Zevi Scharfstein

[1] The hosts of a special celebration in Detroit honoring Scharfstein on his seventieth birthday in 1954 described him as "one of the country's leading Jewish educators" whose Hebrew instructional materials were in very wide use in the United States.

"[3] Scharfstein was educated as a child by private tutors, and his only official academic degree was an honorary Doctor of Hebrew Letters, awarded by the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.

Controlling his own press and going to market with his own materials freed Scharfstein from the limitations of working within the existing philosophical, pedagogical, and financial power structures of the Hebraist movement.

[13] Shilo is still in operation, offering books on "the Hebrew language, studying to read the Haftorah, and the works of Nachmanides," as well as a widely used Siddur for children and Hebrew-English and English-Hebrew dictionaries.

[17] Scharfstein was awarded the 1954 Louis Lamed Foundation annual prize for Hebrew literature, citing his autobiography "Haya Aviv Ba-Aretz" (It was Spring in the Land).