Israel Belkind was born in Logoisk. In 1882, while studying at Kharkov University, he was among the students who founded the Bilu movement and went to Erez Israel at the head of its first group. He led the opposition against Baron Edmond de Rothschild's officials and, on being expelled by them from Rishon le-Zion, settled in Gederah. In 1889 Belkind opened a private Hebrew school in Jaffa. He was accepted as a teacher at the Alliance Israelite Universelle in Jerusalem in 1892, and there published several textbooks. In 1903 he founded an agricultural training school at Shefeyah (near Zikhron Ya'akov) for orphans of the Kishinev pogroms whom he brought to Erez Israel. However, the school was forced to close down in 1906 because of lack of funds. During World War I Belkind was in the U.S., where he published his memoirs in Yiddish, Di Ershte Shrit fun Yishuv Erets Yisroel ("The First Steps of the Jewish Settlement of Palestine," 1918). Apart from numerous articles and popular pamphlets, Belkind published a geography of Palestine, Erez Yisrael ba-Zeman ha-Zeh ("The Land of Israel Today," 1928). He died in Berlin, where he had gone for medical treatment. His remains were interred in Rishon le-Zion.