Isaac Dov Berkowitz was born in Slutsk in the Russian Empire.

Berkowitz's first short story, "On the eve of Yom Kippur" (Hebrew: בערב יום הכיפורים, romanized: Be-Erev Yom haKipur), was published in the Warsaw newspaper HaTzofe in 1903.

In 1905, Berkowitz moved to Vilna, where he worked as an editor for the Hebrew newspaper HaZman.

In 1910, Berkowitz published his first Collected Stories, and soon after that, he began to translate Sholem Aleichem's writings from Yiddish into Modern Hebrew.

[1] After arriving in Palestine in 1928, he co-edited Moznayim, the weekly literary organ of the Hebrew Writers Association, with Yeruham Fishel Lachower.