Synopses & Reviews
Sholem-Aleykhem was born Sholem Rabinovitch in the town of Pereyeslav in the Ukraine (Poltava province) in 1859. He took the pen-name
Sholem-Aleykhem when he signed his second Yiddish story that way in 1883. That story was called "The Election," and appears in this anthology in English translation for the first time. The expression
Sholem-Akeykhem in Yiddish is simply a way of saying "hello"; it's as if he had dubbed himself "Howdy-Doody." The name
Sholem-Aleykhem stuck; he became one of the most popular and beloved Jewish writers. If Mendele was the first of the three great Yiddish classicists, the founding "grandfather," so to speak, of modern Yiddish literature, the "eynikl" (grandchild), Sholem-Aleykhem, was by far the most read and best loved.
This anthology gathers together the most complete translation published to date of Sholem-Aleykhem's Tevye stories on which Fiddler on the Roof is based as well as another complete Sholem-Aleykhem novel, called Stempenyu, about a Jewish klezmer. There are selections from seven other novels and from Sholem-Aleykhem's charming autobiography. Also included are two popular songs he penned; a humorous personal letter to the great poet, Byalik; and an essay, "Why Do the Jews Need a Land of Their Own?"
Sholem-Aleykhem died in New York in 1916. His funeral was the largest New York has ever seen. Hundreds of thousands accompanied their folk writer to his grave. Sholem-Aleykhem's last will and testament and his own epitaph are reproduced in this volume, Also included are a biographical article, a chronology, an essay on place names in Sholem-Aleykhem, and numerous illuminating introductions.