The History of Yiddish Literature in the Nineteenth Century

by Leo Wiener

THE beginning of this century found the Jews of the Russian Empire living in a state bordering on Asiatic barbarism. Ages of persecution had reduced the masses to the lowest condition of existence, had eliminated nearly all signs of civilized life in them, and had succeeded in making them the outcasts they really were. Incredibly dirty in their houses and uncleanly about their persons, ignorant and superstitious even beyond the most superstitious of their Gentile neighbors, dishonest and treacherous not only to others, but even more to their own kind, they presented a sad spectacle of a downtrodden race. The legislators made the effects of the maltreatment of previous lawgivers the pretext for greater oppression until the Jews bade fair to lose the last semblance of human beings. One need only go at this late hour to some small town, away from railroads and highways, where Jews live together compactly, in order to get an idea of what the whole of Russia was a century ago, for in those distant places people are still living as their grandfathers did. Only here and there an individual succeeded in tearing himself away from the realm of darkness to become acquainted with a better existence by means of the Mendelssohnian Haskala. In spite of the very unfavorable conditions of life, or rather on account of them, the Jews, although averse to all instruction, passed the greater part of their lives, that were not given to the earning of a livelihood, in sharpening their wits over Talmudical subtleties. When they came in contact with the learning in Germany, their minds had been trained in the unprofitable but severe school of abstruse casuistry, and they threw themselves with avidity on the new sciences, surpassing even their teachers in the philosophic grasp of the same. Such a man had been Salomon Maimon, the Kantian scholar; such men were later those followers of the Haskala who were active in the regeneration of a Hebrew literature, with whom we have also become acquainted in former chapters through their efforts of enlightening the masses; foremost of them, however, was J. B. Levinsohn, who wrote but little in Judeo-German. He was to the Jews of Russia what Mendelssohn had been half a century before to the Jews of Germany.

The light of the Haskala entered Russia in two ways: through Galicia and through Poland. Galicia was the natural gateway for German enlightenment, as its Jews were instructed by means of works written in Hebrew, which alone, outside of the native dialect, could be understood in the interior of Russia. But this influence was only an indirect one, for soon the German language began to be substituted and understood by the people of Galicia, whereas that has never become the case in the southwest of Russia, that is, in the contiguous territory. The case was different in Russian Poland and Lithuania, for there were many commercial relations between these countries and Germany, and there existed German colonies in that part of the Empire. Consequently the ground was here better prepared for the foreign culture. The seats of the Haskala of these more northern regions were such towns as Zamoszcz in the Government of Lublin, and Warsaw. Roughly speaking, the geographically favored portion of the Jewish Pale was inhabited by the Misnagdim, or strict ritualists, while the southwest was the seat of that fanatical and superstitious sect of the Khassidim against whom nearly all of the satirical literature of the last seventy-five years has been directed.

As early as 1824 there was published a periodical in Warsaw in which the German language, or a corrupt form of it, written with Hebrew characters, was employed to serve as an intermediary of German culture. In the same year B. Lesselroth used this form of German in writing a Polish Grammar[74] for the use of his co-religionists. As has been pointed out before, this mixture of Judeo-German was to serve only as an intermediary for the introduction of the literary German which at that time appeared as the only possible alternative for the homely dialects of the Russian Jews. This mixed language has unfortunately remained the literary norm of the northwest up to the present time, if one may at all speak of norm in arbitrary compounds. In the southwest the dialects were, in the first place, much more distant from the German than the varieties of Lithuania, and the greater distance from German influence made the existence of that corrupt German less possible. At about the same time two books were published in Judeo-German, one in the south by Mendel Lefin, the other in the north by Chaikel Hurwitz, which became the standards of all future publications in the two divisions of the Jewish Pale. The first, by adhering to the spoken form of the dialect, has led to a normal development of both the language and the literature. The second, being unnatural from the start, has produced the ugliest excrescences, culminating in the ugliest productions of Schaikewitsch and his tribe and still in progress of manufacture.

Hurwitz[75] was only following the natural tendencies of the Haskala when he chose what he called a pure Judeo-German for his literary style. In the introduction to his translation of Campe's 'Discovery of America' from his own Hebrew version of the same he says: "This translation of the 'Discovery of America' I have made from my Hebrew version. It is written in a pure Judeo-German without the mixture of Hebrew, Polish, and Turkish words which one generally finds in the spoken language." It must however, be noted that he uses German forms very sparingly, and that but for his avoiding Slavic and Hebrew words, his language is really pure. It is only later, beginning with the writings of Dick, that the real deterioration takes place.

This book was published in 1824 at Wilna. Its effect on the people was very great. Previous to that year there were no other books to be had except such as treated on ethical questions, or story-books, which had been borrowed from older sources two or three centuries before. Books of instruction there were none. This was the first ray that penetrated the Ghettos from without. The people had no knowledge of America and Columbus, and now they were furnished not only with a good story of adventure, but in the introduction to the book they found a short treatise on geography,—the first worldly science with which they now became acquainted. It is interesting to note here by way of parallel that a few years later the regeneration of Bulgaria from its centuries of darkness began with a small work on geography, a translation from an American school-book, published at Smyrna. It is true that to the disciples of the Haskala works on the sciences were accessible in Hebrew translations, but these were confined to a very small circle of readers, and their influence on the masses was insignificant. If the followers of the Haskala had not accepted blindly Mendelssohn's verdict against the Judeo-German language, which was true only of the language spoken by the Jews of Germany, but had furnished a literature of enlightenment in the vernacular of the people instead of the language of the select few, their efforts would have been crowned with far greater success. By subscribing unconditionally to the teachings of their leader, they retarded the course of events by at least half a century and widened the chasm between the learned and the people, which it had been their desire to bridge. English missionaries proceed much more wisely in their efforts to evangelize a people. They always choose the everyday language in which to speak to them, not the tongue of literature, which is less accessible to them. Mainly by their efforts the Modern Armenian and Bulgarian have been raised to a literary dignity, and with it there has always followed a regeneration of letters and a national consciousness that has in some cases led to political independence. The missionaries have not always reaped a religious harvest, but their work has borne fruit in many other ways. In the beginning of this century they also directed their attention to the Christianization of the Jews of Poland. The few works that they published in the pursuit of their aim, especially the New Testament, are written in an excellent vernacular, far superior to the one employed by Hurwitz and Lesselroth. It is a pity the Jewish writers of the succeeding generations, particularly in the northwest of Russia, did not learn wisdom from the English missionaries.

'The Discovery of America' has had edition after edition, and has been read, at first surreptitiously, then more openly, by all who could read, young and old, men and women. But Hurwitz was not forgiven by the fanatics for descending to write on worldly matters, and after his death it became the universal belief that the earth would not hold him for his misdeed and that he was walking around as a ghost, in vain seeking a resting-place.

In the south the first impulse for writing in Judeo-German was given by the translations of the Proverbs, the Psalms, and Ecclesiastes by Minchas Mendel Lefin. Of these only the Psalms were published in 1817; Ecclesiastes was printed in 1873, while the Proverbs and a novel said to be written by him have never been issued. To write in Jargon was to the men of the Haskala a crime against reason, and Lefin was violently attacked by Tobias Feder and others. He found, however, a sympathizer in Jacob Samuel Bick, who warmly defended him against Feder, and by degrees some of the best followers of the Haskala followed his good example. Ettinger and Gottlober are known to have received their first lessons in Judeo-German composition through the writings of Lefin, while by inference one may regard him also as the prototype of Aksenfeld and Zweifel. It was not so easy to brave the world with the despised Jargon, and up to the sixties not one of the works of these writers appeared in print. They passed in manuscript form from hand to hand, until the favorable time had come for their publication; and then they were generally not printed for those who wrote them, but for those who possessed a manuscript, so that on the first editions of their works their names do not appear at all.

Lefin's translations mark an era in Judeo-German literature. He broke with the traditional language used in story-books and ethical works of previous centuries, for that was merely a continuation of the language of the first prints, in which local differences were obliterated in order to make the works accessible to the German Jews of the East and the West. It was not a spoken language, and it had no literary norm. In the meanwhile the vernacular of the Slavic Jews had so far departed from the book language as to make the latter almost unintelligible to the masses. Lefin chose to remedy that by abandoning entirely the tradition, and by writing exactly as the people spoke. He has solved his problem in a remarkable way; for although he certainly knew well the German language, there is not a trace of it in his writings. He is not at a loss for a single word; if it does not exist in his dialect, he forms it in the spirit of the dialect, and does not borrow it from German. As linguistic material for the study of the Judeo-German in the beginning of this century the writings of Lefin, Aksenfeld, Ettinger, Levinsohn, and Gottlober are invaluable. But that is not the only value of Lefin's writings. By acknowledging the people's right to be instructed by means of an intelligible language, he at the same time opened up avenues for the formation of a popular literature, based on an intimate acquaintance with the mental life of the people. In fact, he himself gave the example for that new departure by writing a novel 'The First Khassid.' In the northwest the masses were not so much opposed to the new culture as in the south, hence the writers could at once proceed to bring out books of popular instruction clad in the form of stories. But the Khassidim of the south would have rejected anything that in any way reminded them of a civilization different from their own. In order to accomplish results among them, they had to be more cautious and to approach their readers in such a way that they were conscious only of the entertainment and not of the instruction which was couched in the story. This demanded not only the use of a pure vernacular, but also a detailed knowledge of the mental habits of the people. As their conditions of life in no way resembled those of any other people in Europe, their literature had to be quite unique; and the works of the earlier writers are so peculiar in regard to language, diction, and style as to baffle the translator, who must remodel whole pages before he can render the original intelligibly. Of such a character are the dramas of Aksenfeld, Ettinger, and J. B. Levinsohn.

Ettinger, the first modern Judeo-German poet, has also written a drama under the name of 'Serkele, or the False Anniversary.' His bias for German culture shows itself in the general structure of his play, which is like that of Lessing's dramas. The plot is laid in Lemberg, and represents the struggle of German civilization with the mean and dishonest ways of the older generation. Serkele has but one virtue,—that of an egotistical love for her only daughter, the half-educated, silly Freude Altele. In order to get possession of some jewels deposited with her by her brother for his daughter Hinde, she invents the story of his death. She is anxious to marry her daughter to Gavriel Händler, who is represented to her as a rich speculator, but who is in reality a common thief. He steals the casket containing the jewels. When the theft is discovered she throws the guilt on Marcus Redlich, a student of medicine, her daughter's private teacher, and Hinde's lover. Hinde, too, is accused of complicity, and both are taken in chains through the town. They pass a hostlery where a stranger has just arrived, to whom Händler is trying to sell the jewels. The stranger is Hinde's father. He recognizes his property, and seizes the thief just as his daughter and her lover are taken by. A general recognition follows, and all is righted. He finally forgives his sister, gives a dowry to Freude Altele, who marries the innkeeper, while his daughter is united to Marcus Redlich.

As in all the early productions of Judeo-German literature, there are in that drama two distinct classes of characters: the ideal persons, the uncle, Marcus Redlich and Hinde, and the real men and women who are taken out of actual life. On the side of the first is all virtue, while among the others are to be found the ugliest forms of vice. A worse shrew than Serkele has hardly ever been depicted. Her speeches are composed of a series of curses, in which the Jargon is peculiarly inventive, interrupted by a stereotyped complaint of her ever failing health. She hates her niece with the hatred that the tyrant has for the object of his oppression, and she is quick to accuse her of improper conduct, although herself of very lax morals. Nobody in the house escapes the fury of her tongue, and her honest but weak husband has to yield to the inevitable. The other characters are all well drawn, and the play is an excellent portrayal of domestic life of seventy-five years ago. It was written early in the twenties, but was printed only in 1861, since when it has had several editions.