until her suicide. During his studies, he met other young writers, among them Yehuda Burla. While living in Jerusalem, he began dressing in Western clothing and was exposed to Zionism, meeting future icons of the Zionist movement such as future Israeli President Yitzhak Ben-Zvi and Hebrew poet Shmuel Yosef Agnon. He is also thought to have attracted the attention of future Israeli founding Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion as an expert on Arab society. After completing his studies, Shami began teaching. He initially taught in the Zionist agricultural settlements of Gedera and Mazkeret Batya before moving to Damascus to work as a Hebrew teacher. While he was there, he heard that David Ben-Gurion and Yitzhak Ben-Zvi were planning on studying law in Constantinople. He wanted to join them, but was prevented from doing so due to lack of means. Instead, he moved to Bulgaria where he continued to work as a Hebrew teacher, hoping to save up enough money to enroll in law school. While in Bulgaria, he met Pnina Gingold, a Jewish immigrant to Palestine from Russia who was also teaching in Bulgaria. They married, but their plans to return to Palestine were disrupted by the outbreak of World War I: they would have to wait until the end of the war to return. While they were in Bulgaria, their son Yedidya was born. Upon returning to Palestine at the war's end, they moved to Hebron and both worked as teachers. He also served as secretary of the Jewish community in Hebron. His poor financial situation, which would plague him throughout his life, as well as Pnina's heart disease, and his emphysema in later years would significantly hamper his literary output. Pnina died in 1925, and he was later remarried to Sarah Kalish, a nurse who he had met in Damascus. He survived the 1929 Hebron massacre by hiding in the home the Mani family. Shami was deeply disturbed by the incident, and signed a petition condemning Arab propaganda efforts and urging a British investigation together with the chief rabbis of Hebron and other figures. Shami eventually left Hebron, settling in first in Tiberias where he worked as a teacher, then in Haifa, where he worked as a teacher and court clerk. He continued to miss his native city, and in a 1932 letter to his lifelong friend David Avisar, expressed a desire to write a book on the city's