The Fate That Sholem Aleichem Brought on Himself

This question was asked during Sholem Aleichem's lifetime, and not everyone thought he deserved his reputation. When he debuted his play "Pasternak" in 1907, critics - including Forward editor Abraham Cahan - dismissed him. Cahan wrote that Sholem Aleichem had been superseded by young...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inForward (New York, N.Y.)
Main Author Glinter, Ezra
Format Newspaper Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York, N.Y The Forward Association, Inc 10.06.2016
Subjects
Aleichem, Sholom
Jewish culture
Jewish people
Popularity
Reputations
Writers
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Summary:This question was asked during Sholem Aleichem's lifetime, and not everyone thought he deserved his reputation. When he debuted his play "Pasternak" in 1907, critics - including Forward editor Abraham Cahan - dismissed him. Cahan wrote that Sholem Aleichem had been superseded by younger talents such Sholem Asch. Suffice it to say, Cahan's literary judgment suffered a few blind spots. Even then, more astute observers knew that Sholem Aleichem was more than the sum of his stories; he had become a symbol of the Jewish people itself. Sholem Aleichem's status as the ultimate "writer of the people" was more of an imaginative construction than a reality. He came from a humble background, but inherited a large fortune from his father-in-law and set himself up as a cosmopolitan litterateur with a Van Dyke beard and cape. Even after he gambled his money on the Kiev stock market, he lived mostly in Switzerland and Italy and spoke Russian with his family at home. Although he is best remembered for his character Tevye the Milkman, the rustic Jew who became the basis for "Fiddler on the Roof," Sholem Aleichem was hardly a Tevye himself. Neither the Soviet Union nor its nationalist offspring are renowned for the subtlety of their cultural appropriations. But is the situation much different in America? Here Sholem Aleichem has come to stand for the way we'd like to think of all Yiddish culture: charming, funny, bittersweet. As Irving Howe once put it, Sholem Aleichem has become "a jolly gleeman of the shtetl, a fiddler cozy on his roof." Of all Yiddish writers, Sholem Aleichem has been the most capable of playing whatever role his readers might require of him, in America, as well as everywhere else.
ISSN:1051-340X