Yitzkhok Yoel Linetzky

[Liptzin, 1972, 46] He was raised a Hasidic Jew in Vinnytsia, Podolia (now in Ukraine), but revolted against his violent schoolteachers and cabalist father by aligning himself with the Haskalah, the Jewish Enlightenment.

Attempting to leave for Germany to continue his education, he was stopped at the border and brought back, a virtual prisoner, to Vinnytsia.

At 23, he managed again to escape, this time to the government-sponsored rabbinical academy at Zhytomyr, where he developed a close friendship with Abraham Goldfaden.

His 1882 booklet America or Israel aligned him with the Hovevei Zion movement, active in the Jewish colonization of Palestine.

His semi-autobiographical picaresque novel, Dos Poylishe Yingl (The Polish Lad), an outright attack on the Hasidim, first appeared in installments in Kol Mevasser in 1867, and remained popular at least until the eve of World War II.