Yitzhaq Shami () (August 4, 1888 – March 1, 1949) was a Palestinian Jewish and Israeli writer, who wrote both in Arabic and Hebrew. He is one of the earliest modern Hebrew literature writers in Palestine, prior to Israeli statehood. His work was unique for his period, since in contrast with the vast majority of Hebrew writers of the period he crafted his art based on characters who were either Arabs or Sephardic Jews, residing in the Ottoman Palestine, and his literary influences were predominantly Arab and Middle Eastern. Shami published short stories, one novella, several poems and a number of essays. Biography Shami's birth name was Yitzhaq Sarwi. He was born in Hebron (al-Khalil) in 1888, eldest of three sons. His father, Eliyahu, was a textile merchant of Syrian Jewish origin, who relocated from Damascus to Hebron in 1885. The father was therefore known as "a-Shami" (the Damascene), and that was the origin of the pen-name later adopted by the writer. Eventually, it became his legal name as well. His mother, Rivka Castel, was a Hebronite from the illustrious Castel family, a traditional Sephardic family which had lived in Hebron for generations. Growing up, Shami spoke Arabic with his father, and Ladino with his mother, and the family conducted its life in customary Middle Eastern style of the period. His family was religiously observant, and in his youth, he studied Hebrew and Arabic in the local religious school. While Shami was growing up, his father traveled across the Middle East and in the locality for his business, and through his father, Shami was exposed to the local villagers (fellahim), which were later treated as characters in his stories. A critical influence on Shami as a young teenager was Jurji Zaydan (died 1914)—founder of the Arabic Al-Nahda (Revival), modernizing of the Arabic language, one of the founders of the University of Cairo, and father of Pan-Arabism. Shami was sent to a Hebron yeshiva to study under Rabbi Chaim Hezekiah Medini, renowned author of the Sdei Chemed and Chief Rabbi of Hebron. Influenced by secular literature, he rebelled against religious education and was asked to leave the yeshiva over his "heretical attitudes." In 1905 at age 17, he moved to Jerusalem and enrolled in the Ezra Teacher's Training College, where he completed his studies in 1907. His father opposed his secular studies, while his mother secretly sent him money on occasion