(1859-1916) novelist, short-story writer, playwright
Shalom Aleichem was born in Pereyaslavl in the Poltava area of what is now Ukraine. His father was a religious scholar and wealthy man, but the family fell on hard times when Aleichem was 12. His mother died of cholera soon after. At this time, Jews in western Russia faced the increasing threat of pogroms (organized persecution or massacres). Throughout these difficult times, Aleichem attended a traditional cheder, an elementary Jewish school in which children are taught to read the Torah and other books in Hebrew. His father encouraged him to write and, when his family again achieved stability, he sought additional schooling at the Russian district school.
As a young man, Aleichem joined the army and then worked as a government rabbi for three years. He began his writing career in the 1880s, rejecting his mother tongue, Yiddish (considered, in that place and time, an inappropriate language for literature), to write in Hebrew and Russian. He published his first short stories under his pen name in 1883 at age 20.
When Aleichem turned to writing in Yiddish, “for the fun of it,” he said, he described the impoverishment and oppression of Russian Jews with surprising, yet appropriate, humor. These stories are set in eastern Europe and in New York in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Aleichem’s themes are apparent most notably in Fiddler on the Roof (1964), the popular musical based on his stories in Tevye the Dairyman, (1918). Humor, combined with insight, have led many to compare Aleichem with the American writer and humorist Mark Twain.
A combination of the pogroms of 1905 and World War I convinced Aleichem and his family to abandon their home and relocate in the United States, where he attempted to establish himself as a playwright. He helped found, through his plays, the Yiddish theater in New York City.
Today, Shalom Aleichem is recognized as having been one of the greatest Yiddish writers. His five novels, many plays, and some 300 short stories illustrate universal themes of wisdom, humiliation, pride, and humor that find their voice in the poverty of the Jews of his era. His tales have touched generations of readers around the world. Known as the “bard of the poor,” he said, “Life is a dream for the wise, a game for the fool, a comedy for the rich, a tragedy for the poor” (“Putting Sholom Aleichem on a Belated Pedestal,” The New York Times, January 5,2002).
Other Works by Shalom Aleichem
Letters to Menakhem. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2002.
Nineteen to the Dozen. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2002.
Tevye the Dairyman. New York: Random House, 1988.
A Work about Shalom Aleichem
Samuel, Maurice. The World of Shalom Aleichem. New York: Dramatists Play Series, 1948.
