Classic Yiddish Fiction: Abramovitsh, Sholem Aleichem, and Peretz

Introduction

Introduction Sholem Yankev Abramovitsh, Sholem Aleichem (Rabinovitsh), and Isaac Leybush Peretz actively contributed to the invention of modern Jewish identity, as their satires reflected and provoked transformations of the Jewish experience. Between 1864 and 1916, Yiddish fiction traversed far-flung pathways of Jewish life and literary development. The three classic authors do not possess independent voices; their work resonates together in moments of harmony and dissonance. S. Y. Abramovitsh (1836-1917) founded modern Yiddish writing, and his most important creation was Mendele Moykher Sforim-Mendele the Bookseller. The fictional Mendele became so popular that readers have often referred to the author under the name of his literary persona. When Abramovitsh invented this fictional personality in 1864, he generated an effective mouthpiece for the dissemination of his tales. Unlike the secularly educated Abramovitsh, Mendele has the narrower perspective of a traditionally versed Jewish man. Mendele's exposure to Western European letters is sporadic; his circle of acquaintances reaches only as far as the occasional German-Jew who has wandered into Poland and the Ukraine. Abramovitsh conceals his guiding intelligence behind the less obviously sophisticated Mendele. Satire and parody gain prominence in Abramovitsh's Yiddish novels after 1869. Although Abramovitsh continues to employ the Mendele mask, during this phase he sets aside much of Mendele's earlier naivete and his satires condemn corrupt religious and political institutions. As a consequence of the 1881 pogroms, however, Abramovitsh adopts a gentler tone in his revisions of the Yiddish novels and in his Hebrew stories of the 1890s. Sholem Rabinovitsh (1859-1916), commonly known by his pseudonym Sholem Aleichem, was a self-appointed heir to Abramovitsh -whom he dubbed the "grandfather" of Yiddish literature . Sholem Aleichem gave expression to diverse fictional charac1 2 CLASSIC YIDDISH FICTION ters in a polyphony of colloquial monologues. The most famous of all Yiddish monologists is Tevye the Dairyman, whose renown in the United States owes much to the musical and film Fiddler on the Roof While no fiddler appears in Sholem Aleichem's original stories written between 1894 and 1916, Tevye does play the lead role. In some ways similar to Abramovitsh's Mendele, Tevye combines simplicity and astute observation. He reports personal setbacks that typify the conditions of Eastern European Jewry, while his numerous quotations link him to biblical and rabbinic traditions. Sholem Aleichem also produced socially critical fiction. His earliest novels show the influence of Gogol's and Abramovitsh's satires, and two of his later fictions from 1905 and 1907 attack the Jewish plutocracy of Kiev with its insidious exploitation of the poor. During his final years in the United States, Sholem Aleichem penned short stories criticizing ruthless business practices and empty religiosity in New York's Lower East Side. Sholem Aleichem critiqued what he saw as misguided directions in Yiddish life and letters. Sholem Aleichem broke from the Enlightenment tradition, however, as he developed a less polemical humor. He shifted his sights from social goals to a broader literary program of realism that renounced the European plots emulated by trashy Yiddish novels. 1. L. Peretz (1852-1915) is recognized as the first modernistic Yiddish writer. For nearly two decades he dominated the Yiddish literary scene in Warsaw, editing journals and producing varied works of short fiction, poetry, and drama. Although shghtly older than Sholem Aleichem, he was more attuned to the demands and tactics of avant-garde European fiction. After Sholem Aleichem proclaimed himself Abramovitsh's "grandson," Peretz became the father of another lirerary family. Yet Peretz and Sholem Aleichem were never friends. The Abramovitsh-Sholem Aleichem literary pedigree was rooted in the Ukraine, while Peretz's writing cultivated a new literary landscape in Poland. Starting in 1886 and concealed behind more than a dozen pseudonyms, Peretz experimented with narrative forms. Using the innovative technique of internal monologue, he was the first Yiddish writer to probe individual psychology. Peretz wrote social criticism in the 1890s and was active in the workers' movement until 1899, when he was arrested after delivering a lecture to striking workers. Later, as he produced his stories and folktales, Peretz Introduction 3 moved away from the European realism sought by other authors. Instead he placed his stories in relation to internal Yiddish traditions , subtly employing traditional exemplars while distancing his texts from the folk versions of oral narrative. Peretz learned from popular traditions as profoundly as any other Yiddish writer, but he rewrote folktales in ways that delicately questioned superstitious beliefs. Some of Peretz's pious narrators themselves seem barely conscious...