biography
| name: |
Sholem Aleichem
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also spelled Sholom or Shalom (Hebrew, ‘peace unto you’), pseudonym of Solomon J Rabinowitz
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pronunciation:
[alaykhem]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1859–1916)
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| biography:
| Writer, born in Pereyaslev, C Ukraine. After working as a rabbi, he devoted himself to writing and Yiddish culture. The pogroms of 1905 drove him to the USA, where he attempted to establish himself as a playwright for the Yiddish theatre in New York City. His short stories and plays portray Jewish life in Russia in the late 19th-c with vividness, humour, and sympathy, and were first widely introduced to a non-Jewish public in 1943 in Maurice Samuel's The World of Sholom Aleichem. The popular musical Fiddler on the Roof is based on the stories of Aleichem. |
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