Sholem Aleichem | |
|---|---|
 Sholem Aleichem in 1907 | |
| Born | Solomon Rabinovich March 2 [O.S. February 18] 1859 Pereiaslav,Poltava Governorate,Russian Empire |
| Died | May 13, 1916(1916-05-13) (aged 57) New York City, U.S. |
| Pen name | Sholem Aleichem (Yiddish:שלום עליכם) |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Language | Yiddish |
| Genre | Novels, short stories, plays |
| Literary movement | Yiddish revival |
| Signature | |
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Solomon Naumovich Rabinovich (Russian:Соломон Наумович Рабинович; March 2 [O.S. February 18] 1859 – May 13, 1916), better known under hispen nameSholem Aleichem (Yiddish andHebrew:שלום עליכם, also spelledשאָלעם־אלייכעם inSoviet Yiddish,[ˈʃɔləmaˈlɛjxəm];Russian andUkrainian:Шо́лом-Але́йхем), was aYiddish author and playwright who lived in the Russian Empire and in the United States.[1] The 1964 musicalFiddler on the Roof, based on Aleichem's stories aboutTevye the Dairyman, was the first commercially successful English-language stage production about Jewish life inEastern Europe.
TheHebrew phrase שלום עליכם (shalom aleichem) literally means "[May] peace [be] upon you!", and is a greeting in traditional Hebrew and Yiddish.[2]
Solomon Naumovich (Sholom Nohumovich) Rabinovich (Russian:Соломо́н Нау́мович (Шо́лом Но́хумович) Рабино́вич) was born in 1859 inPereiaslav and grew up in the nearbyshtetl ofVoronkiv, in thePoltava Governorate of theRussian Empire (now in theKyiv Oblast of centralUkraine).[3] (Voronkiv has become the prototype of Aleichem'sKasrilevka.[4]) His father, Menachem-Nukhem Rabinovich, was a rich merchant at that time.[5] However, a failed business affair plunged the family into poverty and Solomon Rabinovich grew up in reduced circumstances.[5] When he was 13 years old, the family moved back to Pereiaslav, where his mother, Chaye-Esther, died in acholera epidemic.[6]
Sholem Aleichem's first venture into writing was an alphabetic glossary of theepithets used by his stepmother. At the age of fifteen, he composed a Jewish version of the novelRobinson Crusoe. He adopted thepseudonymSholem Aleichem, aYiddish variant of theHebrew expressionshalom aleichem, meaning "peace be with you" and typically used as a greeting.
In 1876, after graduating from school in Pereiaslav, he began to work as a teacher. During 1877-1880 in Sofijka village,Bohuslav region, he spent three years tutoring a wealthy landowner's daughter,[7] Olga (Hodel) Loev (1865–1942).[8] From 1880 to 1883 he served ascrown rabbi inLubny.[9]
On May 12, 1883, he and Olga married, against the wishes of her father, whose estate they inherited a few years later. Their first child, a daughter named Ernestina (Tissa), was born in 1884. In 1890, Sholem Aleichem lost their entire fortune in stockspeculation and fled from his creditors.[10] Daughter Lyalya (Lili) was born in 1887. As Lyalya Kaufman, she became a Hebrew writer. (Lyalya's daughterBel Kaufman, also a writer, was the author ofUp the Down Staircase, which was also made into a successful film.) A third daughter, Emma, was born in 1888. In 1889, Olga gave birth to a son. They named him Elimelech, after Olga's father, but at home they called him Misha. Daughter Marusi (who would one day publish "My Father, Sholom Aleichem" under her married nameMarie Waife-Goldberg) was born in 1892. A final child, a son named Nochum (Numa) after Solomon's father was born in 1901 (under the nameNorman Raeben he became a painter and an influential art teacher).
After witnessing thepogroms that swept through southernRussian Empire in 1905,including Kiev, Sholem Aleichem leftKiev (which was fictionalized asYehupetz) and emigrated toNew York City, where he arrived in 1906. His family[clarification needed] set up house inGeneva,Switzerland, but when he saw he could not afford to maintain two households, he joined them in Geneva in 1908. Despite his great popularity, he was forced to take up an exhausting schedule of lecturing to make ends meet. In July 1908, during a reading tour in Russia, Sholem Aleichem collapsed on a train going throughBaranowicze. He was diagnosed with a relapse of acute hemorrhagictuberculosis and spent two months convalescing in the town's hospital. He later described the incident as "meeting his majesty, the Angel of Death, face to face", and claimed it as the catalyst for writing his autobiography,Funem yarid [From the Fair].[3] He thus missed the firstConference for the Yiddish Language, held in 1908 inCzernovitz; his colleague and fellow Yiddish activistNathan Birnbaum went in his place.[11]
Sholem Aleichem spent the next four years living as a semi-invalid. During this period the family was largely supported by donations from friends and admirers (among his friends and acquaintances were fellow Yiddish authorsI. L. Peretz,Jacob Dinezon,Mordecai Spector, andNoach Pryłucki). In 1909, in celebration of his 25th Jubilee as a writer, his friend and colleagueJacob Dinezon spearheaded a committee with Dr. Gershon Levine, Abraham Podlishevsky, andNoach Pryłucki to buy back thepublishing rights to Sholem Aleichem’s works from various publishers for his sole use in order to provide him with a steady income.[12] At a time when Sholem Aleichem was ill and struggling financially, this proved to be an invaluable gift, and Sholem Aleichem expressed his gratitude in a thank you letter in which he wrote,
“If I tried to tell you a hundredth part of the way I feel about you, I know that that would be sheer profanation. If I am fated to live a few years longer than I have been expecting, I shall doubtless be able to say that it’s your fault, yours and that of all the other friends who have done so much to carry out your idea of ‘the redemption of the imprisoned.’”[13]
— Sholem Aleichem
Sholem Aleichem moved to New York City again with his family in 1914. The family lived at first inHarlem at 110Lenox Avenue (at 116th Street) and later moved to 968Kelly Street in theBronx. His son, Misha, ill with tuberculosis, was not permitted entry under United States immigration laws and remained in Switzerland with his sister Emma.
Sholem Aleichem died at his Bronx apartment in 1916. He is buried in the main (old) section ofMount Carmel Cemetery in Queens, New York City.[14]
Like his contemporariesMendele Mocher Sforim,I.L. Peretz, andJacob Dinezon, Sholem Rabinovitch started writing inHebrew, as well as inRussian. In 1883, when he was 24 years old, he published his firstYiddish story, צוויי שטיינערTsvey Shteyner ("Two Stones"), using for the first time the pseudonym Sholem Aleichem.
By 1890 he was a central figure in Yiddish literature, the vernacular language of nearly all East European Jews, and produced over forty volumes in Yiddish. It was often derogatorily called "jargon", but Sholem Aleichem used this term in an entirely non-pejorative sense.
Apart from his own literary output, Sholem Aleichem used his personal fortune to encourage other Yiddish writers. In 1888–89, he put out two issues of analmanac, די ייִדישע פאָלקסביבליאָטעקDi Yidishe Folksbibliotek ("The Yiddish Public Library") which gave important exposure to young Yiddish writers.
In 1890, after he lost his entire fortune, he could not afford to print the almanac's third issue, which had been edited but was subsequently never printed.
Tevye the Dairyman, in Yiddish טבֿיה דער מילכיקער Tevye der Milchiker, was first published in 1894.
Over the next few years, while continuing to write in Yiddish, he also wrote in Russian for an Odesa newspaper and forVoskhod, the leading Russian Jewish publication of the time, as well as in Hebrew forHa-melitz, and for an anthology edited byYH Ravnitzky. It was during this period that Sholem Aleichem contractedtuberculosis.
In August 1904, Sholem Aleichem edited הילף : א זאַמלבוך פיר ליטעראטור אונ קונסטHilf: a Zaml-Bukh fir Literatur un Kunst ("Help: An Anthology for Literature and Art";Warsaw, 1904) and himself translated three stories submitted byTolstoy (Esarhaddon, King of Assyria;Work, Death and Sickness;The Three Questions) as well as contributions by other prominent Russian writers, includingChekhov, in aid of the victims of theKishinev pogrom.
Sholem Aleichem's narratives were notable for the naturalness of his characters' speech and the accuracy of his descriptions ofshtetl life. Early critics focused on the cheerfulness of the characters, interpreted as a way of coping with adversity. Later critics saw a tragic side in his writing.[15] He was often referred to as the "JewishMark Twain" because of the two authors' similar writing styles and use ofpen names. Both authors wrote for adults and children and lectured extensively in Europe and the United States. When Twain heard of the writer called "the Jewish Mark Twain," he replied, "Please tell him that I am the American Sholem Aleichem."[16]
Sholem Aleichem was an impassioned advocate of Yiddish as a national Jewish language, which he felt should be accorded the same status and respect as other modern European languages. He did not stop with what came to be called "Yiddishism", but devoted himself to the cause ofZionism as well. Many of his writings[17] present the Zionist case. In 1888, he became a member ofHovevei Zion. In 1907, he served as an American delegate to the Eighth Zionist Congress held inThe Hague.
Sholem Aleichem had afear of the number 13. His manuscripts never had a page 13; he numbered the thirteenth pages of his manuscripts as 12a.[18] Though it has been written that even hisheadstone carries the date of his death as "May 12a, 1916",[19] his headstone reads the dates of his birth and death in Hebrew, the 26th of Adar and the 10th of Iyar, respectively.
Sholem Aleichem died in New York on May 13, 1916, from tuberculosis and diabetes,[20] aged 57, while working on his last novel,Motl, Peysi the Cantor's Son, and was buried atOld Mount Carmel cemetery inQueens.[21] At the time, his funeral was one of the largest in New York City history, with an estimated 100,000 mourners.[22][23] The next day, his will was printed in theNew York Times and was read into theCongressional Record of the United States.
Sholem Aleichem's will contained detailed instructions to family and friends with regard to burial arrangements and marking hisyahrtzeit.
He told his friends and family to gather, "read my will, and also select one of my stories, one of the very merry ones, and recite it in whatever language is most intelligible to you." "Let my name be recalled with laughter," he added, "or not at all." The celebrations continue to the present day, and, in recent years, have been held at the Brotherhood Synagogue on Gramercy Park South in New York City, where they are open to the public.[24]
He composed the text to be engraved on his tombstone in Yiddish, given here in transliteration:
Do ligt a yid a posheter | Here lies a Jew a simple one, |
| —[whose translation?] |
In 1997, a monument dedicated to Sholem Aleichem was erected inKyiv; another was erected in 2001 inMoscow.
The main street ofBirobidzhan is named after Sholem Aleichem;[25] streets were named after him also in cities in Ukraine, includingKyiv,Odesa,Vinnytsia,Lviv, andZhytomyr. In New York City in 1996, East 33rd Street between Park and Madison Avenue is additionally named "Sholem Aleichem Place". Many streets in Israel are named after him.
Postage stamps of Sholem Aleichem were issued by Israel (Scott #154, 1959); the Soviet Union (Scott #2164, 1959); Romania (Scott #1268, 1959); and Ukraine (Scott #758, 2009).
Animpact crater on the planetMercury also bears his name.[26]
On March 2, 2009, 150 years after his birth, theNational Bank of Ukraine issued an anniversary coin depicting and celebrating Aleichem.[27]
Vilnius,Lithuania has a Jewish school named after him and inMelbourne,Australia a Yiddish school,Sholem Aleichem College is named after him.[28] Several Jewish schools inArgentina were also named after him.[citation needed]
InRio de Janeiro,Brazil a library named BIBSA – Biblioteca Sholem Aleichem was founded in 1915 as aZionist institution by a local Jewish group. Next year, in 1916, the same group that created BIBSA founded a Jewish school named Escola Sholem Aleichem; it closed in 1997. BIBSA had a very active theatrical program in Yiddish for more than 50 years since its foundation and consistently performed Sholem Aleichem plays. In 1947 BIBSA became Associação Sholem Aleichem, under which name it continues to exist. Both the library and club became communist institutions due to a normal transition of power in the founding group, although non-communist members left to found their own school, ColégioEliezer Steinbarg, in 1956. It is named after the first director of Escola Sholem Aleichem, a Jewish writer born inRomania who immigrated to Brazil.[29][30]
In the Bronx, New York, a housing complex called The Shalom Aleichem Houses[31] was built by Yiddish speaking immigrants in the 1920s, and was recently restored by new owners to its original grandeur. The Shalom Alecheim Houses are part of a proposed historic district in the area.
On May 13, 2016, a Sholem Aleichem website was launched to mark the 100th anniversary of Sholem Aleichem's death.[32] The website is a partnership between Sholem Aleichem's family,[33] his biographer ProfessorJeremy Dauber,[34]Citizen Film, Columbia University's Center for Israel and Jewish Studies,[35] The Covenant Foundation, andThe Yiddish Book Center.[36] The website features interactive maps and timelines,[37] recommended readings,[38] as well as a list of centennial celebration events taking place worldwide.[39] The website also features resources for educators.[40][41][42]
Hertz Grosbard recited many of his works in so called "word concerts". A reading in Yiddish of his monologueIf I Were a Rothschild and several others can be found onthe Grosbard Project.
The writer's brother, Wolf Rabinovich, published the memoir "My Brother Sholom Aleichem" in Kyiv,Ukrainian SSR, in 1939.[43]
Sholem Aleichem's granddaughter,Bel Kaufman, by his daughter Lala (Lyalya), was an American author, most widely known for her novel,Up the Down Staircase, published in 1964, which was adapted to the stage and also made into a motion picture in 1967, starringSandy Dennis.
"The World of Sholom Aleichem"
Airdate: December 14, 1959[2]
Channel:WNTA-TV Channel 13, New York City
Included 3 short tele-plays:
Starring:
{{cite book}}:|website= ignored (help){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)A hundred thousand people of the East Side, with sadness in their faces, lined the sidewalks yesterday when the funeral procession of Sholem Aleichem ("peace be with you"), the famous Yiddish humorist, whose real name was Solomon Rabinowitz, passed down Second Avenue and through East Houston. Eldridge, and Canal Streets, to the Educational Alliance, where services were held before the body was carried over the Williamsburg Bridge to ...
More than 2,500 Jews paid honor to the memory of Sholem Aleichem, the "Mark Twain, who depicted in a style almost epic" the spirit of his race, at a "mourning evening" in Carnegie Hall last night.
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