Sholem Aleichem

He married Olga Loev, daughter of a rich estate owner, in 1883 and relocated to Belaia Tserkov.

The couple inherited the land estate after Olga’s father died in 1885 and shifted to Kiev in 1887. However, he lost the entire wealth in the stock market in 1890 and became bankrupt.

The couple had six children – daughter Ernestina (1884), daughter Lyala (1887), daughter Emma (1888), son Elimelech (1889), daughter Marusi (1892), and son Nochum (1901).

Sholem Aleichem was born as Solomon Naumovich Rabinovich on February 18, 1859 in Pereyaslav, Russian Empire (modern-day Ukraine) into a wealthy family of timber merchants to Menachem-Nukhem Rabinovich and Chaye-Esther.

The family relocated to the neighboring Jewish town of Voronkovx when he was young, but a failed business deal forced the family to move back to Pereyaslav.

His childhood was further truncated with his mother’s death due to cholera epidemic, when he was just 13. He started writing at the age of 15, completing a Jewish version of ‘Robinson Crusoe’.

He completed his schooling from a local Russian secondary school, with distinction, in 1876, and became a private tutor to Olga (Hodel) Loev for the next three years.

In 1879, he became a local reporter for ‘Ha-Tsefirah’, a Hebrew weekly. During 1881 and 1882, he published his articles dealing with Jewish education in the Haskalah-related ‘Ha-Melits’.

Even though he desired to write in Russian or Hebrew, but later switched to Yiddish after analyzing its better accessibility with the Jewish masses.

He released his first Yiddish novel, ‘Tsvey shteyner’ (Two Gravestones), in 1883, under the penname ‘Sholem Aleichem’, a Hebrew greeting meaning ‘peace be upon you’ in Yiddish.

He helmed his first feuilletonistic sequence as a series of documents - ‘Di ibergekhapte briv af der post’ (Letters Intercepted at the Post Office), during 1883-84.

In the coming years, he penned more feuilletonistic sequences, such as ‘An ibershraybung tsvishn tsvey alte khaveyrim’ (A Correspondence between Two Old Friends; 1884) and ‘Kontor gesheft’ (Office Business; 1885).

His ‘Stempenyu’, written in 1888, is counted among his best novelistic concepts and literary works, narrating the love story between a musician and religious woman.

Towards the end of the 19th century, he created two literary characters – Menakhem Mendl and Tevye, which formed central figures in several of his stories.

In 1901, he published the monologue ‘Dos tepl’ (The Pot) which eventually became his forme maitresse and led to the release of a series of monologues that blended comedy with tragedy to perfection.