The Distant Stars of Heaven

Abstract

Unlike most of his contemporaries, Tchernikhowky, who was born in the Crimea, had a secular education from his early youth, first at a Russian Gramar School in Odessa and, later, at the Universities of Heidelberg, Germany, and Lausanne, Switzerland, where he obtained his doctor's degree in medicine. In Russia and in Israel—he settled there in 1931—he combined medical practice with his literary work. As a writer he ranges in stature equal with Bialik as one of the foremost modern Hebrew poets. Besides his original writing he translated a great deal from several European languages, but his crowning achievements were the Hexameter translations of Homer's Iliad and Odyssee.