UCSB LIBRARY
 
 "Nine Ijjiddish IDriiers 
 
 Critical Appreciations 
 
 By 
 
 HARRY ROGOFF
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 In the assembling and publication in book-form 
 of these appreciations of Yiddish writers by HARRY 
 ROGOFF there is an appropriateness that is especially 
 marked at this time: the old gods of Yiddish writing 
 are securely enthroned; the new are yet enshrouded 
 in uncertainty. 
 
 At such a time it is well to turn back these interest- 
 ing pages of Yiddish literary history in America. 
 Random though these notations may be, they are 
 peep-holes through which the observant eye may 
 gather some estimate of the scope and liveliness of 
 that literary activity which engaged the lover of Yid- 
 dish literature a decade or two ago. In these pages, 
 taken out of the short-lived journal "EAST AND 
 WEST/' of which Mr. Rogoff was the editor, the 
 student no less than the casual reader may find in- 
 struction as well as pleasure. 
 
 In these brief essays, filled with intimate observa- 
 tions on the lives and work of representative Yiddish 
 writers, we are brought into contact with a mind that
 
 has been at all times keenly responsive to the cre- 
 ative forces in Jewish life, helpfully proud of the 
 best impulses, intellectual and spiritual, in the Jew- 
 ish community. For here, set down at a time when 
 reputations were still in the balance, are judgments 
 which time has sustained and insights which are no 
 less pointed because they have won general accep- 
 tance. 
 
 It must be clear to that friend of Yiddish litera- 
 ture, who is also a reader in it, that these critical 
 sketches of Rogoffs have their validity in our own 
 time. A reading of them, fifteen years after they 
 were written, shows that they were a natural out- 
 growth of that movement of self-analysis and self- 
 criticism of which American Yiddish literature stood 
 so greatly in need. Although creative workers are 
 never too numerous, Yiddish writers were plentiful. 
 The controversies of the day pointed to the need of 
 some clarification of the diverse impulses which were 
 alive in the literary movements of those days. 
 
 To that unsettled period Rogoff brought his con- 
 tribution of a sound critical mind reinforced by fa- 
 miliarity with the criteria that have shaped the great 
 literatures of the world. 
 
 His discernment and critical honesty gave him the
 
 right to set up those criteria of artistic integrity so 
 sorely needed by writers who were wholly absorbed 
 in the battle of the work-a-day world. The Yiddish 
 writer, knowing few of the comforts that come with 
 the support of a leisured middle-class, has always 
 been in the midst of that daily battle for a liveli- 
 hood. 
 
 "To be sincere and faithful in art is as difficult as 
 to be sincere and faithful in other activities of life," 
 is a view with which Rogoff admonished these writ- 
 ers. Whereupon he pointed out that the artist's mis- 
 sion is "to see life as it is and to depict it in its own 
 colors," the comic together with the grim; the 
 idealistic and the noble, together with the sordid; 
 the hopeful as well as the despairing; the tender and 
 poetic as validly as the brutal. In other words, 
 Rogoff was spokesman of the idea that the artist 
 dare not take sides in the business of life since he 
 has business in his own domain, with demands and 
 standards, with purposes and ideals that are suffi- 
 ciently exacting to call for the very best in the artist. 
 
 Varied as are the subjects of these essays, this one 
 point of view informs them all the vigorous insist- 
 ence on the integrity of the writer. There must be 
 "no compromise," says Rogoff, "but (onlyl i firm
 
 faith in one's art." Again and again he raises his 
 voice against the inclination, on the part of some of 
 these men he speaks for, to yield to the forces ex- 
 ternal to their own sincerest impulses. 
 
 Nor is Rogoff one-sided in his appreciation. Given 
 over to an interest and a genuine enjoyment of the 
 work of the realist, he is capable at the same time 
 of generous acceptance and interpretation of the 
 sincere production of such originals as L. Shapiro 
 and Jonah Rosenfeld. In viewing such work, Rogoff 
 stands by the individual promptings of the writer, 
 with no preconceptions and no exactions other than 
 that the artist create firmly and persuasively in his 
 own image. 
 
 If it is a new world which the writer has created, 
 one which the reader cannot verify by the test of 
 "life as it is," and "in its own colors," Rogoff asks 
 whether it takes shape and color, dimension and 
 dynamic reality from the authentic vision which has 
 fostered it. If so, he is for it. Thus he says of a 
 story by Shapiro: "The story is not real, but it is a 
 great achievement, nevertheless. For an artist has 
 conceived it, nurtured it, loved it, named it with his 
 own light, strengthened it with his blood. It has 
 existence because an artist has created it."
 
 One must conclude that the magazine "EAST AND 
 WEST/' which was the occasion of excellent pioneer 
 work in the presentation of Yiddish writing to 
 American readers, was the occasion also of present- 
 ing to Yiddish writers a critic who spoke for them 
 with sympathy, courage, and discernment. 
 
 HENRY GOODMAN. 
 
 Vii
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Foreword iii 
 
 Morris Rosenfeld 3 
 
 The Genius of Perez 13 
 
 Abraham Liessin 29 
 
 Abraham Reisin ... . 39 
 
 L. Shapiro 51 
 
 Zalmon Libin 61 
 
 Jonah Rosenfeld 75 
 
 Sholom Asch ........ 95 
 
 Leon Kobrin . . . 109
 
 MORRIS ROSENFELD 
 <-An ^Appreciation 
 
 From EAST AND WEST 
 
 May, 1915
 
 1 HERE was a time when a 
 
 hierarchy of literary gods reigned over the intellec- 
 tual elements of the East Side. On Mount Parnassus 
 of the Ghetto sat enthroned the higher and lesser 
 divinities each in his undisputed place, each enjoy- 
 ing the devotion of hosts of worshippers. 
 
 That was in the beginning of things fifteen, 
 twenty years ago when Yiddish playwrights ped- 
 dled newspapers for a living, and Yiddish poets 
 composed their songs while threading needles in the 
 sweat shops. Literature then was a thankless task; 
 and only their mutual encouragement and sympathy 
 kept the Gods from abdicating en masse. 
 
 In those rainy, chilly April days of Yiddish letters 
 in this country, Morris Rosenfeld was the acknowl- 
 edged poet of the ghetto. None contested that title, 
 none begrudged it. He bemoaned the Ghetto's sor- 
 rows and pains; he ridiculed its pretentions and 
 foibles; he glorified its strivings and ideals. 
 
 [5]
 
 NINE YIDDISH WRITERS 
 
 But times have changed since. In fact, as well as in 
 myth, Gods don't dwell in peace very long. There 
 came a moment when supremacy meant power, use- 
 ful utilitarian power; and the Gods began to battle 
 for position. The war extended over half a decade, 
 and was carried on in the usual brutal manner. Rep- 
 utations were dragged down into the mire. Holy 
 books were torn into shreds by the merciless hand 
 of criticism. In the general eruption none was 
 spared. Each destroyed and was destroyed in turn. 
 Thus do gods fight. 
 
 Rosenfeld shared the common fate. He was at- 
 tacked and criticized. His genius was called into 
 question; his personality was denounced. And 
 though the battle has almost subsided, he is still 
 being harassed and tormented. 
 
 No other Yiddish writer has suffered so much 
 abuse, so much ridicule, at the hands of his col- 
 leagues. Each and every one of his faults, weaknesses 
 and mistakes have formed themes for innumerable 
 attacks and satires in the press. And defenders he 
 has none, none but his own venomous pen. For the 
 truth must be told, Rosenfeld has admirers, adorers, 
 worshippers; but of friends, sincere, hearty friends, 
 he has none. 
 
 [6]
 
 MORRIS ROSENFELD 
 
 And that is the tragedy of the poet, who for a 
 quarter of a century has sung the tragedy of the most 
 tragic nation in history. 
 
 Behold him pacing the street in the Yiddish 
 newspaper row where he comes once or twice a 
 week to see his editor. He is alone. In one hand a 
 heavy cane, in the other a book or manuscript. There 
 is a perceptible limp in his step, the result of an 
 apoplectic attack that almost sent him to the grave 
 ten years ago. Sometimes his face is calm and 
 smooth. Other times it is filled with anguish that 
 seems to express bodily pain as well as mental suf- 
 fering. 
 
 In his greeting one cannot fail to observe an in- 
 ternal sick nervousness. It consists of an exaggerated 
 bow, a piercing glance followed by a smile, a 
 chuckle and a peculiar remark. 
 
 His forehead and skull are also striking. Thin 
 silky hair, standing erect in disorderly array, cover a 
 perfectly round head. Beneath is a high forehead, 
 furrowed and almost always of ruddy tinge. You 
 glance at it and you are struck. You know that en- 
 closed in that skull lodges a restless, impulsive, fiery 
 brain. 
 
 [7]
 
 NINE YIDDISH WRITERS 
 
 Hear him talk, or rather watch him talk. What 
 expressiveness, what exaggerated emphasis, what 
 passionate insistence. He nudges you with his elbow, 
 demands approval of every remark, dictates your 
 answers. You wonder, is he sincere? Is his soul on 
 fire? One moment he pouts like a child, another he 
 denounces like a prophet, the third he flatters like a 
 lackey, the fourth he glories like a king. It's acting, 
 you conclude, acting of the high artistic kind, that 
 is full of soul and heart. Perhaps, but listen to the 
 subject matter and you will be convinced that you 
 are mistaken. He talks on a topic that is nearest 
 and dearest to his soul, he speaks of the one thing 
 in which his entire being is centered. Yes, he speaks 
 of himself, always himself. 
 
 Vanity, the power and the weakness of the artist, 
 has been Rosenfeld's good and bad angel in life. 
 It was the desire of glory, the dream of renown and 
 distinction, that marvelous passion that chained Bal- 
 zac eighteen hours a day to his writing desk, which 
 also made of the poor little sweatshop tailor a poet 
 whose fame will endure for many, many years. But 
 that same passion is responsible for the many prac- 
 tical errors he has committed, for a great measure of 
 suffering he has endured, for the utter destitution in 
 which he is now placed. 
 
 [8]
 
 MORRIS ROSENFELD 
 
 One day his face is bright, his walk light, his head 
 erect. Just stop him a while and you will know the 
 reason. A critic in Hungary has praised his work, 
 a publisher in Germany is preparing a new edition 
 of his songs, or perhaps a letter from an admirer 
 has offered some incense. On the next day his face is 
 a sombre cloud, his eyes dull, his head and shoul- 
 ders drooping a critic wrote favorably of another 
 Jewish poet, a publisher undertook the publication 
 of one of his colleague's songs. That and nothing 
 more. 
 
 * * * 
 
 Yiddish literature has just struck root. Its stem 
 is hardly visible above ground. The destiny fate pre- 
 pared for it no one can tell with absolute certainty. 
 Every literary plant needs the firm soil of nationality 
 for its roots, and the sunshine and moisture of na- 
 tional culture for its nourishment, and these ele- 
 ments are very uncertain with the Jewish people in 
 spite of the fact that an intense wave of the national 
 spirit has been agitating its most important centers 
 in Europe and America. 
 
 However, if Jewish literature is destined to live 
 and grow, Rosenfeld will undoubtedly occupy in it 
 the rank of a classic. For Rosenfeld possesses the es- 
 
 [9]
 
 NINE YIDDISH WRITERS 
 
 sential and peculiar qualities that assure for the lit- 
 erary man lasting memory. 
 
 To begin with, Rosenfeld is before all else a 
 Jewish writer. His is the truly national genius. His 
 pathos, his humor, his satire, his general outlook 
 upon life, are all unmistakably Jewish. Like many 
 of his colleagues, Rosenfeld had no liberal educa- 
 tion, no European culture. He began to study Eng- 
 lish and read German after his genius had ripened. 
 Since then, he has read widely in all poetry, but that 
 only helped to develop him on the road he had 
 started. It didn't broaden his view, it didn't enrich 
 his ideas, it didn't corrupt his intensely Jewish in- 
 dividuality. 
 
 His second claim to classic prominence is his 
 wide universal appeal. In the age of literary rest- 
 lessness and iconoclasm, when the healthy common- 
 place passions are almost tabooed and all but ad- 
 ventitious growths fill the garden of letters, Rosen- 
 feld remains faithful to the sound and sane school. 
 He deals with the sorrow and joys that are known 
 to all Jewish hearts the same emotions that thrilled 
 their ancestors generations ago, and that will agitate 
 the souls of their offspring for the generations to 
 come. Symbolism, mysticism, decadence all these 
 
 [10]
 
 MORRIS ROSENFELD 
 
 are foreign to him. He ridicules them in his writings 
 and denounces them in his conversation. 
 
 And he is as simple and lucid in his style as in 
 his substance. That is his third hold on classic 
 survival. Rosenfeld helped to create and model a 
 literary idiom in Jewish literature. Himself thor- 
 oughly saturated with the Jewish spirit, all his verbal 
 inventions are characteristically Yiddish. His coin- 
 ages are hardly ever rejected, hardly ever modified. 
 He will forever remain an authority on style and 
 idiom. 
 
 Speaking from a purely layman's standpoint, Ros- 
 enfeld should be thoroughly content with the con- 
 quest he has made, with the terrority that is univer- 
 sally conceded to him beyond dispute. To rise out 
 of an obscure sweatshop, out of suffering and dis- 
 appointment and misery, and to attain those glorious 
 heights of literary fame, is indeed a happiness that 
 befalls only the few chosen by the Gods. But Rosen- 
 feld is not happy. His soul craves for tribute, for 
 incessant worship, for constant reward, and this so- 
 ciety refuses to grant him.
 
 THE GENIUS OF PEREZ 
 
 From EAST AND WEST 
 June, 1915
 
 A. TRUE literary genius embodies 
 the age in which he is born. He absorbs it and ex- 
 presses it. He is to his society what the sun is to the 
 earth, shedding its rays and bestowing its warmth 
 upon all, giving light to the stone, and color to the 
 flower, stirring the cock to crow and the lark to 
 sing, laying bare the poisonous marsh in all its 
 hideousness, and the rippling stream in all its splen- 
 dor. 
 
 And the true literary genius is as rare as the suns 
 are in heaven. Planets and stars, constellations of all 
 kinds, bigger and smaller, may fill the skies in num- 
 bers uncountable ; but the great sun, the source of all 
 light is always one; and sometimes long, long nights 
 pass before it looms up on the horizon and climbs 
 into the center of heaven in the full display of its 
 glory. 
 
 The first genius in Yiddish literature was Isaac 
 Leibush Perez. He was born in a little town in Rus- 
 sian Poland, in the year 1851, when Jewish hopes 
 
 [15]
 
 NINE YIDDISH WRITERS 
 
 seemed to glisten in the distance; his genius blos- 
 somed in the eighties, when the first blast of the 
 pogroms wiped out all light and hope; and his life 
 expired just a few weeks ago, amidst the deluge of 
 blood that came pouring upon the Jewish communi- 
 ties in the wake of the terrible war. 
 
 The old Jewish myth endowed the Jewish race 
 with three Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 
 This myth is a reality in Yiddish literature. Its 
 fathers are indeed three, though, unlike the fabled 
 analogy, they were all of the same generation. Two 
 of them are still among the living Abramovitz who 
 has nearly completed his eightieth year, and Rabin- 
 ovitz, who is but a few years younger than was his 
 deceased colleague, Perez. 
 
 We term them fathers in no mere figurative sense. 
 With them Yiddish literature was born. They cre- 
 ated it out of nothingness. Before them all was 
 chaos. Abramovitz was the first on the scene, and 
 to his lot fell a great part of the preparatory work. 
 He cleared the ground of the rubbish with which it 
 was covered, ploughed it and turned the sod. Like 
 Abraham, the first of the Patriarchs, Abramowitz dis- 
 covered the God, the spirit of Yiddish literature, 
 and entered into a covenant with it. Before him 
 [16]
 
 THE GENIUS OF PEREZ 
 
 literary Jews wrote in Hebrew. Yiddish they de- 
 spised as a barbarous jargon, a "language of captiv- 
 ity," an emblem of slavery, unsuited and impossible 
 for artistic purposes. They called Hebrew the "mis- 
 tress" and Yiddish, her "handmaiden." 
 
 And all these epithets ascribed to the language 
 were indeed true. In order to write literature in 
 Yiddish, the language had to be molded and cast 
 into an artistic form. Abramovitz took up the task 
 and accomplished it to wonderful perfection. This 
 the first and perhaps the greatest service that he did 
 to his literature. 
 
 But he went still further. With these implements 
 that he had himself created, he dug up the raw ma- 
 terial from which precious literary metals were later 
 extracted. He was the first of the Yiddish writers 
 who turned to the study of the Jew as a distinct 
 people, a nation amongst nations, a race amongst 
 races. He portrayed the Jewish tragedy in allegory 
 and in fiction. He embodied both the merits and 
 defects of all Jews in general types, heroic, pathetic, 
 and pitiful. His literature is social, racial. His 
 plots are puerile, the characters uncertain, the style 
 confusing. But there is spirit and soul pervading 
 it all there is a living atmosphere in which his 
 
 [17]
 
 NINE YIDDISH WRITERS 
 
 creatures breathe and act, and that spirit and soul 
 and atmosphere are Jewish, thoroughly and pro- 
 foundly Jewish. 
 
 Abramovitz laid bare the great sources of pas- 
 sion and emotion that stir in the Jewish heart; he 
 revealed the general outlines of the social structure 
 the Jew has built for himself in the ghettoes of Rus- 
 sia and Poland; he threw out in bold relief a sketch 
 of the Jew's internal tragedy resulting from his ter- 
 rible position amongst the nations. It was a gigantic 
 achievement, a great literary feat that he had ac- 
 complished. As a pioneer, no greater work could 
 have been wrought by him. 
 
 But speaking from a strictly artistic standpoint, 
 Abramovitz did not possess the "key that opens the 
 golden gate." There is too much argument and too 
 little life in all his creations. His artistic eye never 
 penetrated deep into the heart of things. Rather was 
 the light diffused, spread out and dim. Very rarely 
 does he grow ecstatic or exalted; very rarely does 
 he lose his "presence of mind" in the flood of emo- 
 tion. 
 
 It was left to the two younger fathers of Yiddish 
 literature, Rabinovitz (Sholem Aleichem) and Perez 
 to enter into the very holy of holies of literary art. 
 [18]
 
 THE GENIUS OF PEREZ 
 
 And they earned that honorable distinction of being 
 called "fathers," though coming later than Abram- 
 ovitz, because they were the first to approach the 
 shrine, and light the taper of Yiddish literature at 
 the sacred fire. Abramovitz discovered the road, 
 cleared it, laid out the path, and led the procession, 
 but never entered into God's land. Perez and Rab- 
 inowitz, who followed him all the way, marched in 
 and conquered. 
 
 And of these two conquerors, Perez was by far 
 the mightier, the greater. Sholem Aleichem dubbed 
 himself Grandson of old Grandfather Abramovitz, 
 and tried hard to follow in his footsteps, to imitate 
 his manner and ways; and imitation and disciple- 
 ship are poison to genuine creative power. Sholem 
 Aleichem' s artistic powers are also limited. He is 
 essentially a humorist. His eye always seeks out the 
 comic, the laughable in life; and, like all humorists, 
 he at times grows pathetic, sentimentally pathetic. 
 But neither the comic nor the pathetic in life are 
 vital or essential. They may tickle the soul or 
 touch it, but never stir it. They may affect our mood, 
 pacify our passion, lighten our hearts; but they will 
 not impel us into action, drive us into effort, into 
 destruction or creation ; and what is life if not action 
 action that either creates or destroys? 
 [19]
 
 NINE YIDDISH WRITERS 
 
 Perez it was who knew this great secret and who 
 also possessed the power to follow its urging. And 
 that is why we call him the first true genius of Yid- 
 dish literature, our first great literary mind who em- 
 bodied his age, who absorbed it and gave it expres- 
 sion. 
 
 Jewish life is never at a standstill. For no length 
 of time is its history stable, balanced. The nation, 
 like the individual, is ever restless, ever nervous, 
 ever pushing on, pressing forward. That is why 
 the Jewish element of every civilized country is al- 
 ways in the vanguard of progress, be it material, 
 intellectual or moral. 
 
 The slow, slight evolution in industrial develop- 
 ment that Russia underwent in the last few decades 
 had but an imperceptible effect on the great peasant 
 population of that country. At most it modified 
 somewhat its material condition, but it hardly 
 touched its social life, and certainly never influenced 
 its mental or moral condition. But the Jewish ele- 
 ment in that country was stirred to its very founda- 
 tion. In the short space of half a century, Jewish 
 life in Russia evolved from a state of medievalism 
 to that of advanced modernism. In every phase of 
 his life the Jew responded to the impulse. He re- 
 
 [20]
 
 THE GENIUS OF PEREZ 
 
 formed his religion, he rebuilt his social structure, 
 he changed his mouldy views on industry, politics 
 and morals. He filled his soul with new ideals, he 
 fired his blood with fresh hopes. He built himself 
 new gods in the image of the spirit of civilized Eu- 
 rope. 
 
 This period of "Sturm und Drang" in the life of 
 the Russian Jew was intensified by the terrible ob- 
 stacles he encountered on his way, by the terrible 
 resistance and repulses he met with at every step 
 and on every turn. It was a severe struggle against 
 united powers, intrinsic and extrinsic. It was an 
 awakening of the soul to higher conceptions, to no- 
 bler aspirations, and a strenuous straining against 
 the bars and chains that kept it confined in medi- 
 aeval dungeons. 
 
 Perez's literary powers ripened at a time when this 
 struggle had taken a firm hold on the Jewish com- 
 munity. And he became its interpreter, its artist, its 
 priest. And as the evolution pushed forward he 
 marched along with it. He never closed his eyes 
 and heart to its progress or to its strayings. At times 
 he even led the way. Occasionally he lagged behind, 
 but he was always in the procession, always in line. 
 And very seldom in any other capacity than that of 
 
 [21]
 
 NINE YIDDISH WRITERS 
 
 the artist, the interpreter of events in the light of 
 emotions, the translator of mass-movements in the 
 terms of the individual's feelings and soul-activity. 
 
 The great movement toward light in the Russian 
 ghettos began with a revolt against the old religious 
 fanaticism and the synagogual rule over the com- 
 munity, and into this struggle Perez came when a 
 youth of about twenty. His first literary productions 
 were poems and songs satirizing and denouncing the 
 evils of the old order of things. Like all youthful 
 attempts of this kind, their artistic value was quite 
 meager. But Yiddish literature being so young and 
 so poor at the time, they were welcome. 
 
 This battle didn't engage Perez's attention for 
 long. It was soon realized by him that the spiritual 
 condition of the Jew in Poland was to a high degree 
 the result of his economic misery. His first impulse 
 was to join the movement of the awakening prol- 
 etarian in the small ghetto towns. In prose and 
 poetry he gave artistic expression to the class strug- 
 gle, to the ideas of class solidarity and class division 
 that were just dawning in the minds of the Jewish 
 workers in lagging Russia. He also drew a num- 
 ber of proletarian types, their condition of life 
 and state of soul, that became classic and won 
 [22]
 
 THE GENIUS OF PEREZ 
 
 for him the love and admiration of the entire revo- 
 lutionary youth of the Jewish Pale. For quite a 
 while Perez was identified with the workmen's 
 movement. He was its artist, its literary exponent 
 and interpreter. 
 
 That was his first impulse, but his spirit grew, his 
 genius developed and spread until it became as wide 
 and as deep as the entire Jewish nation. The rays 
 of its soul fell on all classes and factions, on all 
 hills and dales and plains of the Jewish people. And 
 soul rays always bring love, and sympathy, and 
 consolation. The great artist, the true genius, never 
 despises, never hates, for he is like a father to all he 
 creates. He may be harsh, he may denounce, he may 
 punish, but the note of deep sympathy is never ab- 
 sent. The basis of true art is thorough understand- 
 ing, and understanding that grows out of feeling is 
 the strongest bond between human souls. 
 
 It was a gradual development, a gradual climbing 
 of the sun from the low depths of the horizon to 
 its zenith in the center of the sky. At first his rays 
 fell on the exterior of the Jewish ghetto. He saw 
 more of the material, more of the physical, more of 
 the flesh. He saw the misery, the uncertainty, and 
 the dread in which the millions of Jews existed in 
 
 [23]
 
 NINE YIDDISH WRITERS 
 
 that cursed country. He saw the great physical trag- 
 edy of the entire race the marsh of poverty in 
 which they all wallowed; the tradesman, the handi- 
 craftsman, the worker, the agent, the student, the 
 rabbi. He perceived the darkness that prevailed 
 everywhere in the community, in the Cheder, in the 
 Yeshiva, in the communal councils, in the Rabbinical 
 chambers, in the family. He saw it all at the begin- 
 ning, in all its physical harshness, and drew it as he 
 saw it harshly but sympathetically. He blamed fate 
 and quarreled with the God of Vengeance. To the 
 afflicted Jew he brought words of comfort and con- 
 solation. He urged him to make a superhuman effort 
 and lift himself out of the mire for he knew the 
 Jew was superhuman and possessed the strength 
 for rising above condition, even above the decrees 
 of inexorable fate. 
 
 This purely physical view didn't remain with 
 Perez for long. Gradually he began to temper it with 
 a spiritual insight. And in proportion as the depth 
 of the Jewish spirit was revealed to him, the smaller 
 the physical tragedy appeared. The poverty of bread 
 vanished before the riches of the soul ; the ignorance 
 of worldly knowledge disappeared before spiritual 
 fortunes. Not that Perez ever lost sight of Jewish 
 
 [24]
 
 THE GENIUS OF PEREZ 
 
 material suffering, or of the great historical crime 
 that all Christian nations have been committing 
 against the Jew. Not that Perez wished to minimize 
 the tragedy of our long exile; not that he attempted 
 to cover up our defects, our weakness of soul and 
 spirit that resulted from these nineteen centuries of 
 lamb life among the wolves. 
 
 Perez sought only to uncover to the Jew, to his 
 own race, the mainspring of the wonderful power 
 that is hidden in his spirit. He sought to make the 
 Jew, the young Jew, conscious of his strength, of his 
 racial and national force. He sought to reveal to him 
 the great secret of the ages, the great mystery of 
 Israel's everlasting vitality. 
 
 He sought it in the wonderful manner that artists 
 always seek for solutions of mysteries unconscious- 
 ly, unknowingly. A spirit descends upon them, a 
 restlessness enters their soul, and their artistic senses 
 are aroused, excited to a state of ecstasy. Then, of 
 a sudden, the inspiration comes. The light breaks, 
 and the artist sees the great truth. 
 
 Perez perceived a supersoul in the heart of every 
 Jew from the very lowest to the very highest, and 
 he also discovered a certain resemblance in the qual- 
 ity of his soul. The poor, ignorant laborer who 
 [25]
 
 NINE YIDDISH WRITERS 
 
 starves in his underground dwelling with his meek, 
 crushed wife and pale, ailing children, has a bright 
 light constantly burning in his soul which yearns 
 toward the great spirit pervading all life. There is a 
 deep spiritual love for the beautiful in nature, for 
 the beautiful in the flesh, even in the heart of the 
 fanatical Jew who always denounces the flesh as 
 unclean and dangerous. Perez perceives it and ex- 
 hibits it to all. There is a golden heart in the ir- 
 ritable, cursing housewife who is seemingly a hell to 
 her husband ; and there is a fresh spring of true love 
 in the blood of the religious devotee who talks of 
 women as the daughters of the devil created to cor- 
 rupt man's soul. There is a passion for song, for 
 color, for nature, in the heart of the pious sage who 
 preaches against these temptations of the blood. 
 There is a passion in the veins of the bashful, chaste 
 housewife with lowered eyelashes and blushing 
 cheeks, who hardly dares to exchange a remark with 
 her husband. 
 
 The soul element in the Jew, no mattter how high 
 or how low his station in life, how high or low his 
 culture, is the secret of his marvelous power, of his 
 great hold upon life, of the indestructibility of his 
 race. This Perez has preached in the great master- 
 
 [26]
 
 THE GENIUS OF PEREZ 
 
 pieces that he created in the last period of his liter- 
 ary life. And this great soul element that he de- 
 scribed and portrayed in all its splendor and glory 
 in the life that surrounded him, he traced to the old 
 Hebrew legend and myth. He discovered its course 
 in the ancient Jewish traditions, religious and social, 
 and followed out its development in all the ages 
 and all the land of the Jew's suffering and persecu- 
 tion in long captivity. 
 
 It is the soul-element of the Jew not his religion, 
 not his national life, not conditions forced on or 
 assumed by him, that gave him that miraculous 
 existence. This Perez has consciously or unconscious- 
 ly preached to his generation of Jews. And the 
 effect was tremendous because of the method he 
 employed. He brought his great message in the 
 form of a great heart which beat and pulsated as it 
 told its wonderful story. And because that heart 
 beat true and warm, all responded to it. The old 
 and young legend in which Perez breathed the fresh 
 spirit of his great conception captivated the hearts of 
 millions of Jews in all countries. A new light broke 
 in upon us, a new glory had risen, a new happiness, 
 a new joy. 
 
 For the stranger, the Gentile, Perez's writing will 
 [27]
 
 NINE YIDDISH WRITERS 
 
 be merely a source of beauty; but for the Jew it is 
 much more. It is a source of spiritual strength, spir- 
 itual refreshment. It is to him what true art is to 
 those who understand; sweetness and light, beauty 
 and power. Its appeal is to the whole man, to his 
 senses as well as to his spirit,, to his flesh as well as 
 to his soul. 
 
 The tremendous evolution that the Jews in Russia 
 have undergone in the last fifty years finds its artis- 
 tic embodiment in the works of Perez. 
 
 [28]
 
 ABRAHAM LIESSIN 
 
 ^Appreciation 
 
 Vtom EAST AND WEST 
 
 July, 1915
 
 O F the small group of Jewish 
 idealists who took up the struggle for literary fame 
 in the expiring years of the last century, none has 
 been so cruelly treated by the hand of fate as the 
 youngest of them, Abraham Liessin. In his little 
 family, misery and misfortune ran their full gamut 
 beginning with dire want and ending with disease 
 and death. If happiness did ever deign to smile on 
 him, it was so faint and fleeting that it evoked in his 
 heart merely a vague feeling of surprise. 
 
 And yet if you inquire in the literary circles of the 
 East Side for the staunchest in spirit, for the most 
 faithful in ideal, for the most uncompromising in 
 principle, none will fail to mention Liessin amongst 
 the very foremost. To appreciate the full value of 
 this fact, one must have breathed the air of East Side 
 journalism in the last half decade. It is an atmo- 
 sphere filled with the poisonous gases of cynicism 
 and wantonness, an atmosphere that corrodes the 
 spirit, weakens and cools the blood. For one to 
 
 [31]
 
 NINE YIDDISH WRITERS 
 
 retain the vigor and ardor of youth in an atmosphere 
 so enervating, and in the teeth of 3 fate so cruel, is 
 indeed little short of a miracle. 
 * * * 
 
 Liessin, today, at the age of forty-four, is what he 
 was eighteen years ago, when he first came to this 
 country, a well-known revolutionist from the Jew- 
 ish ghettos in Russia. He is as cesthetic and pas- 
 sionate in his poetry, as sane and sincere in his Juda- 
 ism, as critical and ardent in his Socialism. There is 
 this difference, however. Eighteen years ago he 
 was looked upon with suspicion by all. The lines of 
 the various movements were in those days very tight- 
 ly drawn. The Socialists feared Liessin' s Jewish- 
 ness, the Nationalists dreaded his Socialism. His 
 poetry was steeped too deeply in the Jewish spirit to 
 satisfy the radical, it trembled too powerfully with 
 the passion of revolt to appeal to the conservative. 
 And this intellectual hostility blinded both factions 
 to the chief merits of his poetry, to its beauty and 
 delicacy of phrase, to its intense passion, genuine 
 lyricism. 
 
 That was eighteen years ago, when the various 
 "movements" were in their youthful fanatical stages. 
 Today this cloud of bigotry has been lifted, and 
 
 [32]
 
 ABRAHAM LIESSIN 
 
 were it not for the general indifference prevailing, 
 Liessin would now be hailed as a conqueror. The 
 mockers and despisers of former days are now fol- 
 lowing the road he had been travelling all alone for 
 so many long weary years. 
 
 There must be a spark of divine light in a spirit 
 that can walk all alone and not go astray. For what 
 is divine light if not sincerity of heart united with 
 strength of mind, a warm heart, one with an active 
 intellect. And only people so blessed can proceed 
 without aid in spite of external obstacles. 
 
 Liessin's attitude of soul is that of a soldier of 
 righteousness. He is not a zealot. His literary ar- 
 senal is free of poison arrows, of treacherous weap- 
 ons of any kind. His attack is upright, manly, di- 
 rect; he never exaggerates faults, never takes advan- 
 tage of slips or oversights. His fight is never per- 
 sonal or for glory, but for truth. 
 
 And that is one of the reasons why Liessin stands 
 supreme amongst the publicists of the Jewish press. 
 His judgments of events, his interpretations and con- 
 clusions spring from a soil that is fertilized by mind 
 and heart, by intellect and feeling. With him it is 
 neither hard, dry reasoning nor soft vague senti- 
 ment. His is one of those rare minds that combine 
 [33]
 
 NINE YIDDISH WRITERS 
 
 poetry and philosophy, reason and sentiment in a 
 proportion of perfect harmony. 
 
 His style, too, is adapted to his method of think- 
 ing. Liessin is one of the very few Yiddish writers 
 who know the great value of style and who possess 
 it. His phrase is fraught with beauty and force; 
 his sentence strikes the imagination as well as the 
 intellect. In reading him all your faculties are 
 aroused, all the strings of your soul are touched. 
 You are urged to think, to feel, to imagine, to fancy 
 to yearn, and to demand at the same time. 
 * * * 
 
 And the material blows of fate that have been 
 aimed at his head for so many years, have they left 
 no marks or traces on his spirit? Has his soul been 
 proof against that power to which most human be- 
 ings yield so readily? 
 
 You must know the man personally to answer 
 that question. For the conception you form of him 
 from his writings is far different from what he is in 
 reality. Read his editorial writings, his leading 
 articles in the Zukunft, the monthly which he edits, 
 and you will imagine before you a worldly man of 
 wide European culture, of broad knowledge, of 
 deep sympathies and high ideals. Read his lyrical 
 [34]
 
 ABRAHAM LIESSIN 
 
 poems, the outpourings of his soul, and you will see 
 in your mind's eye a being athrill with a passion 
 of love of women and yearning with pain for the 
 friendship of man. Read his songs of revolution, 
 and you will picture before you a heart full of revolt 
 against the restraint and bars put upon life, social, 
 economic, and political. Read his ballads of Jewish 
 ancient days, and you will summon up in your fancy 
 a man suffused with those wonderful qualities of the 
 heroes of Jewish history their humility, modesty, 
 and devotion to God and to their people. 
 
 And the composite picture of all these concep- 
 tions is that of quite a wonderful man, broad in 
 mind, deep in feeling, active in spirit, steeped in life 
 ever thinking, ever working, ever living, free from 
 the small, the petty interests and ambitions that fill 
 the lives of most of us, little people with nothing 
 bigger or higher to live for. 
 
 Meet him in life a lonesome man, loveless, shift- 
 less, ungainly in appearance, confined and narrow 
 in his interests. Of beauty art, of which he created 
 so much, and of which he is such a connoisseur, he 
 hardly, if ever, speaks. Neither will he willingly 
 indulge in discussion of events social, or matters in- 
 tellectual. He seems to be ever brooding on little 
 [35]
 
 NINE YIDDISH WRITERS 
 
 events in which personalities, his own and those of 
 his colleagues, friendly or hostile, are involved. Of 
 these he will speak and speak inexhaustibly, and 
 with a passion and conviction that are woefully ex- 
 aggerated. 
 
 For one who has known the story of this remark- 
 able man, it is not at all hard to find an explanation 
 for this narrowness of actual life and activity in one 
 whose spirit is broad and deep. It proceeds from 
 sick, shattered nerves. His many sufferings have 
 weakened his body and made his spirit over-sensi- 
 tive. 
 
 In the Ghetto, victims of that kind are not at all 
 rare. But very seldom does it happen that the af- 
 flicted should succeed in saving his soul from his 
 bodily collapse as Liessin has done; very rarely does 
 the ideal element gain so complete a victory over the 
 material. Liessin has been the great wonderful ex- 
 ception. 
 
 Liessin traces his descent from one of the most 
 honored families in the Jewish aristocracy of learn- 
 ing and piety. And perhaps it is this inherited ener- 
 gy that steeled his soul against the assaults of the 
 flesh. In his social and economic theories, Liessin 
 is a materialist, a convinced believer in those con- 
 
 [36]
 
 ABRAHAM LIESSIN 
 
 captions that form the basis of his socialistic philos- 
 ophy. But in his own personal life, he is like the 
 old Hebrew scholar of the Yeshiva, knowing little 
 and caring less for the actual, living only in his 
 thoughts and imagination, constantly building, elab- 
 orating, perfecting the realm of his mind and leav- 
 ing all else to neglect and ruin. 
 * * * 
 
 The tragedy of Leissin's life lies in the complete- 
 ness or rather complexity of his mental make-up. 
 He is a poet, a publicist, a journalist, a historian, 
 and his attitude to all of them is about the same. 
 He is just as serious and careful with journalism as 
 in his art, just as thoughtful and grave in his pub- 
 licist articles as in his studies in history. He never 
 lowers his standard, is never disrespectful, never 
 compromising to his pen. His high regard for the 
 written word ill fits the low stage to which journal- 
 ism and writing in general have been reduced in the 
 present time. To this perhaps more than to his 
 physical misfortune does he owe the terrible hard- 
 ships he has met with on the road of his material 
 life. Not until two years ago was there a time when 
 this master writer was sure of his next morning's 
 meal or next night's bed. 
 
 [37]
 
 ABRAHAM REISIN 
 
 From EAST AND WEST 
 August, 1915
 
 Do you want to know the truth 
 about the Jew in Russia not the dead truth that is 
 inscribed in cold figures of gathered statistics or dry 
 statements of investigated facts, but the living truth 
 that is written in letters of fire, thrilling with the 
 emotions and passions of happiness and sorrow? Do 
 you wish to know the Russian Jew in his Russian 
 ghetto town; do you wish to understand him in all 
 his strength and weakness, in all his beauty and ug- 
 liness, in all his virtues and vices? Then take the 
 works of Abraham Reisin, turn their pages slowly, 
 read each sentence, each line carefully; and if you 
 have a heart that can beat in sympathy with others, 
 it will tell you that your quest has been found. 
 
 Reisin's art is unalloyed. His productions are not 
 compounded to give lustre or color or flavor. He 
 draws his characters and situations as he sees them 
 in his mind and feels them in his heart; and the fates 
 have blessed him with a mind and heart that pene- 
 trate deep into the soul of others. 
 
 To be sincere and faithful in art is as difficult as 
 
 [41]
 
 NINE YIDDISH WRITERS 
 
 to be sincere and faithful in other activities of life. 
 The forces that make for compromise are so numer- 
 ous and so persistent. There is the editor who threat- 
 ens your bread, and the critic who threatens your 
 glory; there is the colleague who makes you jealous 
 and the vogue that makes you sceptical. Then there 
 are the hidden forces of imitation and worship and 
 fascination that blind and lead astray. 
 
 Reisin was beset by all these dangers. He came 
 into Yiddish literature at a period when Russian 
 Jewry was seething with "movements," when the 
 intellectual turned away with disgust and contempt 
 from the actual, and nursed ideals, built castles. It 
 was a period of "constructing" types, of creating 
 men and women to suit principles. Some even gave 
 up the present and turned to the past where their 
 imagination was free to roam in the clouds of phan- 
 tasy and poetry. Others abandoned the material 
 world entirely and delved deep into the spiritual 
 and religious in all their phases, ranging from the 
 aesthetic to the ascetic. 
 
 But Reisin remained steadfast. He knew his mis- 
 sion ; he understood his power and refused to be led 
 astray. While Asch was distilling and refining the 
 little Ghetto town in his poetic ecstasy, while Perez 
 
 [42]
 
 ABRAHAM REISIN 
 
 was shedding his rays to warm into life the old Jew- 
 ish legend, while Pinski was bolstering up the weak 
 Jewish proletariat with marvelous creations of pow- 
 erful spirits Reisin was following the sure safe 
 trail of the artist, the trail of reality. God said to 
 him, "Go and see what my children are doing and 
 come and report to me," and Reisin cared not wheth- 
 er they thought that a mission for the Devil or not. 
 He obeyed his God. 
 
 Not that any one dared to impute it openly. But 
 Reisin was looked upon with disfavor by the lead- 
 ing Jewish critics of the old world for his "bare 
 realism." "We are tired of those depressing pic- 
 tures of poverty and sadness and misery that he is 
 forever drawing," they said, "we are tired of those 
 tears of despair, and sighs of hopelessness. We 
 want a literature of the 'New Jew,' the young Jew, 
 the Jew who is full of hope and ambition, the Jew 
 who rises above his misery, on a plane of poetic 
 striving, a strong Jew who has exchanged brooding 
 for action, vain speculating for real building. Give 
 us a literature of what the Jew wishes to be, let the 
 actual die or rest in peace." 
 
 It's the old cry that was heard on the continent in 
 every land where the realists refused to enter upon 
 
 [43]
 
 NINE YIDDISH WRITERS 
 
 any compromise. Strange, how the truth annoys us, 
 how we seek out all kinds of excuses for escaping 
 it. 
 
 Maupassant was called a pessimist; Zola, a slan- 
 derer; Synge, a defamer all because they told the 
 truth in all its shadows and lights. Reisin was never 
 attacked. None has dared do it. But neither has he 
 received the full recognition for the great work he 
 has achieved. The professional critic has been shy 
 of him; and if it weren't for the tremendous popu- 
 larity his works have gained for themselves, Reisin 
 would have to struggle hard to maintain his place 
 in the front rank of Yiddish literary artists, where 
 he belongs by all the rights of genius and art. 
 
 Will the Jewish Russia as Reisin has depicted it 
 appeal to you or not? If you are not a Jew yourself, 
 or if you stand at a remote distance from the ghetto, 
 it will be rather hard for you to assimilate its spirit, 
 and understand its soul. You will see before you 
 the Jew with all his faults and weaknesses, you 
 will see his pitiful struggling, his helplessness, 
 the comic and tragic disproportionateness between 
 body and soul; you will see all this drawn in clear, 
 bold lines; and yet you will stand before the picture 
 puzzled and confused. 
 
 [44]
 
 ABRAHAM REISIN 
 
 For real and correct as the picture is, it is suffused 
 with an atmosphere of art that gives it a spirit of its 
 own. You may wish to laugh at the Jew's frailities, 
 you may wish to mock his dreams or ridicule his 
 aspirations, but somehow you will have absorbed 
 the atmosphere behind it, and it will hold you bound 
 to the artist's spirit whether you wish it or not, 
 whether you know it or not. 
 
 And this atmosphere of Reisin's creation is truly, 
 genuinely Jewish, because Reisin himself is a quin- 
 tessence of the Jewish soul. He feels deeply and 
 sees deeply, but his point of view is that of the ave- 
 rage Jew. He never transports you to the heights 
 of poetic ecstasy, where all appears harmonious and 
 radiant. He never flings you into depths of proph- 
 etic wrath, where all seems monstrous and ghastly. 
 He stands on a level with his plane of vision, on a 
 level with the objects he paints and the images he 
 creates. 
 
 So if you are remote from the Jewish spirit you 
 will be puzzled or perhaps annoyed. You will see 
 the picture clearly and be tempted to put your own 
 interpretations upon it; but the Reisin atmosphere, 
 the Jewish soul he breathes into it, will interfere and 
 disturb you. You will probably wish to laugh over 
 [45]
 
 NINE YIDDISH WRITERS 
 
 those two little Jews quarreling over the comparative 
 fortunes of Rothschild and Rockefeller, but the 
 strange spirit of a delicate pathos will dampen your 
 mirth. You may perhaps be impelled to denounce, 
 as a barbarous gourmand, the tailor who enacts a 
 household tragedy over five potatoes, but the atmo- 
 sphere of true domesticity and the humanity that 
 surrounds the scene, will make you hesitate and con- 
 sider. And so on with every scene and every char- 
 acter. Reisin's spirit is there to protect his creations 
 from harm, to demand for them justice and sym- 
 pathy. 
 
 Pessimism, hedonism, materialism are some of 
 the epithets used to discredit the realist in art. To 
 Yiddish literature, these terms cannot be applied. 
 Reisin, the realist, can by no means be accused of 
 despising life or of debasing it. He loves life pas- 
 sionately, loves its duties as well as its pleasures, 
 its sorrows as well as its joys. The harsh note in his 
 realism is distinctly Yiddish; it's the weakness of the 
 people, the lack of means, of opportunity, the in- 
 numerable obstacles, both physical and spiritual, due 
 to a complexity of reasons, which render the Jew 
 [46]
 
 ABRAHAM REISIN 
 
 powerless to obtain all that life offers and all toward 
 which he strives. 
 
 Wherever Reisin casts his glance he sees the 
 tragic note and he never fails to strike it. Be the 
 character or the situation ever so humorous, even 
 ridiculous, he will inject into it a drop of his own 
 passion, and transform it completely the humor 
 will be mellowed, humanized by the sadness and 
 pity enveloping it. 
 
 Reisin's art is not a sudden inspiration, an ecstatic 
 mood, a poetic exaltation. His is a steady flame, 
 ever burning in his soul, lighting up all he sees out- 
 wardly, and all he feels inwardly. Reisin is as much 
 of a lyric poet as a realistic story teller ; and his lyrics 
 are expressions of those emotions and sentiments 
 in which his objective pictures are cast. In them 
 he sings the tragedy of his own life, which is really 
 the essence of the tragic elements in the lives of all 
 Jews, especially of those living and struggling in 
 oppressed Russia and poverty-stricken Galicia. 
 
 Thus he sings in one of his very popular little 
 poems: 
 
 [47]
 
 NINE YIDDISH WRITERS 
 
 / yearn for life, for dear, dear life, 
 
 So full of joy and charm; 
 But cannot reach the beautiful 
 
 And good, too short my arm. 
 
 In his private life, Reisin is Bohemian, or rather 
 shall we say, a Jewish Bohemian, with no hold on 
 life, no anchorage, no moorings. Homeless, with 
 no bonds of either family or profession or vocation, 
 he is the Wandering Jew, coming or going wher- 
 ever his star happens to lead him. Other artists with 
 none of his genius, with but a fraction of his talent, 
 and but little of his popularity, are enjoying a life 
 that is more or less secure and certain. But he is 
 ever struggling, ever warring with circumstances. 
 His hard lot has become a by-word in the world of 
 Yiddish writers and journalists. 
 
 In his numerous poems where he pries deep into 
 his own soul he never hints at his material sufferings. 
 Probably it is due to a sense of delicacy or pride, 
 but more likely this physical struggle affects his soul 
 but superficially. The gloomy view he has of life 
 proceeds rather from the suffering of the spirit, the 
 struggle of the soul. Love, beauty, power, justice 
 for himself, for his people, and for all humanity 
 this is the craving that fills his soul with despair and 
 [48]
 
 ABRAHAM REISIN 
 
 gloom. One is inclined to believe that material well- 
 being would contribute very slightly to relieve the 
 sadness in which his spirit is always steeped. The 
 Weltschmerz, as the true Yiddish artist feels it, can- 
 not be soothed by the pleasures of the flesh, nay, it 
 renders those very pleasures painful. 
 
 [49]
 
 L. SHAPIRO 
 
 'The Impressionist 
 
 From EAST AND WEST 
 
 September, 1915
 
 /\ PALE, quiet face; slow, dis- 
 tracted movements; thin, dreamy and strange; none 
 of that characteristic nervousness and restlessness of 
 the Jewish "intelligent* ; none of that eagerness for 
 discussion, passion for debate, impatience in argu- 
 ment; none of the fire, the vehemence, the "temper- 
 ament" that so many of our artists display sincerely 
 or affectedly. Occasionally you may see him at a 
 table in his own cafe in the heart of the Yiddish 
 newspaper row; you may watch him writing a tale 
 or a mood, and if you are at all acquainted with his 
 "manner" you will be tempted to scrutinize his face, 
 to search for a gleam or a spark of the fire in the 
 soul of his creations; but you will be sadly disap- 
 pointed. Always, always the same distracted look, 
 the same dreamy eyes, the same quiet, inscruitable 
 face. 
 
 This is L. Shapiro the exterior of him; the man 
 who has written the most powerful pogrom stories; 
 the man who has given Yiddish literature its very 
 
 [53]
 
 NINE YIDDISH WRITERS 
 
 best impressionistic pen-sketches of the sea ; the man 
 who has breathed the spirit of primitive Jehovah into 
 the frail bodies and crushed souls of his present-day 
 Jewish types. 
 
 Artistic, fascinating, to be sure; but oh, how 
 strange. We are not attempting to weigh his stories 
 and sketches in the scales of realism; we are not 
 seeking to bring them under the test of truth or fact. 
 We realize from the very outset that we are dealing 
 with an artist who has created a world in his own 
 likeness, who compounds characters of his own ele- 
 ments. And his power of fascination is so great 
 that we are happy to enter into his new world and 
 breath in the atmosphere he has prepared for us. 
 But enchanting as it is, it fails to dominate us com- 
 pletely. That strangeness keeps intruding all the 
 time, and it irritates and disturbs. What is it due 
 to? Is the artist always to blame for his failure to 
 make us captive to his will and power, or are we 
 to assume part of the responsibility? 
 
 When Shapiro first appeared on the horizon of 
 Yiddish letters only the eyes of the "intelligent* 
 were attracted to him. And by them he was imme- 
 diately hailed as an original artist, original in his 
 conception and in style. The professional critic 
 [54]
 
 L. SHAPIRO 
 
 cheered the new manner even before he thoroughly 
 analyzed the substance. It is indeed refreshing to 
 hear a new tone, a new inflection of voice, a new 
 cadence. And the fresh stream that flowed from 
 Shapiro's pen was certainly irrigating by its style and 
 method, if by nothing else. In place of the old con- 
 ventional language, loose, with no polish or taste or 
 care, he brought a real literary style, refined, artistic, 
 intellectual, and yet wholly free of the labored or 
 mechanical. If for nothing else, Shapiro has earned 
 his place in Yiddish letters for taking it out of its 
 old shabby mold and casting it into a new beautiful 
 form. 
 
 Even today, when his very best productions have 
 been in the open light for over a decade, Shapiro's 
 public is very limited. Only those initiated into the 
 more secret recesses of Yiddish literature know of 
 him ; and even to many of these he is not revealed in 
 all his subtlety. How to account for it? Partly, be- 
 cause the little he has written appeared in journals 
 of very limited circulation; but more likely it is due 
 to that strange element, that embarrassing subtlety 
 which stamps every character, every situation and 
 every mood which he has conceived and evolved in 
 his artistic soul. 
 
 [55]
 
 YIDDISH WRITERS 
 
 I think of his marvelous short story "The Cross," 
 perhaps the most powerful tale in Yiddish literature, 
 and what a medley of conflicting, colliding emotions 
 pass through my soul. A Jewish young man of 
 the idealist type, a revolutionist, a dreamer, who 
 has forgotten his own race, his own family, in the 
 great struggle for Russian freedom. The one earth- 
 ly light in whose rays he basks is his Gentile 
 comrade, the daughter of a Count, whose love in- 
 spires him to undertake acts for which he is sure to 
 forfeit his life. Pure in his ideals, noble in his love, 
 courageous in his revolutionary struggle the fa- 
 miliar Jewish revolutionist of ten years ago those 
 beautiful sons of the Ghetto whose memories will 
 ever be a source of inspiration for all freedom seek- 
 ers the world over. But see what Shapiro has made 
 of him! Quite casually he at first injects into this 
 noble heart a strange coldness or rather a vague dis- 
 like for his mother who sacrificed the best years 
 of her life for his sake. And this hostility is the 
 nucleus which later on grows and develops into a 
 fearful, horrifying Jehovah spirit of wrath and re- 
 venge to the ugliest, most brutal limits. 
 
 The sting of the pogrom is the poison that trans- 
 forms this twentieth century idealist, the son of the 
 [56]
 
 L. SHAPIRO 
 
 most indulgent, most forgiving race, into a monster 
 of the Jehovah period. And that sting is made to 
 pass through that vulnerable spot in the soul of the 
 unfortunate young man, though that sick corner of 
 the heart where the unnatural hate for his mother 
 lies. The conception of the artist is wonderful. 
 From the moment the story enters upon its course 
 of action the reader is swept along by a force mighty 
 and inexorable. He is swept into a world of sav- 
 ages, where the most brutal instincts have full sway. 
 And this hero of the story, this noble young Jew, 
 this refined intellectual and love-inspired revolution- 
 ist is seen to rise higher and higher on this swelling 
 tide, springing from the darkest depths of human 
 primitive nature. He drains to the very dregs the cup 
 of revenge that Jehovah has handed him and then 
 issues forth into the free air of civilization to recover 
 and recuperate. 
 
 The story is not real, not a line of it can stand the 
 acid test of psychological chemistry. But it is a 
 great, a grand artistic achievement, nevertheless. For 
 an artist has conceived it, nurtured it, loved it, 
 named it with his own light, strengthened it with 
 his blood. The type is not human, but it is living 
 all the same. Call it then superhuman or ultra 
 [57]
 
 NINE YIDDISH WRITERS 
 
 human. What is really essential is that it has exis- 
 tence that a life-giving power, an artist, has cre- 
 ated it. 
 
 And this is true more or less of all his other po- 
 grom stories. To the Jewish reader even more than 
 to the Gentile do the types seem strange and unreal, 
 for we know the real Jew and we realize his remote- 
 ness from Shapiro's creation; and that is why the 
 great masses, who find it rather a difficult task to 
 follow an artist into new worlds, look upon Shapiro 
 as a stranger; and that is why he is somewhat of an 
 enigma even to the more intelligent and real ad- 
 mirers. 
 
 And this enigma grows more bewildering when 
 we turn to another phase of Shapiro's art to his 
 impressionistic descriptions of nature, particularly 
 those of the sea, which he did quite elaborately when 
 he first crossed the Atlantic to this country right af- 
 ter the Russian pogroms ten years ago. 
 
 For in this series of sketches, Shapiro is refined 
 almost to decadence. He is always the "fin de 
 siecle" artist, in all its vagueness, mysticism and 
 polish. The sea is not a great infinite power God- 
 like in its immensity and Devilish in its terror. He 
 never conceives it as a devouring monster or an awe- 
 
 [58]
 
 L. SHAPIRO 
 
 inspiring colossus. He is charmed by its physical 
 aspects, its battling waves, its foaming billows, the 
 reflections of the "ragged sky into the muddy wa- 
 ters." He watches the sea by day, at sunset, at sun- 
 rise, at moonlight and in the darkness of the mists, 
 and paints various aspects in beautiful colors, ac- 
 curate and artistic. 
 
 And interwoven with these descriptions are im- 
 pressions and little incidents and tales that serve to 
 give to those impressions an atmosphere that hu- 
 manizes and mystifies at the same time. Once, it's 
 the story of the artist driven insane by the stillness 
 of the sea; then it's the, tragic battle of the descend- 
 ing ice-berg against the melting rays of the sun. And 
 another time it's a mysterious suicide leaving behind 
 him an echo of a terror-inspiring name. 
 
 That primitive powerfulness, that ruthless 
 strength which is the leading characteristic of the 
 pogrom stories is entirely lacking in these sketches, 
 where it could be introduced much more naturally 
 and truly. Here Shapiro is for once what his face 
 indicates a dreamy, strange, vague mystic. And we 
 must add one more quality which no face can ever 
 betray original. 
 
 One wonders will those conflicting or rather in- 
 
 [59]
 
 NINE YIDDISH WRITERS 
 
 harmonious elements in Shapiro's artistic make-up 
 ever blend and unite into one power? And if that 
 happens, will it enhance or diminish the value of 
 his art? Shapiro is comparatively young, and he has 
 written very little, even for his young age. Perhaps 
 he is developing now that new harmony of his art. 
 
 [60]
 
 ZALMON LIBIN 
 
 From EAST AND WEST 
 October, 1915
 
 T i i i 
 
 HEN I wish to learn the 
 
 truth about the life of the emigrated thousands 
 from the Russian pale in their new home across the 
 sea, there is one author I turn to with absolute con- 
 fidence; it is Z. Libin, our short story writer and 
 playwright in America." This, in substance, is an 
 opinion expressed by the leading Jewish critic in 
 Russia, who is personally acquainted neither with 
 the author nor with the Jewish Ghetto in this coun- 
 try; and there is no doubt whatever that the literary 
 reviewers here, who are acquainted with both, will 
 readily and cheerfully subscribe to the opinion. 
 
 Libin is a true son of the Ghetto. He has lived its 
 life in all its tragic and comic phases. He slaved in 
 the sweatshops two decades ago when they flour- 
 ished in all their evils and horrors. He pined in 
 the tenements in those terrible years, when "lung 
 blocks" and windowless rooms filled the East Side. 
 He knew all those afflictions so peculiar and so 
 familiar to the Ghetto homes "Shop," Slack," 
 
 [63]
 
 NINE YIDDISH WRITERS 
 
 "Strikes," "Sack," "Dispossess," "Disease," "Loaf- 
 ers," "Installment," so on and on. He followed in 
 the wearisome path of the more energetic and hope- 
 ful who sacrifice their youth in an effort to lift them- 
 selves out of the mire into a brighter life. Again 
 and again he fell exhausted by the roadside, again 
 and again he rose to his feet and joined that pro- 
 cession in its march onward. He was in the very hell 
 of the Ghetto life, and passed through its purgatory, 
 and as he went along, his literary mind accumulated 
 and absorbed the material out of which he built 
 the edifice of his great work his monumental short 
 stories and dramas that will, for generations to come, 
 serve as a life record of the darkest years of the 
 immigrated Russian Jews in this, their new home 
 America. 
 
 Libin's whole personal life, to its very detail, is 
 told in artistic fashion in his best sketches. His bitter 
 experiences in the sweatshop, his struggles with the 
 boss and the foreman, his serious and comical blun- 
 ders, his love and marriage and the troubles and 
 tribulations that came in their wake, his suffering at 
 the sick beds of his children, his career as a news- 
 dealer and as a writer and dramatist the numerous 
 disappointments and sorrows and griefs that ac- 
 [64]
 
 ZALMON LIBIN 
 
 companied his every move in life all is related to 
 us frankly and generously, sometimes with a smile, 
 sometimes with a sigh, and at times even with a 
 good, hearty laugh at his own expense. 
 
 And he thus bares his own life not for striking 
 effects, not because it is more dramatic or more in- 
 teresting than the life of the average East Sider, and 
 certainly not because he seeks personal display. He 
 does it for the sole reason that he knows his own 
 lot to be typical, that he sees mirrored in his own 
 sufferings and struggles the sufferings and struggles 
 of his many thousand brothers in the shop and in the 
 tenement house. And he tells of his own vicissi- 
 tudes, knowing that they will arouse in others the 
 same responsive notes of laughter or tears as they 
 did in him when they occurred, for their souls are 
 formed of the same stuff and in the same furnace 
 of suffering and sorrow. 
 
 And what he did not live through himself, he saw 
 with his own eyes and felt with his own heart. I am 
 speaking now, of course, of the better work of our 
 author, the work which made his name famous in 
 all Jewish Ghettoes here and abroad. In his later 
 days he has occasionally gone astray and attempted 
 to write from pure imagination. But that work really 
 [65]
 
 NINE YIDDISH WRITERS 
 
 doesn't belong to Libin, to Libin's spirit and soul. 
 They bear only his name. What is really his, is his 
 in all right. He personally dug out the raw material 
 from the bowels of the Ghetto life, he personally 
 tried and essayed its worth, fashioned and moulded 
 it, and created out of it the stories that thrill our 
 hearts. 
 
 Yiddish literature in America began as an adjunct 
 to the revolutionary movement in the late eighties 
 and early nineties, when the East Side intelligentsia 
 and youth were seething with Socialism and free 
 thought. In those stormy days the agitator held sway 
 over the minds of the active and responsive ele- 
 ments; and literature was written with the purpose 
 of assisting this dominating power. The agitator 
 dwelt on the evils of the system, on the injustice suf- 
 fered by the worker in the sweatshop, on the corrup- 
 tion of the state, of the home, of the temples of 
 learning and religion. Hence it was the duty of the 
 literary artist to give proof of these accusations 
 against the present order of society by depicting the 
 horrors of the worker's life, by painting it in colors 
 as black as the pen would permit. And this duty 
 was performed by most literary men of the time 
 with unquestioning faithfulness. They felt it a 
 
 [66]
 
 ZALMON LIBIN 
 
 sacred duty and knew that the highest praise awaited 
 their fulfilling it. Such was the spirit of the times, 
 the demand of the times. 
 
 And into this dangerous atmosphere dangerous 
 to literary life I mean Libin came with his artistic 
 talent. He came as unsophisticated, as blind and 
 credulous as the rest. He wanted to be of help to 
 the movement, to do what was proper, and what the 
 agitator considered right and of service. So he be- 
 gan to write of the sweatshops, of the tenements, of 
 the numerous and numberless ills that beset the poor 
 Ghetto workers. He did what was expected of him, 
 what he expected of himself. But neither he nor 
 those whom he strived to please noticed the new 
 foreign note that he, unconsciously perhaps, intro- 
 duced in his writings. The artist was getting the bet- 
 ter of the agitator, the artist was asserting himself 
 in spite of all injunctions and dogmas. It was re- 
 markable, almost miraculous. 
 
 Libin saw the tragedy of the worker, but he could 
 not fail to notice the comedy also; he saw the tear 
 of pain in the worker's eye, but he didn't miss the 
 tear of joy, too. For whatever his code and creed 
 were regarding social reform, he instinctively felt 
 that his mission as an artist was to see life as it is, 
 [67]
 
 NINE YIDDISH WRITERS 
 
 and depict it in true colors. And thus, Libin has 
 given us the only real picture of the sweatshop, 
 which will stand the acid test of the sternest and 
 most unfriendly criticism. Many others have tried 
 their hands at it they tried it in verse and in story 
 and in drama, but their success is doubtful. Of 
 Libin's complete triumph there is no dispute. 
 
 His sweatshop is not a hell shot up from the 
 devil's domain in the nether regions; his boss is not 
 a demon delegated by Mammon to devour poor 
 workers; his worker is not a lamb born to be slaught- 
 ered on the altar of God. Libin's sweatshop is a 
 human institution, and the boss is human and the 
 workers are human. But this doesn't for a moment 
 lessen its terror, nor does it relieve the tragedy of 
 the worker and the tyranny of the boss. On the con- 
 trary, it aggravates it because it intensifies the 
 truth, because it makes the conviction doubly im- 
 pressive. 
 
 Libin's sweatshop worker is joyous at times, even 
 playful and thoroughly happy. He will play tricks 
 in the shop and amuse his wife and children at 
 home. And at times this pitiful slave is capable of 
 being unjust to his fellow slaves and too hard on his 
 children. He is human, thoroughly human, and all 
 
 [68]
 
 ZALMON LIBIN 
 
 these human qualities are his. But in all these phas- 
 es, agreeable and disagreeable, the keynote of his 
 tragic life is never absent. The reader feels that this 
 unfortunate creature is a product of the terrible 
 sweatshop, he feels it in the expression of his hap- 
 piness, in the manifestation of his cruelty to his 
 fellow workers or his own flesh and blood. The shop 
 has made him what he is. This is the truth, and it 
 cannot be concealed. And that is why the sweatshop 
 looms up before us so awful and so horrifying, 
 much more so than even in the exalted outburst of 
 the great sweatshop poet Morris Rosenfeld. 
 
 And what is true of Libin's sweatshop is also true 
 of his tenement house which he painted on a much 
 larger canvas and in much minuter detail. Libin's 
 tenement house life is full of the most amusing com- 
 edy as well as the most heartrending tragedy. Just, 
 indeed, is the reputation Libin has gained for him- 
 self amongst the vast mass of readers of being the 
 greatest master at throwing his audience in convul- 
 sions either of laughter or of tears. A humorous 
 sketch by Libin is sure to draw a loud, healthy laugh ; 
 a pathetic story by the same author is just as sure to 
 draw a genuine, warm tear from the very bottom 
 of the soul. 
 
 [69]
 
 NINE YIDDISH WRITERS 
 
 Libin is unsophisticated. He is like a child looking 
 out upon life and telling us what he sees and per- 
 ceives in his limited mind, as if the view were as far 
 and wide as the human mind could possibly reach. 
 And to this deficiency Libin owes all his failures and 
 shortcomings which have been growing and multi- 
 plying as he advances in years and in material suc- 
 cess. As long as Libin confined his art to the reg- 
 ions of his own sphere, as long as he was satisfied 
 with telling us what he saw and what he felt in his 
 own life or in the lives of people standing on the 
 same plane with himself, his art was genuine. For 
 then he revealed to us souls and hearts, which is the 
 main function of art. But his ambition rose higher 
 than his powers. He gradually abandoned the field 
 of short story and exchanged it for the drama which 
 offered wider opportunities in material returns, but 
 there he failed very badly on the plane of artistic 
 achievement. 
 
 For there is very little of the dramatic in, the life 
 that Libin lived and observed. Passions do not rise 
 very high in the heart of the sweatshop worker, dra- 
 matic conflict is very rare in the dingy tenement 
 home. The dramas enacted there are all inward 
 tragedies, hidden deep in the soul. They are Ham- 
 [70]
 
 ZALMON LIBIN 
 
 letian dramas with all visible clash and struggle 
 missing. To write these dramas, a subtle power is 
 necessary, and even then it's quite doubtful whether 
 they would be acceptable to the audience. 
 
 So Libin resorted to the old substitute, to imagina- 
 tion, and instead of dramas he created melodramas. 
 It must be said to his credit, however, that at the 
 beginning of his playwright career he tried hard to 
 be literary and succeeded to a degree in a few plays, 
 but very soon he discovered a new power in himself, 
 a power to concoct melo-stuff that found favor in 
 the eyes of the great masses. The discovery was also 
 made by the managers of the Jewish theatres and 
 before long, Libin became the leading creator of 
 "hits" on the Yiddish stage. 
 
 Libin, the sketch writer, the short story artist, has 
 given place to Libin the playwright. For Libin him- 
 self, for his material well being, this change was a 
 happy event; but not so for Yiddish literature. Years 
 ago when our author published his little master- 
 pieces in the Socialist dailies and monthlies he eked 
 out a pitiful living by laboring at the cap making 
 trade or by peddling newspapers in the then wilds 
 of the Bronx. Now that he has dedicated his pen to 
 the theatre of melodrama he is enjoying a good in- 
 
 [71]
 
 NINE YIDDISH WRITERS 
 
 come on contract, and is the envy of all his col- 
 leagues. Occasionally he relents, takes up the for- 
 saken pen and treats us with an old time story of 
 his. We read it with mixed feelings of joy and re- 
 gret. We are happy of the power that is still his 
 and grieved at the rare use he is making of it. 
 
 Viewed from a different point this regret of ours 
 may be unnecessary. Even as the writer of melo- 
 dramas, Libin is rendering important service to Yid- 
 dish literature. Compared with most of the other 
 productions on the Yiddish stage, his tower is con- 
 siderably above them. Whatever Libin's plays are 
 not, they certainly are clever, well constructed, full 
 of ingenuity of plot, originality of humor and depth 
 of pathos. His dramas are never stale or inane or 
 coarse. The characters are more or less consistent, 
 more or less real, the atmosphere is always sufficient- 
 ly illusive to be tolerable to the more cultivated taste. 
 In many respects Libin's melodramas will outdo the 
 very best plays of the kind produced on Broadway. 
 
 Libin acts as a restraining power on the Jewish 
 stage. In the last decade, the Yiddish theatre has 
 followed the steps of the American. It has become 
 purely commercial. The box office determines which 
 
 [72]
 
 ZALMON LIBIN 
 
 plays are to be accepted or rejected. The managers 
 are no longer satisfied with literary triumphs or ar- 
 tistic success, if the receipts are thereby limited. And 
 so it has come to pass that the better dramatists have 
 almost been banished from our boards. Popular 
 successes are always there to push them off and take 
 their place, and the managers, ready as they are to 
 pay lip service to art, cannot withstand the tempta- 
 tions of profit. 
 
 So it is quite fortunate that Libin has intervened. 
 He came as a compromiser between the real literary 
 drama and the cheap popular trash. He took a stand 
 midway, satisfying the managers and the mob with- 
 out at the same time abusing too harshly the tastes 
 of the better classes. His melodramas are tinged 
 and flavored with literature. They serve as an edu- 
 cator to the coarser palates of the masses and as a 
 comforter to the offended palates of the more re- 
 fined. 
 
 We are grateful to Libin for this service he is ren- 
 dering in the interest of higher dramatic art. But 
 we would be still more grateful to him if he re- 
 mained in the field of story writing, the field to 
 which his real talent belongs, the field he had so suc- 
 cessfully and beautifully cultivated for us and for 
 [73]
 
 NINE YIDDISH WRITERS 
 
 himself in those happy years when he was an artist 
 for art's sake, when he wrote from an inward im- 
 pulse, from an inspiration of the soul, when his art 
 was nothing else but an ideal, pure and sacred. 
 
 [74]
 
 JONAH ROSENFELD 
 
 From EAST AND WEST 
 November, 1915
 
 A PAINTER of sadness, grief, 
 
 fear and horror in their sombrest colors, when they 
 border on morbidity; a portrayer of love, passion 
 and lust in their decadent stages, when they ap- 
 proach degeneracy this is Jonah Rosenfeld. Like 
 all really great artists he cannot be labelled as be- 
 longing to this or that school. He has been called 
 a Decadent, and compared to Andreyev; but if deca- 
 dence means a disregard for truth or a revolt against 
 actuality, Rosenfeld is not one of its votaries. His 
 characters may be abnormal, his situations revolting- 
 ly inhuman but the keynote of realism is never 
 missing. The thrill of life is always there. Every 
 story he relates throbs and pulses with red blood 
 sickly, infected, at times even poisoned; but red, 
 nevertheless, red and alive. 
 
 Rosenfeld has no eye for the normal. To set his 
 imagination in action, an element of abnormality 
 must be present, either in the characters or in the 
 situation. His concern is always with psychological 
 
 [77]
 
 NINE YIDDISH WRITERS 
 
 analysis. He cares little for plot. Action is always 
 subordinate and at times missing entirely. Yet many 
 of his stories are interesting as stories. They grip 
 the attention of the popular mind that responds 
 most readily to the dramatic appeal. 
 
 What more ordinary an event than the casual 
 overhearing of a remark regarding the death of a 
 young woman in a neighboring street! But in 
 Rosenfeld's story, "An Acquaintance," the remark 
 falls upon the ears of a hypersensitive, morbidly im- 
 aginative mind, and what a remarkable effect it pro- 
 duces! This strange man had seen the woman just 
 once in his life, but the news of her death has sud- 
 denly rendered her an intimate friend to him; and, 
 with wonderful psychological insight, he proceeds 
 to reconstruct the tragedy of her life, from the few 
 details of dress, gestures and glances which he had 
 gathered on that single occasion. And in a subtle, 
 mysterious way he grafts the tragedy of her life on 
 his own conscience. 
 
 "Were she alive, it would never occur to me to 
 consider her an acquaintance, but that sudden death 
 worked a miracle. I felt that I knew her, that I 
 even fathomed the remotest recesses of her soul, 
 which she had kept hidden from ail else." 
 [78]
 
 JONAH ROSENFELD 
 
 And he goes on revealing her life to us ; while we 
 stand with bowed heads over her corpse. This back- 
 ground of death intensifies the morbidity of the 
 narrator, and produces an atmosphere of strange 
 sadness about us. 
 
 "She was sitting on a log close to the door. Near 
 her was a red headed young man with a red beard, 
 red moustaches, red eyelashes, his eyes even gleamed 
 red. It was easy to guess that he was her husband. 
 His legs were crossed. His attire bespoke the day 
 the holy Sabbath; a white paper collar; no necktie; 
 a cheap, close-fitting suit with green stripes; a high 
 polish on his shoes. But there was no sign of the 
 Sabbath in her dress. Her waist was calico, though 
 spotless. She looked older than her years; her face 
 grave and embittered, mellowed by an appealing 
 tenderness which emanated from her big brown, 
 almost girlish eyes. She sat there quietly, very 
 quietly, sunken in painful silence. It seemed that 
 the peaceful Sabbath spirit that reigned all along 
 the street failed to reach her. She looked so lone- 
 some and forlorn. It cut my heart." 
 
 And he proceeds to speculate on her past. "She 
 must have been a sympathetic girl, ardent and quiet, 
 the kind that is attractive to men. Yet did she 
 
 [79]
 
 NINE YIDDISH WRITERS 
 
 marry that red-headed creature. She, doubtless, 
 hates him, but I am sure nobody knows it. Her 
 sorrow is buried deep in her soul. . ." 
 
 "I crossed the street to a spot from which I could 
 observe her better. She felt my presence and my 
 glances, and she blushed continuously. Perhaps she 
 also read my thoughts, and knew that I shared her 
 opinion of her husband. Perhaps, too, she had 
 dreamt once to meet and marry a man like me. . . 
 Yes, perhaps she even had loved a man like me. . ." 
 
 Finally her eyes met his. "She looked at me as 
 if she had known me a long time. I also thought 
 her eyes very familiar, familiar and near. . ." 
 
 "Now that I knew she was dead, my heart grew 
 heavy just as if I had lost a dear friend. And in the 
 innermost depths of my soul, I felt a shadow of a 
 thought stirring the thought that somehow, in 
 some way, I was concerned in her death; that some- 
 how, I don't know why, but somehow, I was to 
 blame. Strange, indeed. 
 
 Even simpler in theme is the moving story, "Pro- 
 tracted into the Sabbath." In it all the characters 
 are normal with perhaps the one exception of the 
 little boy who is narrating the story. The situa- 
 tion is a struggle between a command of God and 
 
 [80]
 
 JONAH ROSENFELD 
 
 an elemental instinct in the heart of a pious Jew. 
 His child has died on a Sabbath day and to sorrow 
 on the Sabbath day is strictly forbidden. The mother 
 is too weak, too human, to think of God. The other 
 children are too young to realize God's word. He 
 alone knows his duty, and struggles to perform it. 
 Even while watching at the bed of the expiring soul 
 he sternly commands that the Sabbath feast be pre- 
 pared. And when death finally comes with the set- 
 ting of the sun, he allows but a few moments of an 
 outburst of grief to the weak, prostrated mother. 
 Then he bids her light the candles. "He is still 
 ours, as long as the Sabbath lasts." (Such is the 
 traditional belief.) "Don't cause him grief by your 
 tears. Remember, it is the holy Sabbath!" 
 
 And when she hesitates, he grows impatient. 
 "Feige," he almost shouts, "It's the Sabbath. You 
 are forgetting yourself!" 
 
 He supervises the lighting of the candles and the 
 spreading of white Sabbath cloth on the table. Then 
 he dons his Sabbath coat and high hat and proceeds 
 to the Synagogue to "praise the Lord and rejoice in 
 the Sabbath." 
 
 "All traces of grief vanished from his face on 
 stepping into God's house. He prayed more devout- 
 
 [81]
 
 NINE YIDDISH WRITERS 
 
 ly than ever, he carefully exchanged the cheerful 
 Sabbath greetings with all his friends and neigh- 
 bors." 
 
 Coming home he finds his wife crying and wring- 
 ing her hands. He looks at her sternly, greets her, 
 and then enters the death chamber to greet his dead 
 child. In a loud unfaltering voice, he then proceeds 
 with the usual program of songs and hymns. 
 
 What a wonderful, what a weird, ghastly perfor- 
 mance! The little boy who has been following his 
 father in awed admiration all through the terrible 
 evening, finally breaks down into a delirious faint. 
 The nerve-wrecking strain snaps at last. What a 
 relief! 
 
 This literary gem is purely a study in psychology. 
 Yet it is fraught with dramatic interest. Each little 
 event, the entering and leaving of a room, the slight- 
 est remark or sound, or mere gesture or glance 
 strikes us with extraordinary force. 
 
 There is very little of beauty and tenderness in the 
 world in which Rosenfeld's characters dwell. The 
 homes are dreary and cold and miserable. The souls 
 are crushed, melancholy and restless. Here and 
 there a bolder heart appears but its strength is 
 spent in religious austerity or in vain, coarse protes- 
 
 [82]
 
 JONAH ROSENFELD 
 
 tations. Even the children are meditative and sad. 
 The girls are in constant dread of spinsterhood ; the 
 married women are slaves either to the husband, to 
 the children, or to the home. Even parental love 
 hardly ever comes to the surface; now and then 
 it betrays itself in an act or in a phrase, but it quick- 
 ly withdraws its face as if afraid of the light. It is a 
 world of "death and night" the name chosen by 
 the author for the collection of his stories. 
 
 The wretched Jewish life in Russia is not all what 
 Rosenfeld presents it to be. It has poetry and beauty, 
 and it certainly abounds in love and kindness. But 
 Rosenfeld has no eye for that. His imagination be- 
 comes active only when the shadows of death and 
 night descend. Most of his tales happen at midnight 
 or in the evening, and very often in cold or dreary 
 weather. 
 
 Here are some scenes of the Home, the typical 
 Jewish home in a small Ghetto town in Russia the 
 home as Rosenfeld sees it in all its wretchedness and 
 misery. 
 
 "Early in the morning the hubbub commences. 
 
 "The sisters have taken each other's waists by mis- 
 take. One misses her hairpins, the other has lost a 
 stocking, the third is looking for a shoe; Leizer, the 
 
 [83]
 
 NINE YIDDISH WRITERS 
 
 brother, has mislaid his belt; the father is hunting 
 for his prayer-shawl; the mother is helping all in 
 their various efforts. General confusion a rush 
 hither and thither. Then all make a scramble for 
 the water pail. Every one wants to be the first to 
 wash. . ." 
 
 This is the morning scene all year round, summer 
 and winter. Finally they all leave the house. Ab- 
 raham, the father, drives away in his little wagon; 
 Leah, the oldest daughter, goes to the factory; Zel- 
 da, the younger, to the dressmaking establishment; 
 Leizer, the son, to the carpenter shop; Kreine, the 
 youngest, to the milliner's. The mother, Beile, is the 
 last one to leave with a heavy basket of eggs on her 
 arm. 
 
 "Beile locks the door. The beds are left unmade, 
 and in the kitchen stand all the pots and dishes, un- 
 washed. Every night the question of washing the 
 dishes is raised, each shifting the job to the other, 
 and all refusing to do it. The mother argues that 
 she is old, that she works hard all day, so she ought 
 to be spared this additional work at night. She adds 
 that all her sweating is done for the home. To this 
 Zelda replies that she works still harder. 'Bending 
 your back over your sewing is much harder than go- 
 
 [84]
 
 JONAH ROSENFELD 
 
 ing about with a basket on the arm.' And she, too, 
 works for no other than the 'home.' Then Leah pre- 
 sents her argument: 'What about my toiling? To 
 stand all day on one's feet is much harder than to sit 
 and work.' Kreine still remains, but she also refuses. 
 If they only knew how she is driven about all day 
 from one errand to another, they would not put this 
 additional task upon her. 
 
 "So the dishes again remain unwashed. The fa- 
 mily gathers at night for supper. This over, Abra- 
 ham immediately goes to bed, be it winter or sum- 
 mer. 
 
 "All day the family is working; each one is living 
 in a world of his own. 
 
 "Abraham is out in the street with his little wagon, 
 waiting for customers. In the winter he thinks ot 
 the warm bed at home and of the hot soup that is 
 waiting for him there. In the summer he thinks of 
 the terrible heat and figures how long he will have 
 to wait before coming home, where he will be able 
 to wash his face with cold water. 
 
 "Beile's thoughts depend on her day's business. 
 
 If the sales are good she is happy and impatient 
 
 for the night to come, so that she can tell of her 
 
 luck. And if, after walking all day, her purse is 
 
 [85]
 
 NINE YIDDISH WRITERS 
 
 empty, she resolves not to mention it at home. She 
 pours out her misery to another woman, an acquaint- 
 ance in the market place. 
 
 "Zelda dreams of a young man who will fall in 
 love with her (She is pretty) . Of a sudden she will 
 give up her job. She will be happy and recall these 
 hard days of work and suffering, when she had to 
 toil 15 hours a day for 13 rubles a month, and when 
 she couldn't afford to buy a baked apple of little 
 Sarah who comes every day at the dinner hour. She 
 will wear a beautiful dress and proudly relate to all 
 that she is the daughter of a mere pushcart peddler. 
 She will cook meat twice a day. 
 
 "Kreine thinks only of being sent on an errand 
 when she will get a tip, a penny for a glass of tea; 
 and Leizer dreams of becoming a 'boss' some day, 
 and of having a sign suspended outside of his shop 
 with big letters: Carpenter Shop, Leizer Yubelnick. 
 
 "Leah never bothers about the future. She only 
 wishes for the Sabbath to come; for on Sabbath she 
 can sleep a little longer. She never gets enough sleep 
 on weekdays. 
 
 "And Saturday is really the best day for the fa- 
 mily. Saturday morning there is no quarreling. Leah 
 stays late in bed with her sister Zelda, and they tell 
 [86]
 
 JONAH ROSENFELD 
 
 each other stories. Then they get up and help each 
 other comb their hair and put on their corsets. The 
 brother has gone to a cafe very early, where he sits 
 leisurely at a glass of tea. The mother has on her 
 white kerchief, and the father his holiday coat. 
 Kreine has put a blue ribbon in her braid. And in 
 the afternoon when the elder girls leave the house 
 for a walk, Beile escorts them to the door and look- 
 ing after them as they proceed down the street, she 
 thinks: 'How I wish they were both married'; and 
 coming to the house, she says to the father, 'You 
 hear, they both can be led under the canopy at the 
 same time.' 
 
 "Abraham takes off his big boots and stretches out 
 on the bed his bare, dirty feet. Beile lies down near 
 him. They contemplate the ceiling for some time, 
 and thus thinking their eyes close. Beile sleeps quiet- 
 ly, but Abraham begins to snore. 
 
 "When they awake, they feel a heaviness oppress- 
 ing their hearts. The Sabbath peace has gone to- 
 gether with their sleep. For a few minutes they lie 
 quietly. Then one drops a single word to which the 
 other responds. Their remarks grow longer and fre- 
 quent until they find themselves carrying on a con- 
 versation. Both talk at the same time. He does not 
 
 [87]
 
 NINE YIDDISH WRITERS 
 
 hear what she is saying, neither does she follow him. 
 ' 'Beile,' he looks at her and meeting her eyes, he 
 continues, 'I sometimes figure how the poor 
 
 ' 'Those fellows what do you mean, you don- 
 key ' 
 
 ' Tor instance the money I put up every day for 
 the pushcart 
 
 ' 'It costs me ten kopeks a day. Just think, three 
 rubles a month 
 
 ' Tor this sum we could prepare an excellent 
 soup ' 
 
 ' 'In three months I could buy a cart of my own 
 
 ' 'Soup sufficient for all ' 
 
 ' 'And what a cart ' 
 
 ' 'Now we go dry every day 
 
 ' 'Yes, we are drying up.' 
 
 "Abraham happens to overhear the last word. 
 The conversation stops for a few minutes and both 
 think of their 'drying up.' They again exchange 
 sighs and groans, and when they have had enough 
 of that, their glances begin to wander to each other 
 and they strike up another conversation. 
 
 "They have a great deal to talk about, but they 
 find it difficult to bring out the words from their 'in- 
 side.' Finally they take up the topic of their children. 
 [88]
 
 JONAH ROSENFELD 
 
 ' 'It's time the girls got something,' says Beile. 
 'When I was Leah's age, I had been married five 
 years and had a son.' 
 
 "The last word reminds her that that son died 
 three years ago. 
 
 1 'Woe to his mother. So young and with a face 
 so bright, he lies rotting in the ground.' 
 
 1 'Wouldn't it have been better if I were in his 
 place? What am I but an old broken skull. What 
 good am I? What can I do for the girls? If he 
 were alive I wouldn't have to worry. 'Mamma!' he 
 said, 'I won't marry until I get husbands for Leah 
 and Zelde!' And he really didn't marry. Woe to his 
 mother.' 
 
 Abraham lies gazing with glassy eyes at the ceil- 
 ing, and his wife's words come pouring into his ears. 
 His heart grows heavy. He sees his dead son stand- 
 ing before him. The house is hushed, but one feels 
 as if the soul of the dead is walking about on tip- 
 toe; and in the stillness, a voice seems to be talking 
 in the language that only souls can understand, a 
 language that only hearts can respond to with a sigh 
 or a groan. They both lie there in silence, until the 
 day steals out of the house and night steals in. 
 
 ' 'It's dark,' says Beile. 
 
 [89]
 
 NINE YIDDISH WRITERS 
 
 ' 'It's dark,' Abraham answers. 
 
 "Both rise, stretch and yawn. For a few minutes 
 silence prevails. 
 
 ' 'I don't feel quite well,' Beile says. 
 
 " 'Neither do I,' says Abraham, shriveling up. A 
 loud yawn is heard. 
 
 "They both say their evening prayers, and then 
 exchange the usual Saturday greetings. Silence 
 again. 
 
 ' 'Will you stay in the house?' Beile asks, wrap- 
 ping herself up in her shawl. 
 
 ' 'I will go to see a neighbor,' he answers, some- 
 what vexed. 
 
 ' 'And I will go to see a woman neighbor,' Beile 
 says. 
 
 "She turns down the lamp. Both go out and the 
 house remains empty." 
 
 What a cheerless picture not a ray of love, not 
 a spark of joy,, even Sabbath is spent in sad thoughts 
 and in bitter quarrels. The Sabbath afternoon-rest, 
 which has been considered the symbol of peace since 
 the Talmudic days, degenerates into a disgusting 
 snorting, followed by disconnected foolish conversa- 
 tion. 
 
 And yet the entire picture is strictly and artistically 
 [90]
 
 JONAH ROSENFELD 
 
 realistic. It is the home viewed from a certain angle, 
 the home studied in a cold gray light, drawn in 
 white and black, with no poetic coloring, no senti- 
 mental shading. It is the home as it impresses a 
 sensitive soul that responds only to sadness and sor- 
 row. 
 
 The home forms a background to many of Ros- 
 enfeld's strictly psychological tales. The Jew is do- 
 mestic; a home builder, a family lover. Every indi- 
 vidual of the race stands out in best relief when seen 
 in a home atmosphere; his mental processes are best 
 analyzed when taken in connection with the family 
 group. And this is another striking evidence of how 
 faithful our author is to life and reality. His entire 
 perspective is correct, the subject as well as the 
 background, as well as the atmosphere. 
 
 Here is another family scene. The story is of a 
 weak, hysterical, morbid woman growing faint and 
 losing consciousness in the falling shadows of a cold 
 winter evening. Rosenfeld finds her in her home 
 surrounded by her little children's prattle of dark- 
 ness and fear that freezes up the very blood in the 
 mother's veins. 
 
 ' 'Mamma, it's dark'," a child's voice is heard in 
 the dark room. 
 
 [91]
 
 NINE YIDDISH WRITERS 
 
 ' 'Mamma, light the lamp','' another childish 
 voice. 
 
 The mother lies in bed troubled. Her husband is 
 in the factory, four versts out of town. He has left 
 home without his coat how will he get back in this 
 cold weather? 
 
 " 'Mamma, I'm cold.' ' 
 
 ' 'I, too.' ' 
 
 ' 'Come into bed.' ' 
 
 The children ply her with silly questions and she 
 keeps thinking of her husband. She is sure he will 
 catch cold. What a terrible storm! 
 
 The children talk of the wind blowing over the 
 room, and of the black cat that cannot be chased off 
 the quilt. 
 
 When they stop talking, her imagination sets to 
 work. She sees her husband covered with sweat, 
 hurrying out coatless into the cold air to get home. 
 The wind strikes him full in the face. He comes 
 home, coughing, sick! Immediately he gets to bed, 
 refusing to eat or to tell of his pain. At night he 
 awakes in high fever. No money for a physician 
 and now he is lying on the floor dead. 
 
 The children resume their prattle. They ask her 
 for stories about robbers. Her fear and nervousness 
 [92]
 
 JONAH ROSENFELD 
 
 keep on growing. The children feel her shivering 
 and cold. " 'Mamma's feet are cold. Let me warm 
 you'." ' 'Me, too'." 
 
 A pause. Then they begin to prattle about ghosts 
 and spirits that wander in the night. They are afraid. 
 They imagine somebody is knocking at the shutters. 
 They embrace mother and ask if she too is afraid. 
 
 ' Mamma, you once had a little girl. You told 
 us so. She died. Why did she die?' ' ' 'Was she a 
 pretty girl?' ' ' 'Is she now lying in a grave?' " 
 ' 'It must be cold there. Snow and mist'." 
 
 ' 'Did you have a father, mother?" ' ' 'Did he 
 die?" ' 'And your mother did she die also?' ' 
 
 And so they go on prattling their sombre and sad 
 questions. Finally the father comes, and then only 
 is she discovered, lying unconscious in the embrace 
 of her little ones. 
 
 The characters, the atmosphere, and the back- 
 ground in this sketch form a marvelous unity. The 
 night, the frost, and wind, the cat, the prattling chil- 
 dren all combine to awaken these morbid thoughts 
 in the weak, nervous woman. She lies in her bed, 
 helpless, unable to offer the least resistance. Each 
 sombre suggestion forces her soul a little nearer to 
 the dark seas of death. Her own home, her own 
 [93]
 
 NINE YIDDISH WRITERS 
 
 family, the sources whence she draws her very life, 
 are the agents of her destruction. They are one with 
 her weak, morbid spirit, one with her nervous, fear- 
 laden soul. 
 
 Sorrow, sadness, night, and death everywhere. 
 Rosenfeld discovers them in the peaceful home, in 
 the play of innocent children, in the love of young 
 hearts, even at the wedding festivity. He rarely tells 
 a story without the presence of the suggestion of 
 death in it. 
 
 They are alike in their morbidity the respected, 
 well-to-do Cantor, who hears nothing but praise 
 from his community, and the coachman who stands 
 alone in the cold winter night waiting for a fare. 
 The joy of living is never present in any of his char- 
 acters be they rich or poor, coarse or refined, 
 healthy or sick. 
 
 [94]
 
 SHOLOM ASCH 
 
 ^-Appreciation 
 
 From EAST AND WEST 
 December, 1915
 
 Yv HEN the future historian of 
 Yiddish literature will survey the range of its high- 
 est peaks in the first century of its life his eye will 
 rest simultaneously on Perez and Sholom Asch. The 
 particular criterion employed will yield different 
 results as to which one tops the other; but none 
 will differ as to their dominance in the long chain 
 of predecessors and contemporaries. 
 
 Sholom Asch was only twenty-four years of age 
 when he created his little epic "The Town" ; and the 
 eleven years that time has added to his life since 
 have seen his literary powers growing and widening. 
 "The Town" is the embryo, or shall we rather call 
 it, the nucleus of his genius. In it are revealed the 
 lyricism of his poetry, the realism of his observa- 
 tion, the romanticism of his dreams, the paganism 
 of his philosophy. In it we trace in delicate outlines 
 the old and the young Jew, the Jew of the vanishing 
 patriarchal security, and of the new civilized unrest, 
 the Jew of traditional faith and absolute trust in 
 
 [97]
 
 NINE YIDDISH WRITERS 
 
 God, and the Jew of earthly ambitions and lowly 
 ideals. We perceive them emerging gradually, al- 
 most imperceptibly, from waves of poetry that beat 
 from the soil below and the sky above. And real 
 as these figures are, they seem delusive and roman- 
 tic, submerged in the overpowering seas of emotion. 
 
 "The Town" is the keynote to Asch's genius and 
 art. In his succeeding work his portrayal of men 
 has grown more definite and more vigorous. His 
 powerful sense of realism has asserted itself and 
 has led him to delve into the least attractive, the 
 least inviting outlets of the Jew's suppressed energy 
 in the lands of his suffering. His poetic power, too, 
 grew more conscious of its elemental force, of its 
 pagan qualities; and he sought his themes in heroes 
 of Biblical days, in the clash of primitive passions 
 and primitive gods and also in the new paganism 
 of modern revolutionary literature. 
 
 The first generation of Yiddish literature suffered 
 greatly from the danger that ever lurks in the high- 
 ways and by-ways of art, the danger of tendency. 
 To teach, to enlighten, to expose, to destroy, to build 
 each literary light of our early period chose one 
 of these for his motto and aim. Even Perez was be- 
 set by this peril most of the time traces of the ef- 
 
 [98]
 
 SHOLOM ASCH 
 
 fects are to be detected in some of the most artistic 
 works of this period. 
 
 Perhaps this was inevitable. The Russian Jew of 
 the Ghetto towns in the last quarter of the nine- 
 teenth century had much greater need of the reform 
 and enlightenment of knowledge than of the edifica- 
 tion and ennoblement of art. Whether it be the 
 result or the cause of circumstances, Asch escaped 
 the greater menace almost completely. His art has 
 very seldom been weakened by tendency, has very 
 seldom been made to serve a purpose, a cause, be it 
 ever so high, ever so sacred to his own soul. In the 
 terrible revolutionary upheaval in the Jewish towns 
 of Russia at the beginning of this century, when the 
 entire Jewish youth was drawn into the vortex and 
 confusion of strife, Asch remained loyal to his art. 
 Not that he was indifferent to the momentous 
 events, not that those terrible days failed to stir his 
 soul and heat his blood. Nay, he saw all, he absorbed 
 and responded. But this he did not as a worker, 
 not as a participant in the struggle, not as a zealot, 
 or a believer or soldier; but as the artist, as the 
 dreamer, philosopher and interpreter and painter of 
 emotions and impressions. 
 
 This is also true of his attitude to the agitation! 
 [99]
 
 NINE YIDDISH WRITERS 
 
 over the Jewish problem that shook Russian Judaism 
 in those days of storm and unrest. The questions of 
 Zionism, nationalism, cosmopolitanism, the revival 
 of Palestinism, the amalgamation of national and 
 revolutionary principles, the neo-chassidism, these 
 and many other creeds that sprang into life during 
 those memorable days influenced Asch not as a cru- 
 sader for one cause or the other, but as an interpreter 
 of them all, as an artist purely and faithfully. 
 
 In the comparatively short period of his literary 
 activity, Asch has gained wide popularity in the cul- 
 tural spheres of Russia, Germany and Poland. His 
 dramas have often appeared in the leading theatres 
 of Berlin, Warsaw and Petersburg. His stories have 
 been welcomed in the best periodicals of those coun- 
 tries. Though one of the youngest of Yiddish writ- 
 ers, his fame in the non- Yiddish world has not been 
 equalled by any one of his predecessors and contem- 
 poraries. 
 
 How to account for it? Wide popularity doesn't 
 necessarily proceed from superior qualities, recogni- 
 tion in strange lands isn't always the result of mer- 
 ited triumphs. But in the case of Sholom Asch such 
 is the truth. The young Yiddish literateur has en- 
 tered the world of fame by his own effort, his own 
 [100]
 
 SHOLOM ASCH 
 
 power and strength. No accident of any kind has 
 assisted; the hand of fate was entirely absent. 
 
 The international artistic world was first attracted 
 by the marvelous canvas on which his work was 
 wrought. That background of nature; those living, 
 musing, feeling suns and clouds and streams and 
 rocks and clods of soil and blades of grass; the soul 
 that throbs in dark recesses of the forest and exalts 
 in the beams of the sun; the voice that cries out 
 God's love and tenderness and sympathy from the 
 depths of the darkness at night and the glory of 
 light by day this has struck a responsive chord ii> 
 every artistic soul that had the good fortune of 
 reading our author either in the original or in trans- 
 lation. 
 
 The nature element in Asch's works is character- 
 istically his own, and also beautifully his own. For 
 Asch deals with nature just as he does with his 
 human beings. He paints it faithfully, realistically, 
 but while he draws the lines and puts on the colors, 
 he breathes into it his ov/n soul, the warmth of his 
 own blood. Unlike the Biblical legend of God's 
 voice being heard only in the gentle breezes, Asch's 
 tenderness and gentleness pervade all manifesta- 
 tions of nature be it a stormy sea, a haunted wood, 
 [101]
 
 NINE YIDDISH WRITERS 
 
 frightening shadows or oppressive skies. For to Asch 
 all that is living is good and beautiful, even the evil 
 and ugly God is in all. 
 
 And perhaps it is this quality more than any other 
 that has rendered Asch's men and women, his situa- 
 tions and conflicts, so acceptable to all readers 
 among Jews and other people. Asch has tempered 
 realism with idealism, he has breathed his own ro- 
 mantic spirit into the hard facts of life. He has 
 exalted the commonplace into the higher plains of 
 dreamland and fancy. 
 
 In the hands of the ordinary craftsman this task 
 would lead to a bungling in one direction or an- 
 other. Either the realistic element would be weak- 
 ened by the idealistic or vice versa ; and critics would 
 deplore the grafting and advise pruning. But in the 
 hands of the master, the marvelous feat was ac- 
 complished. The harmony amongst the various el- 
 ements renders the edifice a veritable wonder of 
 conception and execution. The critic dares not in- 
 terfere, dares hardly to analyze and examine the 
 elements individually. He is overcome with admira- 
 tion. 
 
 Rigid realists, I mean artists who believe in di- 
 
 [102]
 
 SHOLOM ASCH 
 
 vesting themselves completely of their heart and 
 soul and paint things as their thinking mind sees 
 them; critics who believe in the supremacy of this 
 mode, will find little to praise and commend in 
 Sholom Asch. For a realist of this kind, he most 
 surely is not. From this category of artists he stands 
 removed at a distance immeasurable. But it is equal- 
 ly wrong to call him a romantic and poet, and rel- 
 egate him to the regions of art that are visited only 
 for refreshing youthful dreams and invoking fancies 
 and sentiments, for a temporary warming up of the 
 soul and heart. 
 
 For Asch is a realist, only he is more than that. 
 If the suffering of his creatures doesn't make us 
 storm and rage, if the cruelty of his characters doesn't 
 call forth denunciations, if the situations and events, 
 be they ever so beautiful and poetic, inspire in us but 
 a vague longing, a soft tender yearning and nothing 
 else this is not because the realism of the character 
 and situations are defective but rather because they 
 are inspired with a peculiar spirit, because they are 
 immersed in a peculiar atmosphere the spirit and 
 atmosphere that are wholly and peculiarly Asch's 
 own. 
 
 Asch sees the drama of life in all its tragedy and 
 [103]
 
 NINE YIDDISH WRITERS 
 
 comedy as clearly as the most faithful at the shrine 
 of realism. He sees the injustice of nature and the 
 perversities of man; the heroism of the obscure and 
 the weaknesses of the conspicuous. And what he 
 sees, he paints. The pictures are all there, hundreds 
 of them, crowding all the pages of his many vol- 
 umes But over them are shed the rays of Asch's 
 artistic soul, and they are transformed to the vision 
 of our conscience. A softness, a tenderness is wafted 
 over them, and we absorb it together with the out- 
 lines and colors of the scenes proper. 
 
 Thus we behold the Jewish daughter sacrificing 
 her dark tresses, the pride and divinity of her pure 
 and delicate heart on the altar of fanaticism. We see 
 her struggling against the dark forces of dogma and 
 superstition, and yielding to them. But all the time 
 that this tragedy is being enacted in all its grimness 
 and cruelty, we do not for a moment grow indignant 
 or impassioned in any way. We accuse no one, 
 blame no one, not even fate. For the purity and 
 tenderness that emanate from her beautiful soul 
 absorb also us, and just as she is unable to be harsh 
 or hard, so are we. And together with her we yield 
 finally to the very forces that are exerted upon her. 
 We yield together with her, blindly but sincerely, 
 [104]
 
 SHOLOM ASCH 
 
 overcome by pity and love for the one whose suffer- 
 is just as great, if not just as noble and beautiful. 
 
 And we undergo a similar experience while fol- 
 lowing the tragic fate of little Yosel, the child that 
 was born old in a little Ghetto town of Poland to 
 die young in a Ghetto tenement of the East Side. 
 We follow his frail body and delicate soul in all the 
 stages of their wanderings, on the earth below and 
 in the clouds above. We see him turned back from 
 the gates of this country, sentenced to be torn from 
 his mother and father and cast back across the dark 
 ocean into the arms of an indifferent or perhaps 
 worse relative. We see him dreaming of the great 
 day when he will be permitted to return into the 
 fold of his family. And when his great dream is 
 finally fulfilled, we pass with him through the in- 
 tense spiritual sufferings that the new life and new 
 environments bring so suddenly upon him. We see 
 him bend and break beneath the burden of his pain; 
 we behold the delicate soul take leave forever of 
 the frail crushed body. 
 
 And suffering with him are his parents, his sister; 
 
 each with his or her tragedy. The atmosphere, too, 
 
 surrounding the creatures is full of longing and 
 
 yearning, partings of friends and breaking up of 
 
 [105]
 
 NINE YIDDISH WRITERS 
 
 homes; physical and mental hardships, fear and ig- 
 norance and helplessness. 
 
 And yet, midst all that, we remain quiet and se- 
 rene. The heart is filled with pity, the soul is heavy 
 with sympathy and love, the spirit goes out in a 
 vague yearning to those unfortunates. But we are 
 not stirred to passion, our minds are not inflamed. 
 The artist has infused the spirit of his own soul into 
 the tragedy and that spirit casts upon us a vague and 
 dreamy painfulness, nothing more. 
 
 It has been said that Asch is defective in the dra- 
 matic sense, and yet some of his dramas have met 
 with considerable success in the theatres of various 
 lands. There is plenty of drama, plenty of action in 
 Asch's writings, in his tales as well as his plays. But 
 the effect they produce is rather unique, hence the 
 misjudgment, hence also the difficulty experienced by 
 the producers in accounting for his successes and 
 failures with the various audiences. 
 
 This peculiar quality, this characteristic atmo- 
 sphere with which Asch endows all his creations, 
 is both his power and his weakness. Its strength 
 consists in its being wholly his own, in the wonder- 
 ful appeal it makes to the reader, in the transforma- 
 tion it works on all it touches. But it is weak be- 
 [106]
 
 SHOLOM ASCH 
 
 cause it fails to stir the deepest depth of our active 
 self, because it encourages the musing, dreaming 
 tendencies of our natures, because while under its 
 influence, we become too subjective, we feel the 
 heart obtruding itself too prominently in our con- 
 sciousness. 
 
 But Asch is a young man, very young compara- 
 tively speaking. Life hasn't yet had time to harden 
 his delicate sensibilities and dull somewhat his ten- 
 der nerves. When the mellowing, ageing pro- 
 cess of time's workshop will be done, Asch will 
 come forth, in the full of glory of his many powers 
 under the control of a strong mind and steeled spirit. 
 
 The future holds for us a still greater Asch than 
 the Asch of today. What a glorious and inspiring 
 hope! 
 
 [107]
 
 LEON KOBRIN 
 
 ^Appreciation 
 
 from EAST AND WEST 
 
 January, 1916
 
 p OR a whole generation 
 
 Kobrin and Libin were the leading writers of 
 Yiddish fiction on this side of the Atlantic. They 
 took up their pens about the same time when they 
 arrived in this country at the age of twenty, and they 
 developed along the same lines, from the short story 
 to the drama and then to the novel. And their suc- 
 cess in popularity and in material advancement, was 
 almost identical. In the minds of the great mass of 
 readers and theatre-goers the one name always sug- 
 gests the other. 
 
 Yet how widely different are these two authors 
 in their art in their conception and handling of 
 themes. 
 
 I have spoken of Libin on a previous occasion of 
 his humor, sympathy, tenderness and gentleness, of 
 the seas of love and pity in which all his tenement 
 house and sweat shop characters are immersed of 
 the simple truth stamped on the faces of all his 
 
 [ill]
 
 LEON KOBRIN 
 
 creations, of the characteristic atmosphere and back- 
 ground in each canvas of his painting. 
 
 Kobrin belongs to a different school entirely one 
 that is far more ambitious, and in which it is much 
 more difficult to achieve success. Kobrin has sought 
 for his genre the elemental passions of man at crit- 
 ical moments when they are least controllable, or in 
 beings where they are never under restraint. He has 
 grappled with the elemental forces in human nature 
 and has attempted to draw them in their bareness 
 and brutality, discarding all neutralizing and weak- 
 ening admixtures. 
 
 This is by no means all of Kobrin ; but it is Kobrin 
 at his height, Kobrin at his best, the part of Kobrin 
 that has a store of vitality which may keep him alive 
 for a term of years of longer or shorter duration. 
 
 And because he has chosen a task so difficult, the 
 critics are at extreme variance as to the success of 
 his achievements. Some go into ecstasies over his 
 dramatic powers, for the clash of elemental forces 
 must necessarily be furious; while others turn from 
 him completely for the utter lack of artistic atmos- 
 phere, which gives his products the appearance of 
 journalistic "stories" or of well told anecdotes. 
 
 Kobrin has undertaken a most difficult task in- 
 [112]
 
 NINE YIDDISH WRITERS 
 
 deed, and if for nothing else, he has merited praise 
 for the very attempt, for the ambitious straining. 
 For this much will be conceded by all his detractors 
 as well as his admirers, that his efforts have all 
 been sincere, artistically sincere. In this field, that 
 borders so closely on the sensationally vulgar and 
 obscene, Kobrin has taken care to keep within the 
 bounds that his own artistic powers have worked 
 out for him. The evidence of an earnest searching 
 into the psychological workings of the characters 
 is plentiful; in his situations too he is always on 
 guard to divert the attention from the mere vulgar 
 to the general struggle between the dramatic agen- 
 cies. He never forgets his aim of writing literature 
 and not mere stuff for selling purposes. 
 
 The effort he unmistakably makes, how does he 
 succeed? Here we are again on disputed ground. 
 Shall we say that he succeeds in a measure? Perhaps 
 that would be nearest to the truth. The measure, 
 however, will have to be determined by each of his 
 readers according to his individual estimate of the 
 author's merit and failures. Kobrin does not belong 
 to that class of artists whose powers stand above 
 and beyond dispute, whose gifts cannot be reduced 
 
 [113]
 
 LEON KOBRJN 
 
 to a measurable size. He is not of the class in which 
 we include Perez, Asch and Reisin. 
 
 Rarely does Kobrin write a story that is entirely 
 free of melodramic effects or sentimental garnish- 
 ing; rarely does he prefer psychological analysis to 
 physical action. And what other explanation is need- 
 ed for the wide popularity he enjoys among the vast 
 reading masses, and the doubtful fame that is his 
 in the narrow circle of better critics? 
 
 His admirers compare him to Maupassant and to 
 the Russian Tchechov for the bare stark realism of 
 most of his writing. This also is true within limits. 
 His themes do indeed remind one of that school of 
 unconventional artists who put truth above all else, 
 but not so his treatment and execution. He lacks the 
 art of the Frenchman and the psychology of the 
 Russian. 
 
 The future historian will undoubtedly award a re- 
 spectable place to our author. For whatever our 
 opinion be of him when measured by the absolute 
 standards of art, he certainly has earned a position 
 in the scheme of development of our literature. As 
 indicated above, Kobrin was the first to introduce the 
 struggle of primitive passions into Yiddish Art I 
 mean in their beastly savage intensity, in their un- 
 [114]
 
 NINE YIDDISH WRITERS 
 
 bridled ferocity. Others have followed his footsteps 
 and far outstripped him ; but he was the pioneer and 
 for that, Yiddish letters will always owe him a debt 
 of recognition and gratitude. 
 
 About one year ago a leading Yiddish monthly 
 published a short serial of Kobrin's which displayed 
 the best and most characteristic powers of the au- 
 thor. It was called "Apartment No. 3" and is an 
 attempt at portraying the inside of a disreputable 
 house in all its horrors, crime and sin. The mistress 
 of the apartment is an elderly woman, kindly, moth- 
 erly in her conversation, firm in her religious be- 
 lief, but devoid of all human feeling where "busi- 
 ness" is concerned. The hero of the story, the pro- 
 curer, is the impersonation of all animal strength 
 and passion, a savage ready to kill at the least pro- 
 vocation, always plotting destruction of his prey, and 
 yet irresistible in his fascination for women, be they 
 ever so virtuous, ever so strongly intrenched in their 
 principles of morality and purity. 
 
 The story is frank and brutal event follows 
 event, the innocent victims are dragged to their fate 
 by savage instincts and inflamed passions. And each 
 event is crowned by a melodramatic catastrophe, 
 boiling and raging in the well known style. Now 
 
 [115]
 
 LEON KOBRIN 
 
 and then the author pauses for a moment to attempt 
 a short scrutiny into the souls of his creatures, but 
 he is either too weak or too busy for such a task. Just 
 a dash or two and he hurries on with the story. The 
 events, the dramatic clashes, rush before the eyes of 
 the reader in a constant whirl of flesh, glowing with 
 forbidden lust, of eyes ablaze with sin, of depravity 
 running mad in an outburst of riot. And amidst 
 this raving and raging of passion, knives are drawn, 
 shots are heard and innocent victims are hurled to 
 death. 
 
 Is it a story of the dime novel variety? No, though 
 the resemblances are very many and very striking 
 indeed. True indeed, there is too much action, too 
 much drama and far, far too little character drawing 
 and psychological insight; true also that the "apart- 
 ment" though drawn in all its physical details, is 
 without atmosphere, without "soul" so to speak. Yet 
 there is an unmistakable seriousness on the part of 
 the author. One can see it in the tone, in the effort 
 to breathe life into the characters, in the signs of 
 restraint at the intensest moments. One must con- 
 clude that Kobrin meant well even if he did not 
 succeed well. 
 
 This then is Kobrin the artist, so much as there is 
 
 [116]
 
 NINE YIDDISH WRITERS 
 
 of him possessed of a high sense of the dramatic, 
 a realist, a portrayer of the externals, journalistic in 
 his attempts at psychological analysis creating 
 good stories but poor characters, good situation but 
 poor atmosphere, and withal sincerely and seriously 
 devoted to his work and to his art, exploiting to the 
 best of his ability all the gifts with which nature 
 has endowed him. 
 
 And perhaps that is the reason he devotes so much 
 of his time to the writing of dramas. Kobrin has 
 been identified with the Jewish stage for the last 
 twenty years or so, and to his credit must be ascribed 
 some of the very best tragedies and comedies presen- 
 ted in the Jewish theatre of this country. Unlike 
 some of his colleagues he has never lowered his 
 standard for the gratification of the managers. He 
 is as serious and well intentioned in his dramas as 
 in his stories and novelettes. In all the exigencies 
 of the theatre, in all its compromises with melo- 
 drama and popular fads, Kobrin has remained stead- 
 fast and faithful to his principles of art. And he 
 has paid dearly for it. He was made to suffer 
 neglect and had the cold shoulder of indifference 
 turned to him at every manager's door. Yet he held 
 out and always came back triumphant. 
 [117]
 
 LEON KOBRIN 
 
 It was his power of dramatization, his execellent 
 sense of technique of the stage that saved the day 
 for him in the end. It was also his attitude of seri- 
 ousness, his effort to achieve artistic success that 
 helped him in his troubles. The managers have 
 learned by long and repeated experiences that there 
 is always an audience of some intelligent theatre-go- 
 ers ready to come and appreciate a work by Kobrin, 
 ready to applaud the managers' willingness and 
 the players' effort to yield to the desires of those 
 classes that are of necessity less numerous than the 
 crowds who are atracted by the cheap hodge-podge 
 of the inferior writers. 
 
 And yet it must be said that Kobrin' s dramas are 
 far from deserving the name of true literature. The 
 weaknesses we have discovered in his stories are in 
 full evidence in his dramatic works. The plot, and 
 sometimes the idea behind the plot, absorb the at- 
 tention of the writer to the neglect of all else. There 
 is plenty of physical action, but much too little of 
 spiritual and moral development in his characters. 
 There is also a lack of artistic background, of a 
 distinctive atmosphere that puts the stamp of the 
 writer's soul and spirit upon his work. 
 
 [118]
 
 NINE YIDDISH WRITERS 
 
 In line with his sincere devotion to his art, are 
 Kobrin's labors as a translator of foreign literature 
 into Yiddish. He has indeed devoted a great part 
 of his time to this work with much praiseworthy 
 results. His translations of Maupassant, Zola, 
 Tchechov, and many other European writers are 
 done with sincerity and love. His easy and simple 
 style render him the translator par excellence of 
 foreign authors. 
 
 [119]
 
 U 
 
 X-3U71
 
 000537998 7