The author, R. Dr. Judah Loeb ben Moses Issachar Landau (Leo; 1866–1942) was a South African rabbi, scholar, poet, and playwright. He was born in Zalozce, Galicia. His father Moses Issachar Landau was a maskil and regular contributor to the Hebrew press. Landau attended the German gymnasium at Brody (Galicia), yeshivot, and the Jewish Theological Seminary and University of Vienna and soon came under the influence of Hebrew writers, poets, and dramatists, such as Smolenskin,. Fischmann, and Broides. As a student, Landau used to write theater and opera reviews of Jewish interest for Ha-Maggid. From early on R. Landau supported the movement for national revival by word and deed, and became an ardent supporter of Theodor Herzl. When on a visit to London in 1900 for the Fourth Zionist Congress, M. Gaster persuaded him to stay. He was minister of the North Manchester Hebrew Congregation until 1904, when he went to Johannesburg as rabbi of the Johannesburg Hebrew Congregation. In 1915 R. Landau became chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregation of Johannesburg and of the Federation of Synagogues of the Witwatersrand; he was also appointed professor of Hebrew at Witwatersrand University. In nearly four decades of spiritual leadership in the South African Jewish community, Landau participated in and stimulated a great variety of activities and organizations: religious, charitable, cultural, and Zionist.

Landau's contributions to modern Hebrew literature were mainly in drama and poetry. His poems and articles first appeared using the pseudonym Hillel ben Shahar. Among his plays are Bar Kokhva (1884); Aharit Yerushalayim (1886); Hordos (1888), Yesh Tikvah (1893; the first Hebrew drama to be produced in modern times); Dam Tahat Dam (1898), Don Yizhak Abrabanel (1919); Yisrael Ba'al Shem Tov (1923); and Lefanim o Le'ahor (1923), describing the strains and tensions of modern Jewry. Landau published collected lyrics in Neginot (1895) and Neginot u-Fo'emot (1933), and prose writings Libbot Nishbarim (1903), literary conversations in novel form; and Vidduyim (1928), letters on contemporary Judaism containing much autobiographical material.

The themes of his poems are intensely personal, expressions of Weltschmerz and the human predicament, the love of Zion and Israel, and the great characters and leaders in Jewish history. His doctoral dissertation was N. Krochmal, ein Hegelianer (1904); he also translated his teacher A. Schwarz's Die hermeneutische Analogie into Hebrew under the title Gezerah Shavah (1898?). His Lectures on Modern Hebrew Literature (1925); Judaism in Life and Literature (1936); Judaism Ancient and Modern (1936), sermons; and Short Lectures on Modern Hebrew Literature (1938) appeared in English. Landau was an editor of the Hebrew encyclopedia Ozar Yisrael.. Other scholarly articles of his appeared in Ha-Eshkol (Cracow) and Ha-Zofeh le-Hokhmat Yisrael (Budapest) as well as in a number of Festschriften. In 1936 a jubilee volume was published in honor of Landau's seventieth birthday, Ve-Zot li-Yhudah (Heb. and Eng.).

שער-נוסף (על המעטפת): ... Dr. J. L. Landau, ,Israel Baal-Shem ביקורת: אברהם כהנא, פשמישל: הצופה לחכמת ישראל, שנה טו, תרצ"א, עמ' 166-163.