The Society was founded and supported by some of the leading names in Russian Zionism, Among them Hillel Zlatopolsky (1868–1932), a Zionist leader, industrialist, and philanthropist.. As secretary to Max Mandelstamm, the Zionist Organization representative for the Kiev district (1897–1905), Zlatopolsky was in charge of the Zionist activities there, as well as of the financial center of Russian Zionists. He played a leading role in organizing the opposition to the Uganda Scheme. He was one of the founders of the Hovevei Sefat Ever Society (Friends of the Hebrew Language, 1907) and was also active in the Histradrut le-Safah u-le-Tarbut Ivrit (Association of Hebrew Language and Culture). He made substantial financial contributions to facilitate the establishment of a network of Hebrew schools, ranging from kindergarten to teachers' seminaries. He also subsidized the Hebrew daily Ha-Am, and the theater Habimah in Moscow and was one of the founders of Omanut, a publishing house for Hebrew textbooks and readers (the latter in cooperation with his daughter Shoshannah and son-in-law Joseph Persitz). During World War I, he lived in Moscow, but he left Russia in 1919. Together with Isaac Naiditsch, he was one of the founders of the Keren Hayesod, and as a member of its first board of directors he conceived the idea of a national tithe. Zlatopolsky wrote articles on Zionism and Hebrew culture, as well as feuilletons, the latter containing a wealth of general Jewish and hasidic folklore. Some of his writings were published in two collections, Bi-Tekufat ha-Tehiyyah (1917) and Sefer ha-Feuilletonim (1944). He died in Paris, the victim of a murder.

Also active and a founder of the Hovevei Sefat Ever Society was Jacob Mazeh (1859–1924), a Zionist leader and Hebrew writer. Orphaned in childhood and given a traditional education in his grandfather's home, he later he read and was influenced by the Haskalah, in particular by the works of E. Zweifel.. After the pogroms of 1882, he joined the Hibbat Zion movement and was one of the founders of the Benei Zion society (1884). In his article Elleh Hem ha-Ashamot in Ha-Meliz (1888) Mazeh rebuked his generation for negligence in the education of their children, charging exorbitant rates of interest, forging currency, evading public welfare activities, despising work, and "lack of positive love of our fathers." He represented the Benei Zion at the founding conference of the Committee for the Support of Farmers and Craftsmen in Palestine (Odessa, 1890), and organized a group of wealthy men for settlement in Erez Israel. Traveling there as their emissary, he even opened negotiations for the purchase of the Mahanaim land in Galilee for the project, which was brought to a halt as a result of the Moscow expulsion (1891). In 1893, after S. Z. Minor was removed from his position as kazyonny ravvin ("government-appointed rabbi") of the Moscow community, Mazeh was appointed as his successor. Being both a maskil and a man steeped in Jewish tradition and nationalism, he was an exception to the usual type of kazyonny ravvin. He became the spiritual leader of his congregation and its representative before the local authorities, who were noted for their hatred of the Jews. A brilliant orator, Mazeh was well-known for his numerous activities in Jewish public life, which included the promotion of Hebrew culture and the foundation of the Hovevei Sefat Ever Society. His appearance as the defense expert on Jewish law at the Beilis trial in Kiev (1912), when he refuted the evidence of the prosecution "experts," made him famous among Jews everywhere. After the 1917 Revolution, he was a deputy at the all-Russian Constituent Assembly representing the Jewish National List and was also among the founders and devoted workers of the Tarbut organization. He supported the Habimah theater during its early years. With the establishment of the Soviet regime, Mazeh interceded with the authorities in order to assure the rights of Hebrew language and culture. In 1920 he participated in the last Zionist Council of Russia. He refused to sign the declaration of the representatives of the various religions in which they denied that religion was persecuted in the U.S.S.R. In his last years, deprived of his functions under the Communist regime, Mazeh wrote his memoirs, which are marked by dignity and humor. He was unable to complete them as he became blind in 1922. The chapters which were brought out of Russia and published in Erez Israel (Zikhronot, 4 vols., 1936) are a valuable source for the history of Russian Jewry and Hebrew literature.