The History of Yiddish Literature in the Nineteenth Century

by Leo Wiener

A number of causes united in making the socialistic propaganda strongest among the Russian Jews. They had come from a country where all the elements of opposition naturally gathered around the political parties that stood in secret conflict with the Government and also the social order of things. In America, they came at once in contact with the sweat-shop and similar industrial oppressions, which only sharpened their dislike of the social structure. Intellectually they stood higher than those of their brethren who persevered with the conservatives, for they had at least come to think about their condition and the affairs of the world, while the others clung to old superstitions and did nothing to drag themselves out from the slough of ignorance into which they had fallen in Russia. At the same time the many intelligent men who had been driven to the United States nearly all had belonged to the opposition parties at home, and it was from them alone that the masses could be saved from the clutches of the sensational novelists. This struggle between Schaikewitsch and his tribe on the one side and the intelligent writers on the other began towards the end of the last decade, and the older men are being as surely driven to the wall here as they have been in Russia by Rabinowitsch and the newer school of writers. These younger men have, with but one exception, been driven to Judeo-German letters as their last resort. Some of them had never before published anything in any language, and none of them had ever practised writing in their vernacular. They all belonged to that class of Jewish young men who had received their instruction in Russian schools, or who had in any way identified themselves completely with their Gentile comrades. They had all reached their school age in the seventies, when everybody was as eager to become Russianized as two decades before their parents had been to oppose the new culture. Either as belonging to the Jewish race, or because of their sympathies with the Nihilists, they had to flee from the country. These form to a great extent the basis for the Russian intelligence in the United States.

They brought with them the idea of the Narodniks, which was that their energies ought to be devoted to the uplifting of the masses. They could not hope to become in any way influential among the native population in the American cities. They, consequently, directed their attention to their own race. One of the first to arrive in America with the great immigration, was Abraham Cahan. He was born in the year 1860 in Podberezhe, in the government of Wilna. His early years had been passed in a Jewish school perfecting himself in Jewish lore. At the age of fourteen he entered the Hebrew Teachers' Institute at Wilna, from which he graduated in 1881. He was appointed a teacher in a government school in a small town in the province of Witebsk, but he had soon to flee, having been discovered by the police as a participant in the nihilistic movement. The next year he arrived in New York penniless. He had a hard struggle for three or four years. Since that time he has been active as the founder of several excellent Judeo-German periodicals, as a writer in the dialect himself, as a contributor to the English press, and, finally, as a writer of English books. Of the latter, 'Yekl' was published a short time ago by Appleton & Co., and 'The Imported Bridegroom and Other Stories,' by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. He has also contributed to the Cosmopolitan, Short Stories, and the Atlantic Monthly.

His Judeo-German activity began with the foundation of the Arbeiterzeitung, devoted to the interest of socialism and enlightenment among the Jewish masses. To this gazette he contributed largely. Most of his articles are popularizations of sciences, but he has also written several books of stories, mostly from the life of the New York Ghetto. Like his English stories, they are composed in a good literary style, and present vivid pictures of Jewish life as it is modified under American conditions. It may be safely asserted that his English sketches are conceived by him first in the Judeo-German, after which they are adapted for an American public. While showing great merit, it cannot be said of his novels that they equal those of the writers in Russia. In fact, there has not arisen in America any author who has shown the same degree of originality as those of the mother-country, even though they frequently surpass them in regularity of structure, and in the fund of information they possess. Among the large number of writers in New York who have contributed to the literature, it can hardly be said that any individual style has been developed. They resemble each other very much, both in the manner of their compositions, and the subjects they treat. Nor could it be otherwise. They nearly all are busy popularizing science in one way or other, or they write novels from the life of the Jewish community, which, in the less than two decades of its existence, has not developed, as yet, many new characteristics. They imitate Russian models for their stories and novels, mainly Chekhov. They are all of them realists, and some have carried their realism to the utmost extent.

One of the most fruitful popularizers of science has been Abner Tannenbaum. His works have all the merit of being based on real facts, though these are presented in the attractive form of novels, whether original or translated. He is now exerting an influence also on the Jews of Russia, where his works are much valued. He was born in 1847, and, up to the year 1889, was a wholesale druggist. In that year he arrived in America, and, for the first time, began writing in the vernacular. At first, he translated novels from German and French, especially the works of Jules Verne. Later, he wrote some novels after the fashion of the German pedagogue, J. H. Campe, in his works 'Robinson the Younger' and 'The Discovery of America.' Since 1893, he has been a permanent contributor to The Jewish Gazette, where he has been writing and popularizing encyclopedic items.

The early history of J. Rombro, who is writing under the pseudonym of Philip Krantz, does not differ much from that of Abraham Cahan, with whom he has been active in the publication of the same periodicals. He had to flee from Russia about the same time. He went to London and Paris, from which place he contributed to various Russian magazines. In London he met Winchevsky, who, at that time, had been editing a Judeo-German newspaper, The Polish Jew. He was asked by him to write a description of the riots against the Jews. "It was a hard job for me," so writes the author, "and it took me a long time to do it. I never thought of writing in the Jewish Jargon, but fate ordered otherwise, and, contrary to all my aspirations, I am now nothing more than a poor Jargon journalist." The author's evil plight has, however, been the people's gain, for to his untiring activity is due no small amount of the enlightenment that they have received in the last ten years. In 1885 he was invited by a group of Hebrew workingmen, rather anarchistic than social-democratic, to edit a socialistic monthly, The Workers' Friend. Against his will, for he was a social-democrat, he accepted the offer. This monthly became the next year a weekly. Later, he translated Lassale's 'Workingmen's Program' into Judeo-German. About that time, in 1890, he was invited by the Jewish socialists of New York to come to the United States and edit a strictly social-democratic paper. He gladly accepted this invitation, and March 6, 1890, the first number of the Arbeiterzeitung was issued; since 1894 it has been appearing under the name of the Abend-Blatt as a daily, and it is now the official Jewish organ of the socialist labor party. He was also the first editor of the Zukunft, started by the Jewish socialist sections of the United States in 1892. Now he is contributing to the monthlies Neuer Geist and Neue Zeit. His articles are all characterized by great earnestness, and by a good flowing style. He is far from being a blind partisan, and he knows how to treat impartially questions of a general import.

The nineties have passed in the United States in the often-repeated attempt to establish permanent Judeo-German magazines. There have been a large number of them in existence, and one after the other has met with financial failure. Now, however, there are several that promise to last a longer time. Never before has the periodical press in Judeo-German been brought to such a perfection as regards its outward form and the variety of subjects that it has incorporated in its pages. The first of the kind was the Zukunft just mentioned. It lasted until the year 1897, when it gave way to the Neue Zeit, which is practically a continuation of the first. It differs little from similar popular science magazines in other languages. We find in it such articles as, What is Socialism? Philosophy and Revolution; A Dog's Brain, by John Lubbock; Shakespeare, his Life and his Works; Pasteur and his Discoveries; and similar scientific articles. To these must be added many literary articles, stories, poems, reviews, and the like. Among the several good contributors of the latter class of literature we shall dwell at a greater length on B. Gorin and Leon Kobrin.

B. Gorin is the pseudonym of J. Goido, of whose activity in Russia we have spoken before. After the failure of his undertaking in Wilna, mainly through the interference of the censor, who delayed his publication in every possible way, he went to Berlin to attend lectures at the University. He soon went to America, where shortly after, in 1895, he became the editor of a Philadelphia Judeo-German newspaper. From there he went to New York, where he published the 'Jewish American Popular Library,' a collection of short stories in the manner of his Wilna edition; but its life was cut short after the seventh number. He has since been the editor of the Neuer Geist. The most of his sketches were published in the Arbeiterzeitung and in the Abend-Blatt, when it was still edited by A. Cahan. At first he confined himself exclusively to short sketches in the style of the Russian writer, Shchedrin, but soon he followed the example of all of those who have written in America, and has translated foreign authors, has written reviews, and popularized science. In Russia he had begun the translation of 'David Copperfield.' In America he has translated Chekhov, and has in one way or other introduced the Russian Jews to the works of Daudet, Maupassant, Sienkiewicz, Korolenko, Dostoyevski, Bourget, Garshin, Potapenko, and many German and English novelists.

One of the most original writers of the realistic school in the manner of the Russian Chekhov is Leon Kobrin. He has lately started the publication of a 'Realistic Library,' of which the first number so far issued contains several sketches that have been written by him in the last two years. One of the best in that volume is the first, 'Jankel Boile,' a story from the life of Jewish fishermen. One is rather inclined to doubt that his Jewish characters really exist as he has depicted them; it almost seems as if they were a transference of Russian men to Jewish surroundings, for they seem to do things that are not met with as peculiarities of the Jews in the many novels by Judeo-German writers. But it may be that he speaks from intimate acquaintance with a class of people that is not generally accessible to the average writer. Barring this, the story is very vividly told. It is a sketch of a Jewish boy who has grown up with the village boys, and who has but the faintest idea of his Jewish faith. He falls in love with one of the peasant girls of his acquaintance, whom he courts, and for whom he is about to give up the faith of his fathers. In the last moment, when out in the night on a fishing tour on the stormy lake, he is caught with remorse at his impending apostasy, and he commits suicide by jumping in the lake. This is but a bare outline of a most excellently developed story, in which realism has been carried to a ne plus ultra. His portrayal of the lower classes with their indomitable passions reminds one very much of the remarkable sketches of the Russian Gorki.

At this juncture mention must be made of the many short sketches by Gurewitsch, who writes under the pseudonym of Z. Libin. They belong among the best Ghetto stories that have been written in New York, and they display undoubted talent. Cahan, Goido, Kobrin, and Libin are all young men yet, and from them alone a regeneration of the Jewish novel may be expected.

In 1893 Krantz and Sharkansky started a monthly magazine, The City Guide, but only two numbers of it appeared. Two years later Winchevsky began issuing in Boston The Emeth, a weekly family paper for literature and culture. It is a pity it was stopped before the year was out, for of all the magazines that have seen daylight in America, it was by far the most ably edited. Among his contributors of belles lettres we find the names of the authors just mentioned, and also several others. Nearly everything else is from the pen of the editor. While in many of the leaders his socialistic bias is pronounced, yet most of his articles deal with subjects of a general interest. Of his poetry we have spoken before. His prose style is even better. It is smooth, idiomatic, and carefully balanced. He is one of the few authors who bestow great care on a good Judeo-German style, and file and finish it. Most interesting are his epigrams and philosophical reflections, and his satirical sketches, which he generally ascribes to the 'Insane Philosopher.' Winchevsky has been very productive. Outside of his many original stories and sketches, his poetry, and sociological articles, he has translated a number of works, among others the Russian Korolenko and Victor Hugo's 'Les Misérables.' His translations are the very best in the Judeo-German language. Few have equalled him in the art of translation. The distinguishing characteristics of all his productions are dignity and refinement. Although he frequently depicts Jewish life, the Jew is but an accident of his themes, for he has ever in mind the social questions at large, as they affect the whole world.