Born on 21 July 1851 in Odessa, Ukraine, to well-to-do parents. He attended the business school and at the same time for five years learned Hebrew with Peretz Smolenski  At age seventeen, he went away to Berlin to study architecture in a politechnicum, but due to his uncle's bad business, he couldn't complete his studies, and in 1870 he returned to Odessa, where he took up commerce and dedicated his free time to literature.

Z. had in Sholem Aleichem's "Yidishe folksbibliotek", published a comedy device in one act "Nor a doktor", and as such Sholem Aleichem had also a one-acter with the same name, and because of this there was a literary conflict.

In M. Spektor's "Der familien-fraynd", Warsaw, 1887, Z. printed "Der medalion, an operetta in one act in two scenes (freely adapted from the "Khutm-shdi" [a Hebrew poem] by A. B. Gotlober)."

Z. had -- according to Jacob Mestel -- left two handwritten poems.

Z. in 1909 passed away in Vienna detailed literature and almost an entire presentation, although he had -- according to Zalmen Reisen -- in the beginning of the new epoch of Yiddish literature, performed in it a certain role as one of her honest and productive representatives.

M. E. from Jacob Mestel.

• Z. Reisen -- "Lexicon of Yiddish Literature", Vol. I, pp. 1035-6.
  

• "Sholem Aleichem Book", N. Y., pp. 225-6.

• R. Granovsky -- Yitzhak yoel linetsky, "Pinkas", N. Y, 1-2, p. 146.