[Page 375]

[Page 376]

Yisroel Zinberg

Editor's comments:[1] Alexandrov's article is an exact reprint of Noach Prilutzki's discourse of Yisroel Zinberg, and in order to “make him kosher” for the Jewish extremist newspaper, at the same time he polished it with a few quotations of Marx-Lenin. The value, therefore, of this article, is almost a historical, heroic one, showing how the Jews would self-sacrifice for Jewish literacy in a place of spiritual destruction, but the value is also to bring out details about Dr. Zinberg. Reading this, the world learns that in small Lanovits there lived and grew up a brilliant person of the generation, and the phenomenon that his largesse was not only in his greatness and geniality, but particularly in that he used his skills to serve the people and his students and judges. And at the same time, all his life, he was involved in various political-economic circumstances. So, I suggest that we should abstract from the Stalinist need of approval and read this article as a well to acknowledge our Dr. Zinberg, and also our Lanovits Zinberg, and the refinement and inclusion of his work. Yisroel Zinberg has long been the protector of the entire Jewish nation and its pride, but he is still ours, because if a person is a product of his environment and his societal circle, then Dr. Zinberg is actually a product of Lanovits, and as such, he suddenly becomes a worthy asset for our small town, with his dear character and company, and this book about Lanovits could not be complete without Dr. Zinberg's chapters.

Ch. Rabin

[Page 377]

Regardless of the fact that Y. Zinberg left behind a great literary legacy, his name in the wide reading circles was not well known. But therefore, in the small circle of critics and researchers of Yiddish literature, it was known that in Peterburg (later in Leningrad) there was an engineer Sergei Lazarovitch (Yisroel) Zinberg, who was a great genius in Yiddish literature. You could turn to him for a literary “investigation,” and he would give, very quickly, an exact answer which you could totally rely on.

Yisroel Zinberg was born in the town of Lanovits, in the province of Volhyn, in the year 1873, into a family of wealthy farmers of wolvarken [pig wool workers]. His education happened in the same place. He did not go to cheder, he did not study in a yeshiva. His father brought him from Odessa (I think under the recommendation of Mendele Mocher Sforim), a former teacher in the Zhitomir rabbinic school. In his younger years, Zinberg already demonstrated his capacities and work abilities. You did not have to be a deep observer or someone who understands people, to see in the young Zinberg a “book devourer,” a “genius,” and a “masmid”^[2] [diligent student of Torah studies].

Y. Zinberg received a high education outside of the country: In Karlsruhe, he completed the polytechnic school as a chemical engineer, and in Basil, he completed a dissertation and received the title of Doctor of Philosophy. A chemist and a humanitarian intellect – that's how he returned home from outside of the country. In the year 1898, he settled in Peterburg, and received a position as representative of the chemistry laboratory in the large Putilov-Factory (now Kirow).

In the year 1900, the first two works of Y. Zinberg were published: 1) in Yiddish – “Vos tut zich oif der velt” [“What is going on in the world”], Warsaw, p. 73; a popular scientific book about the science of nature; 2) in Russian – “Yitzchok Ber Levinson,” Peterburg, p. 75; a monograph about one of the most distinguished representatives of the bourgeois enlightenment. The interest in Levinson

[Page 378]

also appeared later in the article “Yitzchok Ber Levinson and His Times” (“Yevreiskoye Starina” [the Jewish community of Starina], 1910).

In the year 1901, Y. Zinberg began working at the Yiddish-RussianVoschod [“Sunrise”], and from that year on (until 1918) he was a permanent co-worker in the Yiddish/Russian press (weekly newspaper – Svoboda i Ravenstvo [Freedom and Equality], Yevreiskii Mir [Jewish Peace], Yevreiskoye Obrazovanye [Jewish Education], Noviy Voschod [New Sunrise], Yevreiskoye Niedeliye [Jewish Week], and so on. There, he managed a constant section “Overview of the Jewish Press,” (under the pseudonym ---------). At the same time, he wrote great investigative works, which he published in Voschod (“Shylock's Roots,” “Two Streams in Jewish Life”), and the historical collections in: “Perezhitoye,” [“Repetitions] (“The first socialist organizations in Jewish literature.” B1. “The Writing Inns in Jewish Literature.” B2. “The Foremen of Jewish journalism in Russia.” B4. and so on, in the historical journal “Yevreiskoye Starina.” Y. Zinberg had great input into the major work of the sixteen volume Yevreiskoye Encyklopedia [Jewish encyclopedia] (1913-1908), in which he edited the section of “New Hebrew and Yiddish Literature.” He was not only an editor, but he also wrote major articles, in which several are almost like monographs (“The New Hebrew Literature,” “The Yiddish Literature,” “Periodical Press,” “Haskalah” [“Enlightenment”], and so on. There were articles about individual writers and publicists (Abramovitch, Peretz, Sholom Aleichem, Mendelson, Achad Haam, Lilienblum, Levinson, etc.), about middle-aged poets (Yehuda Halevi, Emanuel Haromi). Other than that, he also wrote important articles that, at the same time, were not tied to literary history (assimilation – together with D. Pasmanik; Yeshiveye from Volozhyn; English socialist missionaries; censors of Yiddish books in Russia – together with Y. Hessen, and so on). Y. Zinberg wrote several tens of these types of major articles. He also wrote lesser articles which were entered into the encyclopedia under the number 7.

In the major collection “The History of Jews in Russia” (in Russian, the publication “Mir” [Peace], 1914), Y. Zinberg wrote the following chapters: “The Evolution of the Rabbinic literature,” “Folk Literature,” “Mystical Currents.”

In the post-revolutionary years, Y. Zinberg presented his works in various Yiddish-Russian collections (“Yevreiskoye Missel,” [Jewish Assignment], “Yevreisky Almanakh” [Jewish Almanac], “Yevreiskoye Liyetofus” [Jewish Chronicle], and so on. In the Jewish science publications (“Zeitschrift” [magazines]) and so on, he published a series of literary, historical material.

[Page 379]

One has to mention exceptionally the works of Y. Zinberg in Russian, that is his great monograph, “The History of the Jewish Press in Russia, and Ties with the Socialist Currents” (1916, volume 3, page 264), which received the award from the “Society to Spread Education between Jews in Russia” (“EPE”). The history of the press was brought to the year 1881, and includes the “Press for the Jews” in three languages: Yiddish, Hebrew, and Russian.

Reviewing Y. Zinberg's works in Yiddish, first you have to point out for all of it, that his relationship with Yiddish was always a positive one. He began working with the Russian “Voskhod” [“Rise” of the sun or moon], at the time when there was a negative relationship with the folk language. Mordche Spektor recounts, that when he came to the editor and publisher of the “Voskhod” in the year 1883, Adolph Landau, and presented a review of two books, his and Sholom Aleichem's, which were published at that time, the editor replied: “Jargon is not literature. Therefore, I cannot publish a review in my newspaper.” That same spirit, almost without change, ruled in the paper about 18-20 years later, when Y. Zinberg began working there.

In the year 1903, he printed in the “Voskhod” (March-April) a piece that was called “Jargony Literature and Its Readers.” This was one of the first attempts in the area of Yiddish literary stories. In the years 1903-1905, he was an active person in the evolvement of “the new library.” Here, there were translations done from Russian and Hebrew into Yiddish (Karalenka – “The Legend about the Flohr, Agripa, and Menachem ben Yehuda”; Giovannielli – “Sportok”; Feierberg – “Stories”; and so on). He takes part in the first daily Yiddish newspaper “Der Friend” [“The Friend”] (first published in 1903 in Peterburg under the editor Sh. Ginsberg). In that newspaper, as well as in the Hebrew newspaper “HaZman” (“The Time”), he argues with the opponents of the Yiddish language, and underscores its national, cultural meaning. In the later years, his connection with the Yiddish writers and culture activists became narrower. In 1912, he became a member of the editorial board of journal “Di Yiddishe Velt” [“The Yiddish World”]. In the years of World War One, when the Tzarist government placed the Jewish people in a terrible situation, expelling them from the front and bordering areas, carried out pogroms there, Y. Zinberg did not limit himself to literary judges and critical works. In various journals, which in those days, often changed their names because of censorship,

[Page 380]

he published a series of articles about Peretz in relation to his death, about Bialik, about all kinds of facts of literary-socialist life in those times; once, he wrote publicity articles (“Thoughts of an Insane Man,” “The World Judges,” and so on). After Sholom Aleichem's death, he compiled, along with Sh. Nigeren, a collection, dedicated to his memory.^[3]

In the year 1915, Y. Zinberg goes back to his fundamental work – “History of Literature of the Jews.” The title alone demonstrates that he put before him a task that was a lot more difficult and expansive than writing only “History of Hebrew Literature” and “History of Yiddish Literature.”^[4] This undertaking resulted in the literatures became as separated as if with the Wall of China, one from the other. The language of the literary work moved into very Judeo-political content. Because of that, in our literary historical research, the history of Jewish Russian literature, which in its time filled a distinct socialist function, almost completely disappeared.

In his large, main work, Y. Zinberg proceeded to use the introduction of his former monograph “The History of the Jewish Press in Russia in Connection with the Socialist Waves,” but the scale was, understandably, much larger.

Y. Zinberg well understood that writing a scientifically independent work about the essence of the first sources and to add how his own judgments, which would encompass the entire literary creations of the Jewish people for the very long duration, this would be almost impossible for a single person to do. He therefore put chronological limits onto his work, and began, from that moment on, since from an Asiatic people we became European, and the hegemony of the Yiddish culture moved from Foder [?] Asia to Western and Southern Europe, up to the Haskalah [“Enlightenment”] era.

[Page 381]

The material was divided into six volumes (8 parts) in the following order:

Volume 1 – the Arabic-Spanish era (part 1)
Volume 2 – the German-French kibbutz (second part); the Jewish kibbutz in Italy (part 3)
Volume 3 – the conflict between Kabbalah [mysticism] and “mesoira” [tradition] against rationalist philosophy (part 4)
Volume 4 – The Italian Jewish population in the Renaissance period (part 5). The Yiddish culture center in the Ottoman regime (part 6).
Volume 5 – The German Polish culture center (part 7).
Volume 6 – Old Yiddish literature from the earliest times until the Haskalah [Enlightenment] era. (part 8).
Leading his work until the Haskalah era, Y. Zinberg did not stop there. In the published volumes 7 and 8 (which contain “Chochmas Yisrael” [Wisdom of Israel], the Galician enlightenment, the beginnings of the Haskalah movement in Russia, and so on), he presents his historical excursion until the 50s of the 19^th century. As he writes in his introduction in volume 1 (December 1927), he wrote the first four volumes initially in Russian, and was not working them over in Yiddish (not a simple task). Only the first five chapters of the Russian text were published in Kiev in the year 1919.

In the time that Y. Zinberg began to busy himself with the literary research, in that same area, the characteristics of the cultural history took a prominent position, which contained its own authoritative representatives (Hettner and Sherer in Germany, then in France, Brandes in Denmark, Pepin, Wingerow, and so on, in Russia). The attitude of this school was carried by Y. Zinberg into the research of “Literature of the Jews.” Today, we take from the cultural-historical school not its methodological principles, but the great, factual material that it brought into its works. The same is relevant in Y. Zinberg's literary history.

Y. Zinberg was not satisfied only with the history of the so-called nice literature. “The development of the poetic forms will be investigated here for the source of the entire cultural Jewish environment, with its spiritual and socialist waves, tightly connected with the general European culture of that period.” That is

[Page 382]

characteristic for the cultural historical school, which, in its research, gave attention to the socialist waves of that era. But Lenin's attitude towards that was foreign to him, saying that “in every nationalist culture there are undeveloped elements of the democratic and socialist culture, since in every nation there are working and exploitive masses in whom the conditions of their lives create a democratic and socialist ideology.”^[5]

His credo regarding the methodology of history of literature of the Jews is explained by Y. Zinberg in his introduction (“from the author”) in the first volume of his work:

“The eras of rising and falling, from beautiful growth to tragic failing and waning, happened in an entirely different manner (in Yiddish – H.A.) than in the other European countries. The Jewish cultural history has its own style, evolved on its own level, experienced completely different stages…” And then facts are brought here, which, according to Y. Zinberg, have to validate the above-mentioned founding thoughts. At the end of the 15^th century, there was a spiritual upheaval in Europe – discovery of America, of book publication, religious reformation – and Jews were expelled from Spain; in the 17^th century – in European Decartes, for Jews – there was the destruction of “Gezeiras Takh.”^[6] It is enough to present these two examples so that it should become clear that we are dealing with a purely ideological concept of the history; other than that, there are many confused historical facts which do not allow themselves to be compared, and which happened in many different countries, under different circumstances. This relates to the old Spanish Jews' concept formulated upon the old phrase, “Lo kekhol goyim beis Yisrael” (Jews are not like any other nation).

If we are already taking historical parallels and similarities, then we have to accept these facts that lie, if we can say this, in one line and which happened in one and the same time. We can take as an example religious reformation, the efforts that were put forward in various Western European countries, that the religious books should be translated from the incomprehensible Latin for the broader people, to the people's language, and then demonstrate, that at the same time (1544)

[Page 383]

the siddur [prayer book] was translated into Yiddish, and the translator, Yosef ben Yakir, says in the introduction: “I hold that these are real fools, those who wish to pray in the holy language even though they do not understand a single word. I would like to know how someone who prays like that can have real concentration. So, we decided to print the prayers in a translated form.” Remembering that they herded the Jews out of Spain, we cannot forget that in that same time they also expelled the Muslims. And if we are already speaking about Descartes, and you want to compare what happened at that time to the Jews, then we have to mention that at that same time Boruch Spinoza appeared in Holland, who, about thirteen years after Decartes' death, published a book where he polemicizes with Decartes (“The Philosophical Principles of Decartes,” 1663). You can find many such comparisons in Jewish history because the history of the Jews in various countries somehow crosses lines with the history of that country, and Jews “unintentionally protected their own history for themselves” (Marx).^[7]

Y. Zinberg's history, as we explained, encaptures, other than artistic literature, the history of Middle-Ages' religious philosophy (in the first publications), history of the so-called “Chochmas Yisrael” (in the later publications). The great scope was, as one of the reasons states, that until that time, there was no critical appraisal of this work. This, Y. Opatoshu showed in one of his enclosed letters. Only a team of specialists can take on such a work. Meanwhile, we can earmark the surprising erudition that Y. Zinberg demonstrated, and that which can and must serve us and be used in the research work in the area of “literature of the Jews.”

It seems that Y. Zinberg did not complete his great work. His fate was: They did not write much about him while he was still alive, and even after his death, there was no real necrology, because he died in the Stalin cult (1939). Now, after the 20^th assembly of our party, when Y. Zinberg had a full recovery, it is our obligation to remember the great researcher of “Literature by the Jews” and critically analyze his literary heritage.

Original footnotes:

1. For the 30-year jubilee of Y. Zinberg's literary activities, Tzvi Prilutzki wrote an article in “Moment” about “Dr. Yisroel Zinberg,” (“A bintel zichronos”; “A collection of memories”). From this article, we used the material for the young Zinberg, until the beginning of his literary works. Return
2. Ilui (from the Hebrew; def: young Talmudic prodigy), that is what this phenomenal young man was called, who would share his thoughts and sharp mind. masmid (from the Hebrew; def: a diligent student of the Torah); that is what the bright students in the yeshivos were called. Return
3. Collection, “In Memory of Sholom Aleichem.” Volume 3, 1917. Return
4. In Reisin's “Lexicon,” the title of the book “The History of the Hebrew and Yiddish Literature,” was incorrect. For our work, we used: Dr. Yisrael Zinberg, “The History of the Literature of the Jews, European era.” Publisher, Moshe Shmuel Skliarski, New York, 1943. The publication is a photographic printing of the second filing of the publication “Tamar,” Vilna, 1933 (in eight volumes). Return
5. V. A. Lenin. Fifth file, vol 2. p. 120 Return
6. Gezeiras Takh. In Hebrew literature, this was how they referred to the Jewish pogroms that took place in Ukraine, 1648. Return
7. The first volume of the first publication “Works by Marx and Engels,” p. 381. Return

[Page 384]

Zinberg's fund, which is found in the archives of the Leningrad section of the Institute of the nations of Asia in the Science academy, and is marked under number 86, is divided into three lists. List #1. There are 87 numbers; # 2, there are 367 numbers; #3, 167 numbers; total 630 “archival units.” This technical term is very broad, according to its style, and also is on a card on which one line is written. Also, an original from a large work that holds 1,000 pages and more. The greatest position (according to the number of pages) is held by Zinberg's original work, articles, lectures on various historical and literary themes; other than these originals, that were given in completed form, there is a great number of archival entries that present raw material, arrangements (“zagadavkes” [enigmas]) of all kinds of works. There are originals of all eight published volumes of “The History of Literature by the Jews.” Completely ready for print is the manuscript of the ninth volume, which was rewritten by Zinberg's wife Rosa Vladimirovna. This volume encompasses the literature of the 50s and 60s in Russia. As is known from the correspondence with various American writers and journalists, Zineberg had in mind to write a tenth volume, of which a large place was to be taken by Yiddish literature in America (see, for example, Opatoshu's letter of March 14, 1938). Unfortunately, Zinberg was not able to fulfill this plan.

From the so-called “zagadavkes,” the following can be indicated: 1) material for the lectures about the history of Yiddish literature (partly in Yiddish, partly in Russian); 2) or the history of the Yiddish socialist press; 3) or the history of the Yiddish language; 4) or the cultural history of the Jews in Russia; 5) of the Middle- Ages rationalists; and so on.

Other than originals from Zinberg's works and “zagadavkes,” which have a connection to his research works, there are various other materials in his fund, that are connected to other authors. There is a mathematical work (in Hebrew) from an unknown author; there is a “kolbo” package [random collection], which was not yet figured out, and some which are marked under the title “excerpts from various letters,

[Page 385]

literary works, songs, various manuscripts in Russian, Yiddish, and Hebrew”; we also find here “satirical songs from unknown authors” (unedited). In particular, a list from Sh. Ansky's literary heritage should be noted, which was compiled by Y. Zinberg.

Y. Zinberg preserved in his archives not only literary material, but also historical documents which were connected to the works of various Yiddish cultural societies, political parties, and organizations. In particular, we can note those materials that are related to the treatment of the Jewish question in the “gosudarstvo dome” [“state house”].

A large section of Zinberg's archives is given to his correspondence with Yiddish writers from different countries – without exaggeration, you can say – that there was no Yiddish writer and publicist, who wrote in Yiddish or Hebrew, who was not in communication with Zinberg. There are no less than 500 letters in the archives, among them – from Sholom Aleichem, Peretz, Bialik, Sholem Asch, Opatoshu, Winchevsky, Niger, Bergelson, Breinin, Sh. Ansky, Achad Haam, Klausner, Hillel Zeitlin, and so on. The final count of the number of letters is not yet determined because there are packages under the title of “letters from unknown people to Zinberg.” There are also many randomly collected letters which Zinberg kept, placed on the list of the archives of “the society to spread education between Jews in Russia” [“AFE”]. Letters in this category belong to Sh. Ansky, Shaul Ginsberg, and so on.

Among the letters addressed to Zinberg, there are many that have an autobiographical character. As one of the editors of the 16-volume “Yevraiskaya Encyclopedia” [“Jewish Encyclopedia”], and the director of section of “New Hebrew and Yiddish Literature,” Zinberg approached the writers of that time with the request that they also submit their autobiographies; the responses are in the archives. Many of them are brief, with questions (such as Sholom Asch's). Other writers used this opportunity and submitted detailed autobiography material, saying also that the editor can use it all, as he alone understands. Dinezan, Spector, Weisenberg, Yitzchok Katznelson, and many others, gave these detailed replies.

Other than the autobiographical letters, the others were connected to all kinds of literary and social issues of the time.

[Page 386]

A large number of letters are connected to the works of many various newspapers and journals, in the first column of “Der Yiddishe Velt” [“The Yiddish World”], where Zinberg was one of the closest co-workers.

From Zinberg's answers, only a small number of “chernovikes” [“rough drafts”] remain. It is now hard to say if these rough drafts have factual answers, which were sent to the correspondent, or maybe they were fabricated by Zinberg himself.

I am using this opportunity to thank the representative of the archives, Dimitri Yevgenyevitch Bertels, for his careful instruction and his assistance in my work.

[Page 387]

From the editor: Along with the very important article about the representative of Yiddish literature Y. Zinberg, the press agency Novosty sent us the following information: Y. Zinberg was a fallen victim of the Stalin cult in the year 1939. After the 20^th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party, in 1956, he was rehabilitated. His rich scientific heritage is now being studied everywhere, as Avraham tells here. Y. Zinberg's wife, Rosa, at 80 years old, lives in Leningrad, very respectably. Also, Zinberg's grandchild lives there, an engineer, along with his family.

The docent from Leningrad university, Hilel Alexandrov, is currently studying the archive of the famous Yiddish historian Sergei (Yisroel) Zinberg, located in the Leningrad department of the Institute of Asian Nations in the Alfarband [union wide, Soviet Union] Science Academy. The correspondent from the press agency Novosty asked the learned person to present information about this archive. “My work is still very far from complete, because the archive is a large one. But now, I can tell you about the first results. In the archive, there were hundreds of letters from famous writers, philologists, historians, publicists. Among them, letters from Sholom Aleichem, Chaim Nachman Bialik, Yitzchak Leib Peretz, Achad Haam, Ber Borochov, Shimon Dubnow, Sholom Ash, Morris Winchevsky, Yakov Fichman, and others.

What can you say about Zinberg himself? Yisroel Zinberg was born in 1873 in the town of Lanovits (province of Volyn). He was a very talented and timeless, educated chemist. In his upper thirties, he managed a chemistry laboratory from Putilov, later Kirov, a factory in Leningrad. Zinberg is the author of many works about chemistry, particularly of the educational book “How to Do Chemical Analyses,” which went through two publications (in 1921 and 1929). But Zinberg only yearned for literary knowledge. In 1900, he debuted with monographs about the Yiddish writer Yitzchok Ber Levinson. In 1901, he published a book “Shylock's Ancestry.” He is also the author of the works: “Two Aspirations in Jewish Life,” “The Forerunners of the Yiddish Journalist,”

[Page 388]

and a list of others. In 1911-1913, I also attended a cycle of his lectures of the higher courses of Eastern knowledge, extended and completed, taken as a source from his nine-volume “History of the Literature of the Jewish People.” For us students, there actually remained a question, where does our lecturer have the time to prepare his lectures for us? He would come directly to give us the lectures, straight from the Putilov factory…

What do the letters discuss, those that you have already read?

The great majority of the letters are written in Yiddish, Hebrew, or Russian. There are also letters in western European languages. A separate group of letters present an autobiographical character. Being one of the editors of the sixteen-volume “Yiddish Encyclopedia” (1913-1908), Zinberg, it appears, approached the writers of those times with the request that they send in their autobiographies. In Zinberg's archives, the replies are there, which he received from these authors: Sholom Ash, Yakov Dinezon, Yosef Kloizner, Dovid Frishman, Zalman Schneur, and others.

The prosaic Yitzchak Meyer Weisenberg and Mordechai Spektor wrote with a lot of details and poetical writing. The letter written by the classic Yitzchak Leib Peretz in Yiddish, dated December 11, 1911, presents great interest. The author of the famous stories “Chassidish” – Y.L. Peretz, shares that he himself was never a chassid, he never had any connection to chassidim, and did not really know the Chassidic rabbis. Y.L. Peretz also informs that he began to write in Polish, but burned all his manuscripts. After that, he began to write in Hebrew. But in this case too, his first literary proofs did not satisfy him. Then he started to write in Yiddish. This was about 35-40 years ago, comments Y. L. Peretz, as he describes how he acquired his world view. It seems that the literature of the prophets had an effect on him, and his first songs were written under the influence of Heine and Berne.

Letter from Bialik. There are letters that address all kinds of literary problems, or they are related to the published or other works. The six letters of Chaim Nachman Bialik, for example, written in the years 1921-1927, belong to this category. They mainly discuss the scientific result of the work of the famous Yiddish writer of the Middle Ages, Shlomo Ibn Gabirol,

[Page 389]

which Ch.N. Bialik prepared for publication. The valuable lists of Ibn Gabirol's songs are found in Leningrad in the open library. Bialik asked Zinberg to help him get the necessary material in order to clarify certain questions which arose during his work with Achad Ha'am's four letters, sent from London, which are connected with the journalist Uri Kovner and also to Shmuel Bukh (“Sefer Shmuel”), which is very valuable, and is located in the British museum.

The five letters of Yosef Opatoshu, sent from New York (during the years 1937-1938), address the question about the oppositional relationships between the Yiddish and Hebrew authors.

In Ber Borochov's letter from Vienna (January 4, 1914), the main topic is about his potential participation in the Yiddish encyclopedia.

The letter from the founder of the Yiddish proletariat poetry, Morris Winchevsky (sent from New York, September 20, 1909), touches on the question of the history of the newspaper “Vahrheit” [“Truth”].

Zinberg had many correspondents – around 400. It is quite impossible to describe all of them. I would like to mention just a few. Zinberg's archives contain letters from critics and publicists: Shmuel Niger, Reuven Brinen, Hilel Zeitlin. From the dramatists: Peretz Hirshbein, Ansky (Rapaport). From the prose writer: Uri Gnessin. Lexicographer: Zalman Reisin. Historian of Chassidism: Shmuel Abba Gorodetsky. From the well-known publisher and publicist: Shaul Yakov Hurvitch…

Sholom Aleichem's letters. Finally, I will discuss Sholom Aleichem's two letters. The first letter, dated October 24, 1909, written in Switzerland, is dedicated to the Yiddish folk-writer and composer Mark Warshawsky (1848-1907), on two pages, written in a calligraphic, pearly handwriting. The Yiddish classic writer, with great spirit, wrote about the people's talent, which he spoke about, and which he himself described and which he too “put forth for the people.”

In the second letter, written on November 3 of that same year, in Italy (written in Russian), there is discussion about the same Warshawsky, Sholom Aleichem declines any honor for the article about Warshawsky and requests an improvement on his first letter: “I ask you to review once again my letter to you about Warshawsky. In one place there, where it discusses his declamation of his own songs, I think you will find a phrase that while performing with the deceased poet in the province, we had a great success.

The word “we” (if

[Page 390]

it is in there), I ask that it be removed and changed to the word “he.” It is not civil and not comfortable to speak like that of one's own success.”

This is a demonstration of the humility of the great writer, because it is well known that he was greeted with huge enthusiasm in every single auditorium.

H. Aleksandrov said that in Zinberg's archive, there is also material that is related to the history of the Yiddish socialist press, of the Yiddish theater, of the Middle-Ages rationalists, and others. A precise catalogue of Zinberg's archives will be presented in the “Bulletin,” which the archives publish from the Institute of Asia-Nations.

  Lanovtsy, Ukraine     Yizkor Book Project     JewishGen Home Page

Copyright © 1999-2024 by JewishGen, Inc.
Updated 16 Nov 2023 by JH