Jonas Krep­pel was born into a mid­dle-class fam­i­ly in Dro­hoby­cz, Gali­cia, in 1874. A gift­ed Tal­mu­dic prodi­gy, he was des­tined for the rab­binate but instead found his call­ing as a jour­nal­ist, edi­tor, civ­il ser­vant, and intel­lec­tu­al writ­ing in numer­ous lan­guages. Set­tling in Vien­na around 1914, his main activ­i­ty for the next three decades was edit­ing a Ger­man-Jew­ish week­ly and writ­ing a series of books on Jew­ish and world pol­i­tics. Between 1924 and 1930 he pub­lished almost a hun­dred slim sto­ry­books in four main series: his­tor­i­cal tales, Hasidic leg­ends, sto­ries of World War I, and crime fiction.