Tevye, the Dairyman (Aleichem)

Author Bio
• Real name—Sholem Naumovich Rabinovich
• Birth—February (or March?), 1859
• Where—present-day Ukraine, Imperial Russia
• Death—May 13, 1916
• Where—New York City, USA
• Education—local schooling in Ukraine

Sholem Aleichem was the pen name of Sholem Naumovich Rabinovich, the popular humorist and Russian Jewish author of Yiddish literature. His works include novels, short stories, and plays. He did much to promote Yiddish writers, and was the first to pen children's literature in Yiddish.

His work has been widely translated. The 1964 musical Fiddler on the Roof, loosely based on Sholem Aleichem's stories about his character Tevye, the Dairyman, was the first commercially successful English-language play about Eastern European Jewish life.

He was born to a poor Jewish family in the Poltava region, east of Kiev in 1859. At the age of fifteen, inspired by Robinson Crusoe, he composed his own, Jewish version of the famous novel and decided to dedicate himself to writing. He adopted the comic pseudonym Sholem Aleichem, derived from a common greeting meaning "peace be with you", or colloquially, "hi, how are you".

After completing local school with excellent grades in 1876, he left home in search for work. For three years, Sholem Aleichem taught a wealthy landowner's daughter Olga (Golde) Loev, who against the wishes of her father became his wife in 1883. Over the years, they had six children, including painter Norman Raeben—whose teaching Bob Dylan credits as an important influence on Blood on the Tracks—and Yiddish writer, Lyalya (Lili) Kaufman. Lyalya's daughter Bel Kaufman wrote the novel, Up the Down Staircase, which was made into a successful film.

At first, Sholem Aleichem wrote in Russian and Hebrew. But from 1883 on, he produced over forty volumes in Yiddish which was accessible to nearly all literate East European Jews. Most writing for Russian Jews at the time was in Hebrew, the liturgical language used largely by learned Jews.

Sholem Aleichem also used his personal fortune to encourage other Yiddish writers. In 1888-1889, he put out two issues of an almanac, Di Yidishe Folksbibliotek ("The Yiddish Popular Library") which gave important exposure to many young Yiddish writers. In 1890, Sholem Aleichem lost his entire fortune in a stock speculation and could not afford to print the almanac's third issue. It was during this time he contracted tuberculosis.

In 1905, he left Russia, forced by waves of pogroms that swept through southern Russia, settling eventually in Geneva, Switzerland. Despite his great popularity, many of Sholem Aleichem's works had not generated much revenue for the author, and he was forced to take up an exhausting schedule of travelling and touring in order to make money to support himself and his family. In July, 1908, while on a reading tour in Russia, he collapsed on a train going through Baranowicz. He was diagnosed with a relapse of acute hemorrhagic tuberculosis and spent the next four years living as a semi-invalid; only eventually becoming healthy enough to return to a regular writing schedule. During this period the family was largely supported by donations from friends and admirers.

In 1914, Sholem Aleichem and most his family emmigrated to the United States, where they made their home in New York City. Sholem Aleichem died in New York in 1916, aged 57, while still working on his last novel, Motl the Cantor's son, and was laid to rest at Mount Carmel cemetery in Queens.

At the time, his funeral was one of the largest in New York City history, with an estimated 100,000 mourners. The next day, his will was printed in the New York Times and was read into the Congressional Record of the United States.

He told his friends and family to gather, "read my will, and also select one of my stories, one of the very merry ones, and recite it in whatever language is most intelligible to you." "Let my name be recalled with laughter," he added, "or not at all."

In 1997, a monument dedicated to Sholem Aleichem was erected in Kiev; another was erected in 2001 in Moscow. (From Wikipedia.)