[2] After attending cheder, Gnessin studied at his father's yeshiva, and there became friends with Yosef Haim Brenner, a fellow student.

[1] As a boy he wrote poetry and was interested in secular subjects; when he was 15 years old, he and Brenner together produced a literary journal that they distributed to a small circle of friends.

[1] Around 1899, when Gnessin was 18 years old, he was invited by Nahum Sokolow to join the editorial board of the Hebrew-language newspaper Ha-Tsefirah, in Warsaw, where he began to publish his poems and stories, as well as literary criticism and translations.

[1] In 1906, he co-founded the Hebrew-language publishing house "Nisyonot" (Attempts), and after moving to London in 1907, he co-edited (with Brenner) Ha'Meorer, a Hebrew periodical.

Many Israeli literary scholars, such as Dan Miron and Gershon Shaked have written of his work, especially about the short story "BaGanim" (At the Gardens).