The History of Yiddish Literature in the Nineteenth Century

by Leo Wiener

The year before Schaikewitsch began the publication of the Hebrew Puck in imitation of the English Puck. Being of a humorous nature, that magazine does not show the glaring defects of his other works to any great extent. In the same year Alexander Harkavy started The American People's Calendar, which in addition to the matter that more strictly belongs to an almanac contains also several useful articles of a literary value. Harkavy has developed an untiring activity in the publication of books by which his countrymen should be introduced to the English language and to a right understanding of American citizenship. He has written all kinds of text-books, has translated the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, and published The Hebrew American, an English weekly with footnotes in Judeo-German. He has also written a large number of popular articles on linguistic subjects. Many of these contain valuable matter, but it is often difficult to disentangle the facts from his personal speculations, which are not always based on scientific truths. He lacks training, and his style is otherwise colorless. But for all that, his deserts in the education of the Russian Jews of New York must not be undervalued. Of his translations we might also mention the 'Don Quixote,' of which so far only the first part has appeared in Judeo-German. Among the writers of historical essays, the most promising is the Roumanian, D. M. Hermalin, whose 'Mohammed' and 'Jesus the Nazarene' are not only fair and unbiassed statements of the foreign religious teachings, but also belong among the very few books in Judeo-German that are supplied with a critical apparatus.

The best magazine now in existence is the Neuer Geist, of which the first seven numbers were edited by Harkavy, but which now appears under the editorship of Gorin. It is a periodical of science, literature, and art, and has no special political bias. We find here the same contributors as in former monthlies. To those mentioned before may be added the names of Budianov, Feigenbaum, and Solotkov, who have written many good articles on sociological and philosophical matters, and Katz, who is an astute critic. Here has also appeared the best translation in verse of one of Shakespeare's dramas, 'The Merchant of Venice,' from the pen of the poet Bovchover. Another, smaller magazine, Die Zeit,[110] is published by the Hebrew poet M. M. Dolizki. Another well-conducted monthly is the Neue Zeit, issued by the Jewish-speaking sections of the Socialist Labor Party of the United States. There is no material difference in the composition of the contributors' staff. A few more names might be added to the list of men who have been active in spreading information among the Russian Jews, such as Feigenbaum, Wiernik, Bukanski. Seiffert has written some interesting accounts of the Jewish stage in America, but his language is of the order of Dick or even worse; Rosenfeld and Sharkansky have at various times produced some sketches and even dramas, but they are more strictly poets, as which alone they will survive.

The time is not far away when there will not be a Judeo-German press in America. The younger generation never looks inside of a Jewish paper now, and the next following generation will no longer speak the dialect, unless something unforeseen happens by which the existence of that anomaly shall be made possible. Already The Jewish Gazette, taking time by the forelock, has begun issuing an English supplement to its Judeo-German weekly. It wants to secure its lease of life by passing over by successive steps to a periodical published entirely in English, without a violent loss of its subscribers. Several of the intelligent writers in the vernacular are at the same time contributing to the English press, while some have entirely abandoned their Judeo-German. In the meanwhile that literature is developing a feverish activity. From its ashes will rise new forces in the English literature of America that will add no small mite to its pages. In the short time of the existence of the Judeo-German in America, it has passed through three distinct stages: the first was the era of the sensational novel; then followed the socialistic propaganda, coupled with the evolution of the press, but particularly the magazine. Now, without abandoning entirely the social and political ideals, the writers are combining to popularize science and to produce a pure literature. The latter is more or less under the sway of the Russian writers Chekhov, Korolenko, and Garshin. What Russia has done for the Jews in the seventies is reaped by the masses in the nineties in America.

XV. THE JEWISH THEATRE

IN the beginning of the eighteenth century two plays written in Judeo-German appeared in print, 'The Sale of Joseph' and the 'Ahasuerus-play.'[111] They were intended for scenic representation on the feast of Purim, which even before that time had been given to mimic performances. These mysteries, together with another written at about the same time, 'David and Goliath,' have held uninterrupted sway up to our own time wherever the Jargon has been spoken. Schudt has left us in his 'Jüdische Merkwürdigkeiten'[112] a detailed account of the popularity of one of these plays from the start, of the manner of its performance at the house of the Rabbi of Mannheim, of the formation of the first travelling company for the execution of the drama at other towns, and many other interesting facts connected with it. These mysteries differ little from the coarse comedies and burlesques current at the time among the Gentiles, from whom, no doubt, many of the details were borrowed. Soon many imitations of the original 'Ahasuerus-play'[113] and 'The Sale of Joseph' came to rival the older plays in popularity. Of the first a form is known to me in which the Leckerläufer is substituted for the original Pickleherring, the grotesque harlequin, while of the second I possess at least two widely different versions, not to speak of Zunser's large drama of the same subject. Altogether, this matter has not, as far as I know, been properly investigated, so that little can be said with certainty about the relations that they bear to each other. 'The Sale of Joseph,' or 'The Greatness of Joseph,' as it is frequently called, was translated at the end of the last or the beginning of this century into Judeo-German by Elieser Pawier from the original Hebrew under the title 'Milchomo be-Scholom.' It is a much more serious production than the older work, and this, rather than the one printed in 1710, has lain at the foundation of future adaptations. At least one, the versified drama under the name of 'Geschichte vun Mechiras Jōssef u-Gdulas Jōssef,' published in 1876 in Jusefov, distinctly claims to be a translation from the same Hebrew source. How many such plays have been actually performed it is not possible to determine now without a more careful inquiry among older men in various parts of Russia. There have just come to light a number of mysteries once popular in the Government of Kowno, while some have been printed within our own days. Such, for example, is 'The Book of the Wisdom of Solomon,' which is based on the Biblical story of Solomon's life, but which contains also Talmudical commentaries on certain facts connected with his reign. The latest, and by far the best, drama on the 'Sale of Joseph' comes from the pen of Zunser, who not only has given it a literary finish, but has perused all the sources that throw any light on several difficult points connected with the play, and has furnished in some perplexing problems solutions of his own, so as to make the whole uniform and historically correct. In his introduction he mentions a few important facts about the popularity of the subject, and the manner of its performance, or recitation. He says: "No other story from our Holy Scripture has made such an impression or has become so known to the masses of the Jews as the 'Sale of Joseph.' ... As far back as we can remember it has been played among us by beggar-students, or by the old-fashioned badchens at weddings."

It is not uncommon to see a performance of this play given at the present time in some small town. The actors are generally the beggar-students who have to play both the male and female parts, as no women are allowed to perform together with the men. Some large unoccupied room is furnished with benches on which the sexes are generally seated separately. The stage is of the most primitive character, without decorations of any kind; and the actors like to parade in fantastic clothes which have nothing in common with the historical truth. Either the whole of the play, or at least certain passages are sung according to traditional tunes. In the 'Sale of Joseph' it is always the monologue of Joseph before his mother's grave upon which the greatest care is bestowed, as it is the most pathetic part of the drama. It is probably the prototype of M. Gordon's ballad of 'The Stepmother' and similar popular versions, for in them, as in Gordon's version, Joseph's mother sends up her consoling words to her son from her grave. An excellent description of such a performance is given in Dienesohn's 'Herschele,'[114] where the hero of the novel plays the part of Joseph.

These mysteries are not the only form of histrionic art. On the Purim, many masqueraders may be seen passing from house to house, followed by a curious crowd of children, anxious to catch a glimpse of the strange mummery of men and impossible animals. In some places the children and even grown persons manage to enter the house either by sheer force, or under the proverbial pretext that they are the "bear's brother." The actors begin in a chanting way: "Good evening, my good people, do you know what Purim means?" after which they proceed with the explanation and the performance of some grotesque scene. Each group has its own Purim play, which is generally some unrecognizable fragment of the 'Ahasuerus-play,' but frequently also some original production which is jealously guarded from being imitated by rival boy performers. There is no merit in them, but an investigation even of this form of the Purim play might bring out some interesting points or bits of antiquity. The length of the burlesque is graded according to the expectation of the final monetary reward, to which they allude with the stereotyped phrase: "The play is out, give us a coin, and throw us out of doors!"[115]

The possibility is not excluded that in addition to this semi-religious form of the drama, there may also have been given performances of profane plays at an early date in Russia. It is not known whether any of the dramas written by Aksenfeld, Gottlober, or Ettinger have been played by amateur actors, but we have at least one well-attested case of a performance of that kind in 1855,—twenty years before the establishment of the Judeo-German theatre by Goldfaden. In that year the students of the Zhitomir Rabbinical school celebrated the coronation of Emperor Alexander II. by a play in which the life of the Jewish soldier and the kahal were depicted. This drama is said to have been written by one Kamrasch, but never to have been printed. It is also asserted that it served as the first impulse to Goldfaden to create a Jewish theatre, which, however, he realized only much later.

There existed a dramatic literature long before Goldfaden. We have had occasion to mention the works of Ettinger, Aksenfeld, Gottlober, Abramowitsch, Falkowitsch, Levinsohn, Epstein. After the popular poetry a semi-dramatic style was better calculated to impress the people with the new culture than simple prose, which at that time had not been well worked out. Nearly all of the prose style of the early days is more or less affected by the drama, and even Abramowitsch has not entirely got away from it. Nearly all of his stories are introduced by the stereotyped words: "Says Mendele Mōcher Sforim," and there are other similar dramatic effects scattered through them. This, which is an imitation of Hebrew originals, has also been the usual way of introduction with other Judeo-German writers of the early days. The drama of Ettinger is entirely constructed after the manner of a German play, has five acts, and the laws of dramaturgy are carefully carried out. It really looks as though he had intended it for the stage. In Aksenfeld the adaptation to the stage is less apparent, while the others do not seem to have had the performance of their plays in mind at all. What is surprising is that Aksenfeld and Gottlober should have introduced in their dramas a number of couplets and songs which have no meaning unless they were meant to be sung by the actors. Possibly they followed the precedent of familiar German plays even in this particular, without any other purpose before them; or it may be that they foresaw the possibility of their future representation and thought it best to imitate the Purim plays, which had always some songs intermingled with the spoken dialogue of the actors.

In 1872 Goldfaden published two of his comedies.[116] The first, 'The Two Neighbors,' is a splendid farce, in which two women are discussing the prospective marriage of their two babies playing on the floor. The children get to fighting, and one of them is hurt. This changes the tone of their mothers, and they heap curses on each other in the vilest manner. The other, 'Aunt Sosie,' is the best he has ever written. We do not find in it the rant of his later dramas, and the subject is taken strictly from Jewish life. Aunt Sosie is a woman of the type of Serkele. She is anxious to get her sister married, and maltreats her husband's niece. Her husband is under her thumb. By the aid of his friend Ispanski he manages to cheat his wife and to get his niece married to his wife's brother. Sosie is about to marry her sister to a Lithuanian Jew, a cloak-maker, who is already married to another woman. His lawful wife comes in time to prevent the bigamy of her husband. It is easy to see that the whole is a close imitation of Ettinger's comedy.