Mendele (1836-1917)

Mendele Mocher Sforim was born Shalom Yakov Abramovitch in northern Ukraine. He is credited not only with founding Yiddish Literature, but Modern Hebrew Literature as well. A Yeshiva scholar, Abramovitch dove heavily into the haskole following the death of his father. The young Abramovitz began begging as a peddler on the streets of his the Czar-imposed Jewish Pale settlement, where he met maskil Abram Ber Gotlubber. He lived with Gotlubber and eventually married one of his daughters.

Abramovitz wrote his early works about social reform, and published them in Hebrew. Eventually, though, to appeal to the Yiddish-speaking masses, he created a persona for himself of Mendele Mocher Sforim, or "Mendele the Book Peddler." His haskole-inspired stories like The Magic Ring and The Meat Tax were designed to be both educational provocative, demanding the uplifting of his audience's minds towards education, betterment, and eventually social action.

Mendele faced a dissolusionment when he finally realized the "glass ceiling" that prevented Jews from rising too far in Russian society, and saw the limits that faced even an "enlightened" Jew. After 1881 he ceased producing new Yiddish writing, and returned to Hebrew.

Although his dreams of social change seemed shattered, Mendele opened the door for the hundreds of writers to follow him. If Shalom Aleichem is the father of Yiddish Literature, Mendele is its grandfather. His satiric, driven style foreshadows the power and determination of future writers who grappled with similar issues.