Yehoash was the pen name for Solomon Blumgarten, also known as Solomon Bloomgarden (1870-1927), a Yiddish-language poet, scholar and Bible translator.

Yehoash "is generally recognized by those familiar with this literature [Yiddish], as its greatest living poet and one of its most skillful raconteurs", according to a New York Times book review in 1923.

His output included verse, translations, poetry, short stories, essays and fables in Yiddish and some articles in English. His poetry was translated into Russian, Dutch, Polish, Finnish, German, Spanish, English and Hebrew. He was responsible for translating many works of world literature into Yiddish, including Longfellow's

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline...

 Hiawatha and a very popular translation of the Bible

Bible

The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

. His version was hailed as a contribution of national significance and perhaps the greatest masterpiece in the Yiddish language. His two volume edition became a standard work for Yiddish speaking homes throughout the world.

Born in Virbalis, Lithuania (then considered part of Russian-ruled Poland), he emigrated to the United States in 1890 and settled in New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

. For a decade he was a businessman, but wrote full-time starting in 1900 when he entered a sanitarium for tuberculosis.

A visit to Palestine in 1914 led him to write a three-volume work describing the trip and the country. His description was later translated into English as The Feet of the Messenger. His translations included parts of the Koran, classical Arabic writings and Sayings of the Fathers (Pirke Aboth). With Dr. O. D. Spivak, he wrote a dictionary of the Hebrew and Chaldaic elements of Yiddish, illustrated with idiomatic expressions and proverbs.

He died suddenly at his home at 943 Whitlock Avenue in The Bronx

The Bronx

The Bronx is the northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City. It is also known as Bronx County, the last of the 62 counties of New York State to be incorporated...

, where he lived with his wife, Flora, and his daughter, Evelyn, at the time was a student at Hunter College. At the time of his death, he was an editor at The Day newspaper.

Yehoash's daughter Evelyn married Ben Dworkin in New York City (circa?) who a Yiddish publisher, ultimately moving to Israel in 1967 to live in Rehovot

Rehovot

Rehovot is a city in the Center District of Israel, about south of Tel Aviv. According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics , at the end of 2009 the city had a total population of 112,700. Rehovot's official website estimates the population at 114,000.Rehovot was built on the site of Doron,...

, Evelyn's childhood home and the setting for Feet of the Messenger. They were succeeded by a single son, Yehoash Shlomo Dworkin, who married Nancy Ellen Wexler, and produced three children: Kolev (eldest), Amram, and Tamar. The current bearer of the Yehoash family name is Amram and Erika Dworkin's son, Adam Yehoash Dworkin (born 2009), and Tamar Dworkin's and Elie Zarem's son, Lucas Avish Dworkin (born April 9th, 2006).