Jacobo Fijman was an Argentine poet born in Orhei

Orhei

Orhei is a city and the administrative centre of Orhei District in Moldova with a population of 25,680. Orhei is approximately 50 kilometers north of the capital, Chişinău.-Demographics:...

, Bessarabia

Bessarabia

Bessarabia is a historical term for the geographic region in Eastern Europe bounded by the Dniester River on the east and the Prut River on the west....

, now in Moldova

Moldova

Moldova , officially the Republic of Moldova is a landlocked state in Eastern Europe, located between Romania to the West and Ukraine to the North, East and South. It declared itself an independent state with the same boundaries as the preceding Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1991, as part...

. He moved to Argentina

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

 with his parents in 1902.

Raised in humble circumstances, Fijman was a highly intelligent child interested in art, music, and literature; he later made a modest living as a French teacher and itinerant violinist until a series of mental breakdown

Mental breakdown

Mental breakdown is a non-medical term used to describe an acute, time-limited phase of a specific disorder that presents primarily with features of depression or anxiety.-Definition:...

s lead to his permanent (and, according to Fijman, not always unpleasant) residency at the Borda Asylum from 1942 until his death. Fijman was keenly interested in religion

Religion

Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...

 and religious visions

Vision (religion)

In spirituality, a vision is something seen in a dream, trance, or ecstasy, especially a supernatural appearance that conveys a revelation.Visions generally have more clarity than dreams, but traditionally fewer psychological connotations...

, part of the reason for his conversion from Judaism

Judaism

Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...

 to Catholicism

Catholicism

Catholicism is a broad term for the body of the Catholic faith, its theologies and doctrines, its liturgical, ethical, spiritual, and behavioral characteristics, as well as a religious people as a whole....

 in 1930.

The poetry of Jacobo Fijman is often metaphysical

Metaphysics

Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...

, and has traces of surrealism

Surrealism

Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....

. Fijman published three volumes of poems in his life: Molino rojo, Hecho de estampas, and Estrella de la Mañana.

His personality inspired the fictional character of Samuel Tesler from Adán Buenosayres, the widely recognized novel written by Leopoldo Marechal

Leopoldo Marechal

Leopoldo Marechal was one of the most important Argentine writers of the twentieth century.- Biographical notes :...

.

He died in 1970 at a hospice in at the Borda Hospital, Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...

.