Israel Davidson was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 Jewish writer and publisher and has been recognized as one of the leading American Hebrew writers in his era. His magnum opus was the four volume Otsar ha-shirah veha-piyut = Thesaurus of Mediaeval Hebrew Poetry (NY, 1924–1933).

Davidson studied in yeshivas in Jonava, Volozhin

Volozhin yeshiva

The Volozhin Yeshiva, also known as Etz Chaim Yeshiva, was a prestigious Lithuanian yeshiva located in the town of Volozhin, Russia, . It was founded by Rabbi Chaim Itzkovitz, a student of the famed Vilna Gaon, and trained several generations of scholars, rabbis, and leaders...

, and Slobodka

Slabodka yeshiva

Hebron Yeshiva, also known as Yeshivas Hevron, or Knesses Yisroel, and originally as Slabodka Yeshiva, is known colloquially as the "mother of yeshivas" and was devoted to high=level study of the Talmud. The yeshiva was located in the Lithuanian town of Slabodka, adjacent to Kovno , now...

. In 1898, he emigrated to New York, worked at a few occupations before earning a Ph.D from Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

.