Sholem Yankee Abramovitsh
Mendele Mokher Sforim
מענדעלע מוכר ספֿרים
Mendele Mokher Sforim is always called der zeyde fun der yiddisheliteratur
This title was given to AY Abramovitsh by another eminent Yiddish writer - Sholem Aleichem.
Few facts from biography:
•Mendele Mokher Seforim (1835-1917) is revered as the “grandfather of Yiddish literature”
•Known for his innovations in laying a new literary framework for Yiddish.
•His realistically portrayed Jewish life with honesty and without judgment and depicted the world of the shtetl with all its poverty and decay, joy, and poetry.
•Mendele was born in Belorussia (Belarus) and came from a family of Lithuanian rabbis. He initially wrote in Hebrew and was a proponent of the Haskalah
Abramovitsh wrote in Hebrew and Yiddish, often emphasizing one language over the other for specific genres. He depicted the major cultural forces the Jew faced in entering the modern world: Haskalah and assimilation; the shtetl with its anti-Semitism and social oppression; Zionism with its call for Jewish nationalism.
Selected texts:
•1863, in Hebrew ha-Avot ve-ha-banim (novel, Fathers and Sons),
•Dos Kleyne Mentshele (1864; “The Little Man”; Eng. trans. The Parasite)
•Fishke der Krumer (Fishke the Lame)
• Di Kliatshe (The Mare/Nag, 1873)
•Kitsur massous Binyomin hashlishi (1875; The Travels and Adventures of Benjamin the Third)
•Vinshfingeril (The Wishing Ring, 1865–1889
(Some bibliographical notes here:
Payson Stevens in My Jewish Learning:
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/mendele-mokher-seforim/
Preface to collected work: https://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/language-literature-culture/pakn-treger/2021-pakn-treger-digital-translation-issue/introduction)
This title was given to AY Abramovitsh by another eminent Yiddish writer - Sholem Aleichem.
Few facts from biography:
•Mendele Mokher Seforim (1835-1917) is revered as the “grandfather of Yiddish literature”
•Known for his innovations in laying a new literary framework for Yiddish.
•His realistically portrayed Jewish life with honesty and without judgment and depicted the world of the shtetl with all its poverty and decay, joy, and poetry.
•Mendele was born in Belorussia (Belarus) and came from a family of Lithuanian rabbis. He initially wrote in Hebrew and was a proponent of the Haskalah
Abramovitsh wrote in Hebrew and Yiddish, often emphasizing one language over the other for specific genres. He depicted the major cultural forces the Jew faced in entering the modern world: Haskalah and assimilation; the shtetl with its anti-Semitism and social oppression; Zionism with its call for Jewish nationalism.
Selected texts:
•1863, in Hebrew ha-Avot ve-ha-banim (novel, Fathers and Sons),
•Dos Kleyne Mentshele (1864; “The Little Man”; Eng. trans. The Parasite)
•Fishke der Krumer (Fishke the Lame)
• Di Kliatshe (The Mare/Nag, 1873)
•Kitsur massous Binyomin hashlishi (1875; The Travels and Adventures of Benjamin the Third)
•Vinshfingeril (The Wishing Ring, 1865–1889
(Some bibliographical notes here:
Payson Stevens in My Jewish Learning:
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/mendele-mokher-seforim/
Preface to collected work: https://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/language-literature-culture/pakn-treger/2021-pakn-treger-digital-translation-issue/introduction)
Opinions about Mendele Mokher Sforim's literature:
Jan Schwarz: „The Mendele figure in Abramovitsh’s work exemplified the best of nineteenth-century Yiddish literature, which excelled in dramatic, satirical, and folkloristic forms displaying the insufficiencies of tradi- tionalJewish society through subversive artistic means. Donning a fic- tive mask in the Mendele figure, Abramovitsh gained direct access to a traditional shtetl reality from which he had long been estranged both intellectually and culturally. Through Mendele’s fictive perspective he could depict the traditional shtetl as both insider and outsider. This ar- tistic play with a disguised fictional identity was not conducive to auto- biographical self-depiction in the Rousseauian mode.” 26/27. (Imagining Lives: Authobiographical Fiction in Yiddish Literature, 2005)
Sol Liptzin: "wanted to be useful to his people rather than gain literary laurels” (A History of Yiddish Literature,1972)
Jan Schwarz: „The Mendele figure in Abramovitsh’s work exemplified the best of nineteenth-century Yiddish literature, which excelled in dramatic, satirical, and folkloristic forms displaying the insufficiencies of tradi- tionalJewish society through subversive artistic means. Donning a fic- tive mask in the Mendele figure, Abramovitsh gained direct access to a traditional shtetl reality from which he had long been estranged both intellectually and culturally. Through Mendele’s fictive perspective he could depict the traditional shtetl as both insider and outsider. This ar- tistic play with a disguised fictional identity was not conducive to auto- biographical self-depiction in the Rousseauian mode.” 26/27. (Imagining Lives: Authobiographical Fiction in Yiddish Literature, 2005)
Sol Liptzin: "wanted to be useful to his people rather than gain literary laurels” (A History of Yiddish Literature,1972)
Naomi Seidman: photo excerpt from the book
Naomi Seidman: photo excerpt from the book
The shtetl, a Jewish town:
It is important to remember that Mendele Moher Sforim's representation of shtetl, the Jewish town is not realistic, it has all the traces of pedagogical literature.
The excellent book on geopolitical and social reality of shtetl in:
The Shtetl. New Evaluation, ed. by Steven T. Katz, 2007
Legally and politically, there was no such thing as a shtetl. Jews had no say in establishing the legal status of localities, and the term “shtetl” meant nothing to non-Jews. What Jews called a shtetl might be a city, a town, a settlement, or a village in Polish, Russian, or Austrian law. In the Commonwealth, Polish law defined a miasteczko (small town), but not every miasteczko had enough Jews to earn the unofficial sobriquet of a shtetl.
In Tsarist Russia, the ruling senate established the “small town” (mestechko) as a legal category in 1875. A mestechko lacked the legal status of a city but also differed from a village in that it had a legal body of small-town dwellers (meshchanskoe obshchestvo).
Such legal distinctions assumed vital importance for Russian Jewry after the 1882. Laws forbade Jews to settle in villages, even in the Pale of Settlement. The Jews’ right to stay in the shtetlekh where they had lived for generations depended on whether their home was classified as a town or as a village.
Handsome bribes often influenced the outcome, and lawsuits that contested these legal classificationsflooded the Russian senate. According to the 1897 Russian census, 33.5 percent of the Jewish population lived in these “small towns,” but the shtetl population was probably much higher since many legal cities were actually shtetlekh. (Introduction by Samuel Kassow, s.7)
Even when Jews formed a majority of the population, they hardly ever controlled local government. In the Commonwealth the nobles were usually the local masters, although Jews had many ways to protect their interests. The Tsars were never prepared to tolerate Jewish control of either urban or town government, unlike the post-1867 Hapsburg Empire, where many Galician towns were headed by Jewish mayors (who often did the bidding of the local Polish nobility). In interwar Poland it was often the case that even where Jews formed a majority of the voting population, the local authorities found ways to guarantee—by annexing surrounding areas or by subtle pressure—a Jewish minority in the local town councils. (Introduction by Samuel Kassow, s.8)
It is important to remember that Mendele Moher Sforim's representation of shtetl, the Jewish town is not realistic, it has all the traces of pedagogical literature.
The excellent book on geopolitical and social reality of shtetl in:
The Shtetl. New Evaluation, ed. by Steven T. Katz, 2007
Legally and politically, there was no such thing as a shtetl. Jews had no say in establishing the legal status of localities, and the term “shtetl” meant nothing to non-Jews. What Jews called a shtetl might be a city, a town, a settlement, or a village in Polish, Russian, or Austrian law. In the Commonwealth, Polish law defined a miasteczko (small town), but not every miasteczko had enough Jews to earn the unofficial sobriquet of a shtetl.
In Tsarist Russia, the ruling senate established the “small town” (mestechko) as a legal category in 1875. A mestechko lacked the legal status of a city but also differed from a village in that it had a legal body of small-town dwellers (meshchanskoe obshchestvo).
Such legal distinctions assumed vital importance for Russian Jewry after the 1882. Laws forbade Jews to settle in villages, even in the Pale of Settlement. The Jews’ right to stay in the shtetlekh where they had lived for generations depended on whether their home was classified as a town or as a village.
Handsome bribes often influenced the outcome, and lawsuits that contested these legal classificationsflooded the Russian senate. According to the 1897 Russian census, 33.5 percent of the Jewish population lived in these “small towns,” but the shtetl population was probably much higher since many legal cities were actually shtetlekh. (Introduction by Samuel Kassow, s.7)
Even when Jews formed a majority of the population, they hardly ever controlled local government. In the Commonwealth the nobles were usually the local masters, although Jews had many ways to protect their interests. The Tsars were never prepared to tolerate Jewish control of either urban or town government, unlike the post-1867 Hapsburg Empire, where many Galician towns were headed by Jewish mayors (who often did the bidding of the local Polish nobility). In interwar Poland it was often the case that even where Jews formed a majority of the voting population, the local authorities found ways to guarantee—by annexing surrounding areas or by subtle pressure—a Jewish minority in the local town councils. (Introduction by Samuel Kassow, s.8)
Interpretation: discussion in the class
Der Kleyne Mentshele (1864), the first Yiddish story by Mendele Mokher Sforim:
Questions:
1.Narrator(s): Who is he? What do we know about him?
2.Narrative: jests, anecdotes, digressions, , short myths, and abbreviated historical legends, jokes.
3.Who is the character of the inside story? How do we know him? What is his name?
4.Who/what is “a little man”?
5.The Jewish-ness of the narrator and narrative – where do you spot the non-Jewish world? Examples.
1.Narrator(s): Who is he? What do we know about him?
2.Narrative: jests, anecdotes, digressions, , short myths, and abbreviated historical legends, jokes.
3.Who is the character of the inside story? How do we know him? What is his name?
4.Who/what is “a little man”?
5.The Jewish-ness of the narrator and narrative – where do you spot the non-Jewish world? Examples.