Persecution Made Peretz a Poet, He Wrote in Letters Just Found

The eighty-first anniversary of the birth of Isaac Leibush Peretz, Yiddish poet and dramatist, is now being celebrated in Jewish literary circles throughout the world. He was born in Poland on May 18, 1852; he died there on April 3, 1915, more than eighteen years ago. In accordance with Jewish practice, the anniversary of his death has also recently been celebrated.

His influence as founder of modern Yiddish literature, as moulder of the Yiddish language, as interpreter of Jewish life, as well as his manifold social activities are recalled and emphasized everywhere, in the Yiddish press all over the world, particularly in his native Poland.

Born into an anti-Chassidic family, Peretz nevertheless became the poet of Chassidic life, achieving the height of his literary career in the stories and plays of that genre. Among his most popular works are “Monish” (mystic ballad); “The Metamorphosis of a Melody” (story) and the plays, “The Golden Chain” and “Night on the Old Market Place.” “The Golden Chain” was produced in New York by Maurice Schwartz in his Yiddish Art Theatre.

WIDELY TRANSLATED

Poet, story-teller, playwright, essayist, critic, columnist and translator, Peretz achieved a place in modern Yiddish literature equalled only by the position in letters won by Mendele Mocher Seforim and Sholem Aleichem.

His works, written mostly in Yiddish and partly in Hebrew, have been translated into Russian, German, French, Spanish English, Polish, Swedish, Hungarian, Roumanian, Esperanto and others.

Of great interest to the understanding of the versatile personality of Peretz are two of his letters which were recently discovered in Poland by Isaac Bernstein, now at work on a biography of Peretz.

Both are dated at the time (1888-1889) when Peretz lost the right to practice law because he was accused of conducting Socialist and revolutionary propaganda, the accusation having been based mainly on the fact that his songs became popular among the Jewish working classes.

SUFFERED DISCRIMINATION

The letters reveal the poet’s discouragement, although the world knew him as usually buoyant. Peretz is shown to have been terribly embittered and at a loss where to turn. Of particular timeliness is that note in the letter which shows how his plight resembled that of Jewish lawyers in Germany today, almost thirty-five years after the letters were written.

With particular emphasis Peretz points out that the local authorities knew of his innocence, but that despite their conviction they were afraid to intervene on his behalf with the Czarist Minister of Justice. “What can we do,” he says, “if it now became a shame and a disgrace to intercede for the children of Abraham?”

THEN BECAME A WRITER

Both letters were addressed to his cousin Moses Altberg in the city of Plotzk. They are the only ones that remained with the Altberg family Other letters to the Altbergs were destroyed during the many raids made by Czarist police in the Altberg home, a centre of the revolutionary independence movement of radical Polish and Jewish youth before the World War.

That period in Peretz’s life (1889) incidentally marked the turning point in the life of the Polish-Jewish provincial lawyer, who, from then on, dedicated himself entirely to his prose and poetry, which have given him a foremost place in Yiddish letters.

Peretz was born eighty-one years ago next Thursday in Zamoscz, Russian Poland.