THE JEWISH NEWS
, Page Sixteen
Friday, February 11, 1944
quickly to this -favorable stimulus; and their work
helped to compensate for the.grievous cultaral losses
in Europe.
Sholem Asch easily towers above his contem-
poraries. For more than thirty years his work has
been known to Europeans in various translations,
and his later novels have been on the best-seller
lists in this country as well. Yet he is not an artist
who happens to write in Yiddish but a Jew whose
sensuous lyricism overflows all racial barriers : Both
his merits and his defects grow out of his emotional.
attachment to his people. Even when his theme is
contemporary Europe or Jesus or St. Paul, he is ever
the Jew who writes with poetic intensity and fic-.;
tional animation.
.
Abraham Raisen is in many respects the anti:.
thesis of Sholern Asch. After a score of years in New
York his view of the -world is as circum-
This historical photograph scribed as it was when he first emerged
shows the outstanding Jew- from his native village. His style reflectS
ish literary geniuses of the the -meagerness of his Lithuanian eariron-
latter part of the 19th and ment. His fictional realm _is narrow,
the first part of the 20th oblique, lowly. Yet within his orbit he iS
centuries. Left to right: a gifted writer. Much of his verse has the
Mendele Mocher Seforim, spontaneity and sweetness of the .foIksong.
Sholem Aleichem, Ben Ami In his short stories 'he excels in the por_
and Ch ainzN achmanBialik. trayal of meek Jews reduced by circuna-
' stances to humble and dispirited creatures.
Yiddish Literature
Its Development and Prospects
By CHARLES A. MADISON
T
HESE ARE STILL a fewJews
who, more out of ignorance than antipathy, assume
that Yiddish is a dialect and that the literature in it
lacks genuine merit. They do not know that Yiddish,
like other modern languages, has a long history, is
rich and colorful,' and is taught gramatically in
hundreds of schools the world over. Nor are they
aware that Yiddish authors have in the past century
developed a body of writing which compares favor..
ably with the literatures of any of the small nations.
That such a treasure is available in the mother tongue
of most Jews will appear from the following brief
survey of its development.
Researches during the past half century have
uncovered a rich folk literature written in Yiddish
before 1800. Indeed, the first recorded writings in
this dialect have been traced back to the thirteenth
century. During the Renaissance period it was the
vernacular for popular romances, didactic tracts, and
those parts of Jewish liturgy assigned to women.
Even men of learning, to whom Hebrew was holy,
employed it in their daily affairs; and lay preachers
enriched it with their extravagant metaphors and
homely parables which adorned their Sabbath ser-
mons.
Always "a people of the book," the Jews of a
century and more ago no sooner ceased to steep their
minds in medieval lore than they initiated a veritable
cultural efflorescence. The pen became the mighty,
weapon of the leaders of enlightenment ; and they
used Yiddish for the simple reason that most Jews
knew that tongue best. Their fiery polemics and
propagandist fiction are now chiefly of historic in-
terest, but in the process they succeeded in refining
the language and in enlarging its scope.
States during the last decades of the previous century
uprooted and bewildered, were not long in establish-
ing their native culture on the East Side. Newspapers
and periodicals, written in Yiddish, gave voice to
their new experiences and their characteristic re-
actions. Of the writers among them Morris Rosen-
feld was the first to achieve popular acclaim. For
years a worker in a garment factory, his poetry
became the fierce, anguished cry of the exploited
poor, the outburst against the infernal sweatshop
system which was draining the lifeblood of his fellow
immigrants. A poet of far greater merit was Yehoash
(S. Bloomgarten). His mature verse compares favor-
ably in essence and in spirit with the best modern
poetry. His best lyrics are austere yet sensuous, per-
vaded by an intellectual fervor, and stamped 'with
the nervousness of modernity. Among 'his .p r o s e
writings must be mentioned his excellent Yiddish
translation of t h e Old Testament. David Pinski,
another prominent writer of the period and still
active, is primarily the dramatist. While not all of
his numerous works are equally successful, he has
to his credit such truly fine plays as The Treasure
and King David and His Wives.
The sudden influx of Jews to this country as
a consequence of the 1903-1905 massages in Russia
brought cultural confusion in its wake. Readjustment
and reorientation became imperative. Gradually,
however, the intellectual ferment agitating the East
Side burst all bounds, and out of its seething cru-
cible emerged a number of talented youths. These
new writers readily absorbed the freedom and in-
formality of their American environment. Scorning
the drabness and didacticism of their predecessors,
they wanted to be artists most of all. In the end
their aim exceeded their reach; much of what they
wrote lacked substance.
*
* .
Peretz Hirschbein is markedly the esthete, and
of a roving, highly fanciful nature. In his plays of
countrified Lithuanian • Jews the characters differ
markedly from Raisen's;' A Wayside Nook, The
Haunted Inn, and Green Fields are unique in their
originality and idyllic rusticity. His books of travel
are the sensitive recordings of a poet in search of
the soul of humanity. And while his recent novels
of Jewish life' in Soviet Russia and in the United
States lack the intrinsic quality of his better plays,
they are works of solid merit.
*
*
Among the late arrivals to these shores, I. J.
Singer has most distinguished himself. The merits
and limitations of his fiction are obvious to those
who have read it in the fine translations of. Maurice
Samuel. As storyteller Singer is vivid, dynamic, real-
istic. His work stings with the barbs -of satire. Be-
neath its murky mysticism The Sinner is a caustic
criticism of chassidic obliquity; The Brothers Ash-
kenazi is primarily an unsparing analysis of capital-
istic greed and disillusioned idealism. Yet his work
at times suffers from the lack of psychological
acumen and lyrical warmth, and all his zest cannot
compensate for the baldness of his characterization.
The unceasing powers of Americanization cannot
but affect Yiddish literature adversely. While Jewish
cultural institutions continue to thrive, and Yiddish
newspapers have lost little of their influence, there
is no mistaking the intellectual quiescence within
Yiddish circles.. The younger generation has never
mastered its mother tongue, and only a handful
regard Yiddish as their natural medium• of literary
expression. And although the older writers maintain
their normal productivity, they are painfully aware
of the declining fruitfulness of the literature which
they had helped to create.
While it is impossible to foretell what will
remain of Yiddish culture in Eastern Europe after
the present holocaust, there is no question that many
Jews in this country, in Soviet Russia, in Poland,
and elsewhere will continue to use Yiddish as their
mother tongue and as their literary medium. The
Yiddish Scientific Institute, now located in New
York and under the capable direction of the philolo-
gist Max Weinreich, has -- become a powerful source
Joseph Opatoshu and H. Leivick are the most
of energy for the perpetuation of Yiddish culture
Out of their group came Mendele the Book- _prominent of the living writers who came
and will certainly enhance
seller (S. J. Abramovitch), the first major Yiddish
to this country in their youth. Opatoshu's
writer. He began as a reformer, and his first story,
its growth. Nor must 4e
work possesses exceptional thematic vital-
published in 1864, exposed the sycophants within
forget that the Jews are truly
the Jewish community. His later novels depicted
ity. Outspoken and satirical,he at first wrote
a virile peotile• They will
satirically the extreme poverty of his people as well of the spiritual uprootedness and material
survive t h e bestiality of a
as the ignorance and hypocrisy which leechlike were . crassness of the slum immigrants. Later
Hitler as they had the op-
sucking dry the life-flow of the Jewish poor. In
he concerned himself with the normal,
addition to its didacticisna his work is noted for
pression of the Hamans of
nervous Jews he knows intimately — in
its faithful descriptions of nature, its incisive deline-
the past two millennia. And,
this country a n d in Poland and his
ation of character, and its vivid story-telling.
with survival will come cul-
Sholem Aleichem (S. Rabinovitch), who began• stories and novels are etcfied with pointed
tural resurgence. It is heart-
acuteness. His greatest work, In Polish
to write in the 1880's, was one of the great world
ening to know that Jews in
Woods; available in English translation,
humorists •and the most popular of all Jewish writ-
Russia
have managed to pub-
ers. Quick to perceive the ludicrous behavior of his
is a salient part of Yiddish literature.
lish Yiddish books in large
fellow Jews, yet fully cognizant of the harsh social teivick is in a class by himself. All his
restrictions which motivated it, he dug deep into the
lyrics are fierce and brooding plants
editions in the, mids.t of the
comic temper of their plight and brought forth un.-
springing from an agonized soul. His nu-
greatest devastation in t h e
alloyed and healing humor. All his characters, com-
merous plays. are cries of defiance against
history of that country. This
pounded of his own reflective experience 'and artistic
a society which sanctions oppression and
we know: in our own time
insight, are peculiarly Jewish, imbued with an un-
scoffs at idealism. His best work,. The
Yiddish writers have created
Golem, a poem of great beauty and depth
derlying pathos that grips the heart even as the body
a literature of which any
shakes with laughter.
of perception, basically expresses the same
people may be proud. The
CHARLES A. MADISON
poignant protest against injustice and per-
*
*
future is ours to do with as
secution. .Even his current writing is com-
I. L. Peretz, their chief contemporary, was the
we will.
pounded of an unflagging idealism and
most conscious artist of the three. As eager as Men-
compassion.
dele to reform his people; he began to write critically
of chassidic religiosity, but was soon so fascinated
The First World War turned Eastern Europe
by the glamor of its rich legendary folklore that
into a bloody shambles- and caused the center of
instead of .inpugning the superstitious bigotry of the
Mr. Madison, author of this article, a former
Yiddish literature to gravitate . to New York. Sholem
Detroiter, is one of the editors of Henry Holt &
chassidim - he tended to idealize their intensive faith
Aleichem, ShOlem Asch, Abraham Raisen, Peretz
Co., New York publishers. He is a graduate .
in God. Poet, storyteller, dramatist, critic, publicist
Hirschbein were among - t h e prominent Yiddish
of the University of Michigan, where, during
—he entered each field as a pioneer and left it in
writers who sought asylum in the American me-
his student days, he won the first priie in the
full flower. His style, like his eye, retained its youth-
tropolis. Their presence coupled with strong sympa-
ful zest to the very end, and at his death in 1915
Menorah Literary Contest. He is an authority
thy for their brethren across the sea intensified the
on Yiddish literature.
Yiddish literature was full-fledged.
interest of the Jews already here in Yiddish books
The East-European Jews who reached the United
on all kinds of subjects. Yiddish authors reacted
.
.
•