SHOLEM ALEYKHEM (1859 – 1916)

Probably the most famous Yiddish writer and humorist of the 19th and early 20th centuries, Sholem-Aleykhem (his real name was Sholem Rabinowitch) was born in 1859 in the family of a wheat merchant, a supporter of the Jewish enlightenment movement Haskalah.

Young Sholem received a traditional Jewish education and later attended a Russian secondary school. He wrote his first works in Russian and Hebrew, but very soon switched to the language of the people, to Yiddish. At that time he took the pseudonym of Sholem-Aleykhem (a popular and hearty Jewish greeting which means “peace to you”), in order to avoid conflicts with his family and friends, for whom writing in Yiddish was not an honorable pursuit.

He is considered “the father” of modern Yiddish literature. His work is abundant and various: short stories, novels, tales for children, monologues, epistolary novels, theatre plays. He had a special ability to paint characters typical of Jewish life in the small towns and cities of the Pale of Settlement. Some of his novels or stories, in addition to his plays, were adapted for the stage and screen. The famous musical Fiddler on the roof is an adaptation of the large work Tevye der milkhiker (Tevye the milkman). It was put on screen, played in English on Broadway, in French in Paris, in Polish in Warsaw and even in Japanese in Tokyo.

The complete works of Sholem Aleykhem make up a set of about thirty volumes. His specific trademark is a typically Jewish humor intertwined with tenderness, expressed in a rich and popular Yiddish.

Sholem Aleykhem died in New York on May 13, 1916. His funeral was followed by over 100 000 people.