Isaac Leib Peretz ( pl, Icchok Lejbusz Perec, yi, יצחק־לייבוש פרץ) (May 18, 1852 – April 3, 1915), also sometimes written Yitskhok Leybush Peretz was a Polish Jewish writer and playwright writing in
Yiddish
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...
. Payson R. Stevens, Charles M. Levine, and
Sol Steinmetz
Sol Steinmetz (July 29, 1930 – October 13, 2010) was a Hungarian American linguistics and lexicography expert who wrote extensively about etymologies, definitions and uncovered earliest recorded usages of words in English and Yiddish. A widely s ...
count him with
Mendele Mokher Seforim and
Sholem Aleichem
)
, birth_date =
, birth_place = Pereiaslav, Russian Empire
, death_date =
, death_place = New York City, U.S.
, occupation = Writer
, nationality =
, period =
, genre = Novels, sh ...
as one of the three great classical Yiddish writers.
Sol Liptzin
Sol Liptzin (July 27, 1901 – November 15, 1995) was a scholar, writer, and educator in Yiddish and German literature.
Life
Liptzin was born in Sataniv, Russian Empire, and moved to New York at the age of nine. He graduated from City College o ...
wrote: "Yitzkhok Leibush Peretz was the great awakener of Yiddish-speaking Jewry and Sholom Aleichem its comforter.... Peretz aroused in his readers the will for self-emancipation, the will for resistance against the many humiliations to which they were being subjected."
[Liptzin, Sol (1985). ]
A History of Yiddish Literature
'. Middle Village, NY: Jonathan David Publishers. p. 56.
Peretz rejected cultural universalism, seeing the world as composed of different
nation
A nation is a community of people formed on the basis of a combination of shared features such as language, history, ethnicity, culture and/or society. A nation is thus the collective identity of a group of people understood as defined by those ...
s, each with its own character. In Liptzin's account, "
ery people is seen by him to be a chosen people, chosen by its peculiar history, geography and ethnic composition"; he conceived of Jewish literature as "grounded in Jewish traditions and Jewish history", and as "the expression of Jewish ideals".
Unlike many other
Maskilim
The ''Haskalah'', often termed Jewish Enlightenment ( he, השכלה; literally, "wisdom", "erudition" or "education"), was an intellectual movement among the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe, with a certain influence on those in Western Euro ...
, he greatly respected the
Hasidic Jews
Hasidism, sometimes spelled Chassidism, and also known as Hasidic Judaism (Ashkenazi Hebrew: חסידות ''Ḥăsīdus'', ; originally, "piety"), is a Jewish religious group that arose as a spiritual revival movement in the territory of contem ...
for their mode of being in the world; at the same time, he understood that there was a need to make allowances for human frailty. His
short stories
A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest t ...
such as "If Not Higher", "The Treasure", and "Beside the Dying" emphasize the importance of sincere piety rather than empty religiosity.
Biography
Born in
Zamość
Zamość (; yi, זאמאשטש, Zamoshtsh; la, Zamoscia) is a historical city in southeastern Poland. It is situated in the southern part of Lublin Voivodeship, about from Lublin, from Warsaw. In 2021, the population of Zamość was 62,021.
...
, in
Lublin Governorate
Lublin Governorate (russian: Люблинская губерния, pl, Gubernia lubelska) was an administrative unit (governorate) of Congress Poland.
History
The Lublin Governorate was created in 1837 from the Lublin Voivodeship, and had th ...
,
Congress Poland
Congress Poland, Congress Kingdom of Poland, or Russian Poland, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland, was a polity created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna as a semi-autonomous Polish state, a successor to Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw. It w ...
, a city known as an important center of the
Haskalah
The ''Haskalah'', often termed Jewish Enlightenment ( he, השכלה; literally, "wisdom", "erudition" or "education"), was an intellectual movement among the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe, with a certain influence on those in Western Euro ...
, or Jewish enlightenment, Peretz was raised there in an
Orthodox Jewish
Orthodox Judaism is the collective term for the traditionalist and theologically conservative branches of contemporary Judaism. Theologically, it is chiefly defined by regarding the Torah, both Written and Oral, as revealed by God to Moses on M ...
home. His father, Yude, was a merchant, and his mother, Rivke, also helped to run the family's shop; Peretz was the oldest of three siblings who survived to adulthood.
[Wisse, Ruth R. (December 15, 2010).]
Peretz, Yitskhok Leybush
" ''YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe'' (online edition). Retrieved 2019-10-12. Mostly taught by private tutors, he received a traditional Jewish education in Hebrew and
rabbinic texts
Rabbinic literature, in its broadest sense, is the entire spectrum of rabbinic writings throughout Jewish history. However, the term often refers specifically to literature from the Talmudic era, as opposed to medieval and modern rabbinic writ ...
, and for a short time, at around the age of 13, studied at
yeshivot
A yeshiva (; he, ישיבה, , sitting; pl. , or ) is a traditional Jewish education, Jewish educational institution focused on the study of Rabbinic literature, primarily the Talmud and halacha (Jewish law), while Torah and Jewish p ...
in Zamość and the nearby town of
Szczebrzeszyn.
[Klausner, Yehuda Arye; Frieden, Ken (2007). "Peretz, Isaac Leib". ''Encyclopaedia Judaica''. 2nd ed. Macmillan Reference USA. Vol. 15, pp. 765-768. Available online vi]
Encyclopedia.com
retrieved 2019-10-12. He also had tutors for
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
,
Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles
Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...
, and
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
.
Upon gaining access to a private library, he avidly read secular books in Polish, Russian, and German, as well as
French,
which he had learned on his own.
At one point he hoped to study either at a secular
gymnasium, or at the theologically liberal
rabbinical
Rabbinic Judaism ( he, יהדות רבנית, Yahadut Rabanit), also called Rabbinism, Rabbinicism, or Judaism espoused by the Rabbanites, has been the mainstream form of Judaism since the 6th century CE, after the codification of the Babylonian ...
school at
Zhytomyr
Zhytomyr ( uk, Жито́мир, translit=Zhytomyr ; russian: Жито́мир, Zhitomir ; pl, Żytomierz ; yi, זשיטאָמיר, Zhitomir; german: Schytomyr ) is a city in the north of the western half of Ukraine. It is the Capital city, a ...
, but his mother opposed such plans.
When he was around 18 years old, his parents arranged his marriage to Sarah, the daughter of the Hebrew author
Gabriel Judah Lichtenfeld,
whom Liptzin describes as a "minor poet and philosopher".
[Liptzin (1985), p. 57.]
For the next several years Peretz embarked upon various business ventures in the region,
including a failed attempt to make a living distilling
whiskey
Whisky or whiskey is a type of distilled alcoholic beverage made from fermented grain mash. Various grains (which may be malted) are used for different varieties, including barley, corn, rye, and wheat. Whisky is typically aged in wooden ...
. His marriage with Sarah ended in divorce after five years; they had one child together, Lucian, born about 1874.
In 1876-1877 he lived in Warsaw, where he worked as a Hebrew tutor, before returning to Zamość.
By this time he had begun to write
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
poetry; in 1877, together with his former father-in-law Lichtenfeld, he published his first book of Hebrew poetry.
In 1878, Peretz married Helena Ringelheim, the daughter of a well-off merchant.
At about the same time, he prepared for and passed the attorney's examination, and for the next decade successfully practiced as a private lawyer in Zamość.
Around 1887–1888, Peretz's law license was revoked by the
Imperial Russia
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the List of Russian monarchs, Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended th ...
n authorities, who suspected him of promoting
socialist
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...
and
Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles
Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...
nationalist
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: Th ...
ideas.
With that he lost his income and his home, since he was unable to find other employment in the city. He found temporary work in 1890 as a member of an expedition, sponsored by philanthropist
Jan Bloch, to conduct a statistical survey of Polish Jews; his experiences visiting small towns and villages of the
Tomaszów province in southeastern Poland became the basis of his fictional sketches ''Bilder fun a Provints-Rayze'' (Pictures from a Provincial Journey).
After that, Peretz settled permanently in
Warsaw
Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...
, where, beginning in 1891, he worked as a record-keeper in the small bureaucracy of the city's Jewish community.
His first published Yiddish work, the long ballad ''Monish'', appeared in 1888, as his contribution to the landmark anthology ''Di Yidishe Folksbibliotek'' (Jewish People's Library), edited by
Sholem Aleichem
)
, birth_date =
, birth_place = Pereiaslav, Russian Empire
, death_date =
, death_place = New York City, U.S.
, occupation = Writer
, nationality =
, period =
, genre = Novels, sh ...
.
The ballad tells the story of an ascetic young man, Monish, who unsuccessfully struggles to resist the temptress
Lilith
Lilith ( ; he, Wiktionary:לילית, לִילִית, Līlīṯ) is a female figure in Mesopotamian Mythology, Mesopotamian and Jewish mythology, Judaic mythology, alternatively the first wife of Adam and supposedly the primordial she-demon. ...
.
Peretz assisted other Yiddish writers in publishing their work, including his lifelong friend
Jacob Dinezon,
Der Nister
Der Nister ( yi, דער נסתּר ֹor דער ניסטער, "the Hidden One"; 1 November 1884 – 4 June 1950 in a Soviet Gulag) was the pseudonym of Pinchus Kahanovich ( yi, פּנחס קאַהאַנאָוויטש), a Yiddish author, philoso ...
and
Lamed Shapiro. He also collaborated with them on multiple anthologies and publications, such as ''Di yontef bletlekh'' (''Holiday Pages''), another landmark Yiddish literary anthology in which he participated together with fellow authors
Jacob Dinezon,
Mordecai Spector
Mordecai Spector (also ''Mordechaj Spektor'' or ''Mordechai Spektor''; 10 May 1858, in Uman, Ukraine – 15 March 1925, in New York City, New York, US) was a Yiddish novelist and editor from the Haskalah period. He is the author of about 50 realis ...
, and
David Pinski
David Pinski (Yiddish: דוד פּינסקי; April 5, 1872 – August 11, 1959) was a Yiddish language writer, probably best known as a playwright. At a time when Eastern Europe was only beginning to experience the industrial revolution, Pinsk ...
.
Around 1907, Peretz initiated a Yiddish dramatic group within the recently founded Hazomir (''The Nightingale''), an association for Jewish music and literature, which became a lively cultural center of pre-
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
Yiddish Warsaw.
Towards the end of his life, as refugees poured into
Warsaw
Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...
from the
war zone between
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
and
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
, Peretz and fellow author
Jacob Dinezon helped found an orphanage and establish schools for displaced Jewish children.
[Dinezon, Yankev, ''The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Languages'' (Jeremy Dauber), ]
'
Peretz died in the city of Warsaw, Congress Poland, in 1915. He was buried at the
Okopowa Street Jewish Cemetery
The Warsaw Jewish Cemetery is one of the largest Jewish cemeteries in Europe and in the world. Located on Warsaw's Okopowa Street and abutting the Christian Powązki Cemetery, the Jewish necropolis was established in 1806 and occupies 33 hectar ...
with a huge crowd, about 100,000 strong, attending the burial ceremony.
Works
Peretz wrote in both
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
and
Yiddish
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...
. A writer of social criticism, sympathetic to the
labor movement
The labour movement or labor movement consists of two main wings: the trade union movement (British English) or labor union movement (American English) on the one hand, and the political labour movement on the other.
* The trade union movement ...
, Peretz wrote stories, folk tales and plays. Liptzin characterizes him as both a realist – "an optimist who believed in the inevitability of progress through enlightenment" – and a romanticist, who "delved into irrational layers of the soul and sought to set imaginations astir with visions of
Messianic possibilities."
Still, while most Jewish intellectuals were unrestrained in their support of the
Russian Revolution of 1905
The Russian Revolution of 1905,. also known as the First Russian Revolution,. occurred on 22 January 1905, and was a wave of mass political and social unrest that spread through vast areas of the Russian Empire. The mass unrest was directed again ...
, Peretz's view was more reserved, focusing more on the
pogrom
A pogrom () is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe 19th- and 20th-century attacks on Jews in the Russia ...
s that took place within the Revolution, and concerned that the Revolution's universalist ideals would leave little space for Jewish non-conformism.
Some of Peretz's most important works are ''Oyb Nisht Nokh Hekher'' ("If not Higher") and the short story "Bontshe Shvayg" ("Bontsche the Silent"). "Bontsche" is the story of an extremely meek and modest man, downtrodden on earth but exalted in heaven for his modesty, who, offered any heavenly reward, chooses one as modest as the way he had lived. While the story can be read as praise of this meekness, there is also an ambiguity in the ending, which can be read as showing pity for someone who cannot even imagine receiving more.
His work ''Der Kuntsenmakher'' ("The Magician") found inspiration in the
folklore
Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, ranging ...
of
Hasidic Judaism
Hasidism, sometimes spelled Chassidism, and also known as Hasidic Judaism (Ashkenazi Hebrew: חסידות ''Ḥăsīdus'', ; originally, "piety"), is a Judaism, Jewish religious group that arose as a spiritual revival movement in the territory ...
. The story focuses on
Elijah
Elijah ( ; he, אֵלִיָּהוּ, ʾĒlīyyāhū, meaning "My El (deity), God is Yahweh/YHWH"; Greek form: Elias, ''Elías''; syr, ܐܸܠܝܼܵܐ, ''Elyāe''; Arabic language, Arabic: إلياس or إليا, ''Ilyās'' or ''Ilyā''. ) w ...
, who anonymously visits a poor couple and helps to make them rich. The 1917 edition was illustrated by
Marc Chagall
Marc Chagall; russian: link=no, Марк Заха́рович Шага́л ; be, Марк Захаравіч Шагал . (born Moishe Shagal; 28 March 1985) was a Russian-French artist. An early modernism, modernist, he was associated with se ...
, who did not know Peretz and did not read the work until he was commissioned to create the drawings.
Much as
Jacob Gordin
Jacob Michailovitch Gordin (Yiddish: יעקב מיכאַילאָװיטש גאָרדין; May 1, 1853 – June 11, 1909) was a Russian-born American playwright active in the early years of Yiddish theater. He is known for introducing realism an ...
influenced
Yiddish theater
Yiddish theatre consists of plays written and performed primarily by Jews in Yiddish, the language of the Central European Ashkenazi Jewish community. The range of Yiddish theatre is broad: operetta, musical comedy, and satiric or nostalgic revu ...
in New York City in a more serious direction, so did Peretz in Eastern Europe. Israil Bercovici sees Peretz's works for the stage as a synthesis of Gordin and of the more traditional and melodramatic
Abraham Goldfaden
Abraham Goldfaden (Yiddish: אַבֿרהם גאָלדפֿאַדען; born Avrum Goldnfoden; 24 July 1840 – 9 January 1908), also known as Avram Goldfaden, was a Russian-born Jewish poet, playwright, stage director and actor in the languages Yid ...
, an opinion which Peretz himself apparently would not have rejected: "The critics", he wrote, "the worst of them thought that M.M. Seforim was my model. This is not true. My teacher was Abraham Goldfaden."
Peretz's 1907 play ''Bay nakht afn altn mark'' ("At Night in the Old Marketplace"), set in a Jewish
shtetl
A shtetl or shtetel (; yi, שטעטל, translit=shtetl (singular); שטעטלעך, romanized: ''shtetlekh'' (plural)) is a Yiddish term for the small towns with predominantly Ashkenazi Jewish populations which existed in Eastern Europe before ...
over the course of a single night, presents a panoramic review of Jewish life in Poland. The play was adapted into a
multimedia
Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms such as text, audio, images, animations, or video into a single interactive presentation, in contrast to tradition ...
theatrical presentation, with music by
Frank London
Frank London (born 1958 in New York) is an American klezmer trumpeter who also plays jazz and world music.
Early life
London was born to a Reform Jewish family and grew up in New York and Connecticut. He started playing the trumpet in fourt ...
and book and lyrics by
Glen Berger
Glen Berger is an American playwright and scriptwriter. He has received commissions from the Children’s Theater of Minneapolis, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, the Alley Theatre, and the Lookingglass Theater.
In 2010, he co-wrote the book for '' Spi ...
, in 2007.
Family and descendants
The American journalist
Martin Peretz
Martin H. Peretz (; born December 6, 1938) is an American former magazine publisher and educator. Formerly an assistant professor at Harvard University, he purchased ''The New Republic'' in 1974 and assumed editorial control shortly afterwards. H ...
is one of his descendants. The French author
Georges Perec
Georges Perec (; 7 March 1936 – 3 March 1982) was a French novelist, filmmaker, documentalist, and essayist. He was a member of the Oulipo group. His father died as a soldier early in the Second World War and his mother was killed in the Holoc ...
was a distant relative. Descendants of Peretz's brother – including physicians, teachers, attorneys, and performers – reside in the Tri-state area of New York City.
Commemoration
Peretz Square in
Lower Manhattan
Lower Manhattan (also known as Downtown Manhattan or Downtown New York) is the southernmost part of Manhattan, the central borough for business, culture, and government in New York City, which is the most populated city in the United States with ...
, which marks the spot where Houston Street, First Avenue, and First Street meet, is named after him. It was dedicated on November 23, 1952.
[Peretz Square]
(Lower Manhattan). New York City Department of Parks & Recreation. Retrieve 2019-10-13.
There are streets in Warsaw, in Zamość, in Kutno and in Wrocław (also a square) named after him (''ulica Icchaka Lejba Pereca'' in Polish).
There are streets named after Peretz in Israel in the following cities:
*Tel Aviv
*Hod Hasharon
*Bat Yam
*Haifa
*Kiryat Yam
*Holon
*Givat Shmuel
References
Footnotes
Sources
*
Bercovici, Israil, ''O sută de ani de teatru evreiesc în România'' ("One hundred years of Yiddish/Jewish theater in Romania"), 2nd Romanian-language edition, revised and augmented by Constantin Măciucă. Editura Integral (an imprint of Editurile Universala), Bucharest (1998). . p. 116.
* Frank, Helena (trans.), ''Stories and pictures; translated from the Yiddish by Helena Frank'', Jewish Publication Society, Philadelphia, PA, 1908
*
Howe, Irving (trans.);
Greenberg, Eliezer (trans.), ''Selected stories'', Schocken Books, New York, NY 1974
*
Wisse, Ruth, ''I. L. Peretz and the Making of Modern Jewish Culture (Samuel and Althea Stroum Lectures in Jewish Studies)'', Princeton Univ. Press, Princeton, NJ, 2013
* Wisse, Ruth (trans.), ''The I. L. Peretz Reader'', Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 2002
*
Liptzin, Sol, ''A History of Yiddish Literature'', Jonathan David Publishers, Middle Village, NY, 1972, . Page 56 ''et seq.''
* Stevens, Payson R.; Levine, Charles M.; and Steinmetz, Sol
The contributions of I.L. Peretz to Yiddish literature 2002, on MyJewishLearning.com.
at www.myjewishlearning.com
Further reading
*
Samuel, Maurice, ''Prince of the Ghetto'', Jewish Publication Society, 1948.
External links
Literature by and about I. L. Peretz in University Library JCS Frankfurt am Main: Digital Collections Judaica*
*
*
Yitskhok Leybush Peretzat Culture.pl
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Peretz, Isaac Leib
1852 births
1915 deaths
People from Zamość
People from Lublin Governorate
Polish Ashkenazi Jews
Yiddish-language literature
Polish male writers
Yiddish theatre
Yiddish-language satirists