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Sholom Aleichem

By Anastasia ⋅ February 15, 2007 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

Sholom Aleichem (Шалом-Алейкум) is my newest discovery. He was a Jewish writer born in Ukraine who wrote in Yiddish. His stories are making me consider learning the language.

His real name was Solomon Naumovich Rabinovich. Then he changed it to something even more Jewish for his nom de plume. Something tells me this guy was unafraid of anti-semitism. Based on his stories, he seems unafraid of a great deal of things. Towards the end of his life, he moved to New York and saw his stories turned into the small English-language musical called A Fiddler on the Roof. This 2002 New York Times article discusses his resurgence in Russia.

Wikipedia quotes the following passage to illustrate his style:

“Pinhas Pincus is of less than normal height, with one small eye and one bigger eye. When he talks, it seems as if the eyes talk to each other; the smaller eye asks for and seeks approval from the bigger eye; and the bigger eye gives its approval of every plan or undertaking. When he first came to Nuremberg, there was no limit to his sufferings; he had to endure starvation, misery and personal insults from his German brethren. In Nuremberg he was protected from massacres, but was not protected from starvation.” —from An Early Passover, translated by George Zinberg

Here’s another one, with my own (rough) translation by way of M. Shambadal’s Russian version of “One hundred and one”:

The beautiful ancient river Bug, flowing in the South between the Dnepr and the Dnestr and falling, just like them, into the Black Sea, crosses two provinces–Kherson and Podol–in the exact spot where, spread about, lie two Jewish towns–Golta and Bogopol. Both settlements comprise one town really, yet the river has divorced them, torn the whole into halves, and the people bound them together with a bridge, so that both the settlements again reunited to become a single town: there you are, as if Bogopol, but wait five minutes, and you are already in Golta. And if you turn back–the same thing: a moment ago you were in Golta, and before you even have time to look around, there you are again in Bogopol!

For many years, Golta was considered a village, while Bogopol–a town. That was why according to the May 3, 1882 law, Jews could not settle in Golta anew.

From that time, Golta became very attractive for the Bogopol Jews, who were suddenly burning with the desire to settle exactly in Golta and precisely after the 3rd of May.

From that day forward, Bogopol Jews began to move to Golta in secret. Though they did not succeed. They were asked to go back and cross the bridge back into Bogopol: “Gospodin Itzko, kindly return to the Bogopol rabbi!” The Jews would either silently turn around and сurse, smiling, “China to Berdichev!” or,

“For pity’s sake!” the immigrant would say, “I’m a Goltan; for years now, I have my own small town at the yeshiva! I have how many relatives at the cemetery!”

The China to Berdichev reference, by the way, mystifies me a great deal. If anyone has any insight, I’d love to hear about it. In Russian, it reads: “А форфор на Бердичев!”

The Kherson province in question is, of course, the place where I grew up.