeral service of his friend and associate Baruch Charney Vladeck.
Harry Rogoff presided over the funeral service, and speakers included Sholem Asch, David Pinski, Abraham Reisin, H. Leivick, Alexander Kahn, Nathan Chanin, Zivion, and Joseph Schlossberg.