Mendele Mocher Sefarim
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Mendele Mocher Sforim ( yi, , he, מנדלי מוכר ספרים, also known as Moykher, Sfarim; lit. "Mendele the
book peddler Book peddlers were travelling vendors ("peddlers") of books. This occupation had its peculiarities in various countries. United States Book canvassers Door-to-door book peddlers of the 18th and 19th centuries, also known as "book canvassers", used ...
"; January 2, 1836, Kapyl – December 8, 1917 .S.
Odessa Odesa (also spelled Odessa) is the third most populous city and municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern shore of the Black Sea. The city is also the administrativ ...
), born Sholem Yankev Abramovich ( yi, , russian: Соломон Моисеевич Абрамович, translit=Solomon Moiseyevich Abramovich) or S. J. Abramowitch, was a Jewish author and one of the founders of modern
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 ...
and
Hebrew literature Hebrew literature consists of ancient, medieval, and modern writings in the Hebrew language. It is one of the primary forms of Jewish literature, though there have been cases of literature written in Hebrew by non-Jews. Hebrew literature was pro ...
.


Youth

Mendele was born to a poor
Lithuanian Jewish Lithuanian Jews or Litvaks () are Jews with roots in the territory of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania (covering present-day Lithuania, Belarus, Latvia, the northeastern Suwałki and Białystok regions of Poland, as well as adjacent areas o ...
family in Kapyl in Minsk Governorate. His father, Chaim Moyshe Broyde, died shortly after Mendele's bar mitzvah. He studied in yeshiva in Slutsk and Vilna until he was 17; during this time he was a day-boarder under the system of '' Teg-essen'', barely scraping by, and often hungry. Mendele traveled extensively around Belarus, Ukraine and
Lithuania Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...
at the mercy of an abusive beggar named Avreml Khromoy ( Russian for "Avreml the Lame"); Avreml would later become the source for the title character of ''Fishke der Krumer'' (Fishke the Lame). In 1854, Mendele settled in Kamianets-Podilskyi, where he got to know writer and poet
Avrom Ber Gotlober Avrom Ber Gotlober (; 14 January 1811 – 12 April 1899), also known by the pen names Abag () and Mahalalel (), was a Russian Maskilic writer, poet, playwright, historian, journalist and educator. His first collection was published in 1835. B ...
, who helped him to understand secular culture, philosophy, literature, history, Russian and other languages.


Early work

Mendele's first article, "Letter on Education", appeared in 1857, in the first Hebrew newspaper, '' Hamagid''; his mentor Gotlober submitted Mendele's school paper without Mendele's prior knowledge. In Berdichev, where he lived from 1858 to 1869, he began to publish fiction both in Hebrew and Yiddish. Having offended the local powers with his satire, he left Berdichev to train as a
rabbi A rabbi () is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi – known as '' semikha'' – following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form o ...
at the relatively theologically liberal, government-sponsored rabbinical school in Zhitomir, where he lived from 1869 to 1881, and became the head of the traditional school ( Talmud Torah) in
Odessa Odesa (also spelled Odessa) is the third most populous city and municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern shore of the Black Sea. The city is also the administrativ ...
in 1881. He lived in Odessa until his death in 1917, except for two years spent in Geneva, where he fled the government-inspired pogroms following the failed revolution of 1905.


Grandfather of Yiddish literature

Mendele initially wrote in Hebrew, coining many words in that language, but ultimately switched to Yiddish in order to expand his audience. Like Sholem Aleichem, he used a pseudonym because of the perception at the time that as a ghetto vernacular, Yiddish was not suited to serious literary work — an idea he did much to dispel. His writing strongly bore the mark of the Haskalah. He is considered by many to be the "grandfather of Yiddish literature", an epithet first accorded to him by Sholem Aleichem, in the dedication to his novel '' Stempenyu: A Jewish Novel''. Mendele's style in both Hebrew and Yiddish has strongly influenced several generations of later writers. While the tradition of journalism in Yiddish had a bit more of a history than in Hebrew, ''
Kol Mevasser ''Kol Mevasser'' (Yiddish: קול מבשר) was a Yiddish language periodical that appeared from October 11, 1862 into 1872.Liptzin, Sol, ''A History of Yiddish Literature''. Middle Village, NY: Jonathan David Publishers, 1972. p. 41. It is ...
'', which he supported from the outset and where he published his first Yiddish story, yi, script=latn, Dos kleyne Mentshele, translation=The Little Man, label=none, in 1863, is generally seen as the first stable and important Yiddish newspaper.


Ideology and later work

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 ...
writes that in his early Yiddish narratives, Mendele "wanted to be useful to his people rather than gain literary laurels".Liptzin, Sol (1972). ''A History of Yiddish Literature''. Middle Village, NY: Jonathan David Publishers. p. 42. Two of his early works, the story yi, דאס קליינע מענטשעלע, translit=Dos kleyne mentshele, label=none and the unstaged 1869 drama yi, script=latn, Di Takse, label=none (The Tax), condemned the corruption by which religious taxes (in the latter case, specifically the tax on
kosher (also or , ) is a set of dietary laws dealing with the foods that Jewish people are permitted to eat and how those foods must be prepared according to Jewish law. Food that may be consumed is deemed kosher ( in English, yi, כּשר), fro ...
meat) were diverted to benefit community leaders rather than the poor. This
satiric Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming or e ...
tendency continued in yi, script=latn, Di Klatshe, label=none (The Nag, 1873) about a prince, a stand-in for the Jewish people, who is bewitched and becomes a much put-upon beast of burden, but maintains his moral superiority throughout his sufferings (a theme evidently influenced by Apuleius's classical picaresque novel '' The Golden Ass''). His later work became more humane and less satiric, starting with yi, פישקע דער קרומער, translit=Fishke der Krumer, label=none (written 1868-1888) – which was adapted as a
film A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...
of the same title in 1939 (known in English as ''The Light Ahead'') – and continuing with the unfinished
The Travels of Benjamin III ''The Travels of Benjamin III'' (מסעות בנימין השלישי, ''Masa'ot Binyamin Ha-Shelishi'') is a satirical work from the writer Mendele Mocher Sforim. The work was published first in the year 1878 in Yiddish, and, from then, until tod ...
( he, מסעות בנימין השלישי, translit=Masoes Benyomin Hashlishi, label=none, 1878), something of a Jewish '' Don Quixote''. (The title is a reference to the well-known travel book of the Medieval Spanish-Jewish traveller
Benjamin of Tudela Benjamin of Tudela ( he, בִּנְיָמִין מִטּוּדֶלָה, ; ar, بنيامين التطيلي ''Binyamin al-Tutayli'';‎ Tudela, Kingdom of Navarre, 1130 Castile, 1173) was a medieval Jewish traveler who visited Europe, Asia, an ...
.) In 1938, this work was adapted by as a play for the Jüdischer Kulturbund in Germany, and performed there shortly after Kristallnacht (the Night of Broken Glass), in November of that year. As with ''Fishke'', Mendele worked on and off for decades on his long novel yi, script=latn, Dos Vinshfingeril, label=none (The Wishing Ring, 1865–1889), with at least two versions preceding the final one. It is the story of a ''maskil'' — that is, a supporter of the ''Haskalah'', like Mendele himself — who escapes a poor town, survives misery to obtain a secular education much like Mendele's own, but is driven by the pogroms of the 1880s from his dreams of universal brotherhood to one of Jewish nationalism. The first English translation, by
Michael Wex Michael Wex (born September 12, 1954) is a Canadian novelist, playwright, translator, lecturer, performer, and author of books on language and literature.YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews of Eastern Europe
*Mendele Moykher-Sforim, La Haridelle, 2008, Paris, Bibliothèque Medem ; novel translated in French by Batia Baum, introduction by .


External links

* *
''Mendele''
a mainly English-language newsletter about Yiddish language and culture, is named after Mendele Mocher Sforim.

* [http://sammlungen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/judaica/search/quick?query=Sforim&facets=name%3D%22Mendele%20%3CMoicher%20Sforim%3E%22 Literature by and about Mendele Mocher Sforim in University Library JCS Frankfurt am Main: Digital Collections Judaica] {{DEFAULTSORT:Mendele Mocher Sforim 1836 births 1917 deaths People from Kapyl People from Slutsky Uyezd Belarusian Jews Hebrew-language writers Yiddish-language literature Yiddish-language satirists People of the Haskalah