Joseph Magil (1870-1945) was born in Raseiniai, Kovno Province. The recipient of a traditional education, at the age of sixteen he began secretly to study Hebrew and European languages. In 5650 [1890] he became a teacher for Benot Zion and in 1892 he immigrated to America. He was a Hebrew instructor for Philadelphia's Hebrew Education Society before he established his own school, B'ne Zion. Magil also owned a Hebrew printing shop with his brother, possibly as early as 1892, and by the end of the century Magil was the proprietor of the largest Hebrew print shop in Philadelphia. Opposed to the natural (ivrit be-ivrit) method of Hebrew instruction, he issued a number of traditional texts with a linear English or Yiddish translation. ). He also published pedagogical works and a collection of Hebrew, Yiddish and English poems that went through ten editions. He contributed to the Yiddish and Hebrew press while in Europe and in America he edited and contributed to Yiddish papers.