Morris Strelzin was born in 1892 in the Russian village of Arnpargovka. After three years of study in public school he was sent to the Mir Yeshiva. While at the Yeshiva he began to be interested in Russian, German, French and Yiddish literature, as well as Zionism. He left the yeshiva and joined a Jewish self-defense organization.
During the 1905 riots in Russia he was active in self-defense. In the course of the pogroms which followed, his family emigrated to the United States and settled in Milwaukee where Morris completed his BA at the University of Wisconsin.
He completed his MA during World War I and then volunteered for the Jewish Brigade, in the service of which he reached Palestine in 1918. Following his military service, Morris served as a teacher of English in Jerusalem and at the Herzliah High School in Tel Aviv. He was a commander of the Haganah in Jerusalem during the 1920 riots.
On May 1, 1921 he fell defending a Jewish family in Neve Shalom during the riots of that year. He was buried in the Old Cemetery in Tel Aviv.
