The History of Yiddish Literature in the Nineteenth Century

by Leo Wiener

Her other sketches are of a similar character. In all of these, she points out the dangers from a superficial modern education, and the insincerity of the self-styled reformers who are ever ready to suggest a remedy for the ills that befall her people. Her characters are drawn from that new class of half-learned men and women who, receiving their training in the gymnasium, were just on the point of disappearing from the fold of the Jewish Church, when they were violently cast back into it by the persecutions from without. Of an entirely different tendency are the writings of Jacob Dienesohn, although akin to 'Isabella' in the sympathy he shows for the older generation. Dienesohn had begun his career in 1875, when he published a novel 'The Dark Young Man,' after which he grew silent. In 1885 he took up his literary work, since when he has produced two large novels and several shorter sketches. His first work was very popular. He depicted in it the machinations of an orthodox young man of the older type, who felt it his duty to lay stumbling-blocks in the way of one who strove to acquire worldly knowledge. Dienesohn occupies a peculiar place in Judeo-German literature. He is the only one who has attempted the lachrymose, the sentimental novel. He began writing at a time when Dick had prepared the ground for the romantic story, and Schaikewitsch had started on his sentimental drivel. But while these entirely failed to produce something wholesome, Dienesohn gained with his first book an unusual success. He drew his scenes from familiar circles, and his men and women are all Jews, with a sphere of action not unlike the one his readers moved in. Readers consequently were more easily attracted to him, and carried away a greater fund of instruction. His feminine audiences have wept tears over his work, and the author has received letters from orthodox young men, who assured him that although the description of the Dark Young Man fitted them, they would not descend to the vile methods of the hero of the book in pursuing differently minded men.

During his renewed activity, which began in the Volksblatt ten years after his first novel had been printed, he dwelt on that period in the history of the Russian Jews when they were just commencing to take to the new culture, when it still meant a struggle and a sacrifice to tear oneself away from the ties which united one with the older generation. In the 'Stone in the Way' he describes the many hardships which his hero had to overcome ere he succeeded in acquiring an education. In 'Herschele' (still unfinished) the same subject is treated in the case of a young mendicant Talmudical scholar, who is beset, not only by the usual difficulties, but who is, in addition, trying to suppress his earthly love for the daughter of the woman who furnishes him with a dinner on every Wednesday. Dienesohn treats with loving gentleness all the characters he writes about.[97] Like Spektor, he attacks no one directly, and, like him, sarcasm has no place in his works. His most touching and, at the same time, the most perfect of his shorter stories is the one entitled 'The Atonement Day.'[98] He introduces us there to a scene in the synagogue where an old woman is praying fervently. Her devotion is interrupted by her thoughts of her daughter at home whom she had enjoined to fast on that awful day, although she had just given birth to a son. For a long time her religious convictions outweigh her maternal feelings, but, at last, her natural sentiment is victorious, and she hurries home to insist on her daughter's eating something. In this way the new-born babe is saved. Thirty years pass. The old woman has died, and her daughter Chane is brought before us on the same Atonement day. She has grown old, while her son has, in the meantime, finished at the university, and is a practising physician. She, too, is praying fervently, and thinking with awe of the day when young and old, the pious and the sinner alike, come to the synagogue and invoke the mercy of the Lord with contrition of spirit. Her eyes search in vain for her son among the crowd congregated below. The hours pass, and he does not appear. Faint with hunger from the long fasting and grieving at her son's apostasy, she falls sick and soon dies. In her last agony she makes her son promise her that he will, at least once a year, on the Atonement day, visit the synagogue. After that, one can see every year, on the awful day, the physician in deep devotion in the house of the Lord.

The circle which has Spektor for its centre is characterized by the use of Western literary forms for its productions, which yet are all of a distinctly Jewish type. The object of the authors is to create a sound literature for the masses. Incidentally, the literature is also to give positive instruction; but primarily, it is to draw away attention from the worthless books of the previous decade, and to create a decided taste for good works. These authors also intend to give the people a feeling for their racial solidarity, to acquaint them with the thought of the best of their race in an accessible form. This period has completely broken its connection with the older Haskala, for the writers no longer dream of substituting German culture for the ignorance of the masses. Nor do they preach of assimilation and Russian education, for that has signally failed to be of any use to the Jews in their struggle for recognition. In the nineties, the dream of Zionism was to haunt these writers, and many others who were to write then. But, in the meanwhile, they have no other definite purpose than to create a national consciousness, to instil in them the idea of human dignity, to develop individual character. While, on the one hand, they do not give them any new cultural ideals for those of the past generations, they have, on the other, no suggestions to make in regard to the religious faith of the orthodox, or the absence of religious convictions of the younger men and women. They do not attack the old Law, they do not side with any modern philosophy. Khassid and Misnaged, the unenlightened and enlightened, are the same in the scale of their judgment. It is not time, they think, to discuss about any such matters, but to gather in all the unfortunate ones into one brotherhood. The upper classes who have had many advantages in life, can shift for themselves in forming their convictions, but it is the lower strata that need guidance, and it is the duty of those who are better informed to devote their energies to the deliverance of their wretched brothers and sisters. Such is the doctrine of these writers. These sentiments are not alone the result of the riots of 1881. They are a reflex of the Russian Narodniks, who, at about the same time, were preaching the necessity of going among the people, of identifying oneself with the masses, of devoting all one's energies in the cause of the peasant, the artisan, the factory hand.

The Jargon is not represented in a contemptuous way, nor are apologies made for its use. On the contrary, the authors try to show the wealth of its expressions and to collect data for its history. Lerner writes a good essay on the folksong in a popular style; Dienesohn gives a review of the older writings and their authors; Spektor and Bernstein publish a large number of Judeo-German proverbs; Buchbinder collects popular superstitions; and Meisach writes a small book of Jewish folktales. The latter has also told in Judeo-German some of the legends from the Talmud and other sources. He has written some stories in the style of Dick, but like those they are disfigured by a disregard of style. The activity of these men still continues, independently of the new movements advocated by other writers and unimpeded by the new faith of Zionism.

XIII. PROSE WRITERS SINCE 1881: RABINOWITSCH, PEREZ

SOLOMON RABINOWITSCH began writing for the Volksblatt[99] at about the same time as Spektor, and shortly after the appearance of the Hausfreund he issued an annual, Die Jüdische Volksbibliothēk, which was of even a more pretentious character than its contemporary. Both authors were animated by the same ideas when they started on their literary careers and when they commenced publishing their periodicals. But a glance at the writings of the two is sufficient to convince us that there is a wide difference in the methods pursued by them, and in the results achieved. Rabinowitsch is impulsive, enthusiastic, quick-witted, sarcastic, and these qualities of his character are discernible in all his productions. He has attempted many things, poetry, playwriting, novels, criticism, and he is successful in all. He has been a merchant and an author, has vaulted over from a pure realism to the illusive dream of Zionism, and bids fair to follow new ideals should such present themselves to him. He is in every sense an artistic nature.

While connected with the Volksblatt he wrote a number of sketches and short stories. The first one to attract the attention of the critic in the Voschod was his 'Child's Play,'[100] after which his new books never failed of bringing out favorable comments in that Russian periodical. He depicts scenes from his own childhood, or from that middle class into which his fortune, an inheritance of his wife, brought him. His impulsiveness keeps him from elaborating his sketches into long novels, such as Spektor and Dienesohn have produced. There is rarely a complicated plot in them, but the separate situations are painted with great clearness and in bold relief. One may forget the story, but one will never forget his characters. They have all of them their sharply defined individuality, their language, their circle of thought. We get acquainted with them through their actions rather than through the author's description, and we like them not for the parts they play in the story, but for their strong personalities, equally pronounced in their virtues as in their weaknesses. The men and women he describes we have met somewhere, and we shall again recognize should we meet them in actual life. The Russian critic, who is naturally in touch with his own literature, unconsciously thinks of this and that well-known character in the writings of Gogol and Ostrovski, when he speaks of Rabinowitsch's creations, and at times he actually gives them their Russian names. But Rabinowitsch does not imitate Gogol and Ostrovski, at least not purposely. He is himself possessed of a humor which is not dissimilar to that of the Russian authors, and the society which he describes is not unlike the one Gogol knew half a century ago, and Ostrovski found even at a later time among the merchant class of Moscow. He is a close observer, and knows how to separate the wheat from the chaff, to present to the reader only the essential characteristics, and not to burden the story with subjective discussions.

Although Rabinowitsch may have started in the literary field with no other idea than the current one of elevating the lower classes, there is certainly nothing in his works to show that that has long remained his main object. He writes to entertain, and not to instruct. Moreover, he draws his subjects from a class of society with which the masses are not particularly well acquainted. With him the last spark of the didactic ideals of the Haskala has entirely vanished. He is above all else a litterateur who is addressing an audience with a decided taste for good literature. He is, therefore, more calculated to win the ears of the better classes than of the lowly of his race, to exercise a corrective influence on the manners of the middle class than to educate or console the masses.

Of his longer works, 'Stempenju' is the most artistically conceived and most carefully executed. In his previous productions such as 'Child's Play,' and 'Sender Blank,' he had humorously depicted scenes from the life of the merchant class. In the first of these, he introduces us into the life and love of a rich man's spoiled, half-educated son. In the second, which he names a novel without love, we get an excellent picture of a tyrant and miser, the terror of his family, the merchant Sender Blank. He is on his death-bed, and his congregated children are, each in his own way, dreaming of the moment when they shall be free to do as they like, when they shall no longer be kept in poverty. But Sender Blank gets well again, and his family departs, each one to his home with shattered hopes. In 'Stempenju' we have a more carefully laid plot, and his first attempt at a novel in which a romantic love plays a part. Stempenju is a violinist, the leader of a band that plays at weddings. He has great talent for music and has developed his powers entirely by self-instruction. He is a real artist, and like many others of his profession takes life easy, and is of amorous propensities. He has frequently made love to Jewish women, but the latter generally pay no attention to his assurances. But once he falls in with a girl who takes his words in earnest, and in a prosaic way, without any idea of love on her part, compels him to marry her. She takes him in her hands and would have him lead a settled, prosaic life also. But he finds relief from his sordid existence every time he journeys away with his band to play at some wedding. Once he notices upon such an occasion a young married woman who awakes in him the first inkling of a real, romantic love. Rochel—that is her name—is both beautiful in form and kind and lovable in character. After many overtures he almost succeeds in gaining her love. It is the easier to succumb to Stempenju's importunities since she has a silly, worthless man for a husband. She finally comes out victoriously from her inner struggle, for her religious conviction of the holiness of the marriage ties are stronger in her than her natural inclination. Stempenju returns home, and tries to find his consolation and relief from his scolding wife by having more frequent recourse to his violin. He plays even more sweetly and more sadly than before.

His other large novel, 'Jossele Ssolowee,' is also a characterization of the life of an artist, this time a singer. Of his shorter sketches it is hard to select one as the best, as they are all well written. We shall take at random the one entitled 'The Colonization of Palestine.' Selig, the tailor, has read something about the colonization scheme in Palestine. He joins a society for the promotion of that idea, and finally abandons his work to go to the neighboring town, where he has heard there is a society that has a fund from which to pay the travelling expenses of prospective settlers in the Holy Land. After a great deal of trouble, he finds the president of the society, who is vexed at having applicants but no members ready as settlers to support the scheme, for fund there is none. The tailor offers a small coin as his contribution, the first that has been given, and returns home a wiser man and more satisfied with his lot. The story is told humorously, and is meant as a sarcasm at the readiness of the Jews to form new schemes and support them with eloquence of speech, but not in a substantial manner.