"Not a leader, nor an original thinker". A portrait of the Russian Jewish journalist Mikhail Berkhin (Benediktov)

Abstract

Mikhail Berkhin (Benediktov) was one of the famous Russian and Russian-Jewish journalists, and a Zionist leader, and a loyal supporter of V. Jabotinsky. His life, activity, and literary production ​​have, however, not actually been studied. Without any exaggeration, we can say that Berkhin, as a person and the author of a rather voluminous journalistic heritage in different languages ​​(Russian, English, Hebrew, Yiddish), is little known to the modern reader. Experts have not yet tried to fully discover his depths or describe him neither from the point of view of his private biography, nor as a historical phenomenon. This article is, in fact, the first attempt of this kind to give a relatively complete overview of the currently known biographical material of Berkhin and his ideological and creative heritage.