Category Archives: Writers & Thinkers

Jews in the Wonderful World of Literature, Thought, and Scholarship

Jew of the Week: Sholem Aleichem

The Jewish Mark Twain

Sholem Solomon Alexei Rabinovich (1859-1916) was born to a wealthy family near Kyiv in what was then the Russian Empire. He grew up in the Jewish shtetl of Voronkiv, receiving both a secular education and a traditional Jewish one. His father lost most of the family’s fortunes, and his mother died of cholera when he was just 13. Rabinovich started writing around this time, and already at age 15 wrote a Jewish version of Robinson Crusoe. He wrote stories in Hebrew, Yiddish, and Russian. At 24, he took up the pen name “Sholem Aleichem”, the Yiddish pronunciation of the Hebrew greeting meaning “peace be upon you”. After completing his studies, he worked as a teacher and then as a “crown rabbi”, a representative of the Jewish community to the Russian government. He lost his own wealth in the stock market in 1890 and at one point struggled to make a living and feed his five children. By the end of the 1890s, Sholem Aleichem was the most popular Yiddish writer in the world, and inspired countless other young Jewish writers. He published Tevye the Milkman in 1894, which was later adapted to Fiddler on the Roof, becoming a major international hit (as well as a Broadway play—the first to run for more than 3000 performances—and a film). Rabinovich lived in Kyiv until 1905, when terrible pogroms raged across the Russian Empire and he witnessed the brutality firsthand. The family fled, splitting their time between New York City and Geneva, Switzerland. All in all, Sholem Aleichem wrote some 40 works in Yiddish, and many more in Hebrew and Russian. He was commonly referred to as “the Jewish Mark Twain”. (When Mark Twain himself heard about this, he said that he was actually “the American Sholem Aleichem”!) Rabinovich was a passionate Zionist, too, joining Hovevei Zion in 1888, and representing the American Jewish community at the Eighth Zionist Congress in 1907. There are streets, schools, and other public places named after him around the world, including in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Israel, Lithuania, Russia, Ukraine, and the United States. There is even a Sholem Aleichem Crater on the planet Mercury! Rabinovich’s funeral drew some 100,000 mourners, making it among the largest in New York’s history. He wrote in his will: “Let my name be recalled with laughter, or not at all.”

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Words of the Week

Life is a dream for the wise, a game for the fool, a comedy for the rich, a tragedy for the poor.
– Sholem Aleichem

Jew of the Week: Josephus

Greatest Jewish Historian

An 1817 depiction of Josephus

Yosef ben Matityahu (c. 37-100 CE) was born in Jerusalem to a wealthy family of kohanim descended from the Maccabees. As a young man, he explored various philosophies and schools of thought, ultimately resolving to become a Pharisee and live a Torah-observant life. He traveled to Rome as part of a delegation to free Jewish captives. When the First Jewish-Roman War (or “Great Revolt”) broke out, Yosef was appointed military commander of the Galilee region. After several initial successes, he lost to the Romans during the siege on Yodfat. Pigeon-holed in a cave with 40 other soldiers, the group resolved to commit suicide rather than surrender. As Yosef would later write, the other soldiers all killed each other to avoid capture, but he chickened out and gave himself up to the Romans. He offered to be useful to the Roman general Vespasian (soon to become Caesar) and helped him navigate the Judean terrain. He also served as his translator and negotiator. After the war ended (with the destruction of Jerusalem’s Holy Temple), he settled in Rome, was granted Roman citizenship, and continued to work for the new Flavian Dynasty, taking on the name “Flavius Josephus”. For this treachery, Josephus was never looked well upon by Jews. Nonetheless, he spent much of his remaining years writing extensively about Jews and Judaism, dispeling myths about the mysterious people, and helping to portray them more positively. Today, Josephus’ works are a wealth of knowledge for historians and Jewish scholars. They provide eye-witness accounts of the Great Revolt, and a detailed explanation of Jewish life at the end of the Second Temple era, as well as a treasure trove of information about the Roman Empire. Though he did not mention Jesus, his writings have been used extensively by Christian scholars to understand the context in which Christianity emerged. His work has also been used extensively by archaeologists to make sense of ancient finds in Israel, most notably at Masada, and even to discover the tomb of King Herod. Among his books are Antiquities of the Jews, Wars of the Jews, and Against Apion, which was a defense of Judaism debunking the claims of the antisemitic Greek writer Apion Mochthos. Today, Josephus’ works are considered among the most important historical texts of all time.

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Words of the Week

Should anyone of our nation be asked about our laws, he will repeat them as readily as his own name. The result of our thorough education in our laws from the very dawn of intelligence is that they are, as it were, engraved on our souls.
– Josephus

Jew of the Week: Isaac Judaeus

The Caliph’s Doctor and the Father of Kabbalah

A 13th-century illustration of Isaac Israeli from a Latin translation of his “Book of Fevers”

Itzhak ben Shlomo (c. 832-932) was born to a religious Jewish family in Egypt. He became renowned as the greatest physician in the country, and in 904 was hired by Prince Ziyadat Allah III. Several years later, he became court physician to Caliph Al-Mahdi Billah of the Fatimid Dynasty, based in Kairouan, Tunisia. Recognizing his immense wisdom, the Caliph made Itzhak (known in Arabic as “Abu Yaqub Ishaq ibn Suleiman al-Israili”, and in Europe as “Isaac Judaeus”) his leading advisor and tutor. Itzhak wrote numerous medical, astronomical, and mathematical treatises which transformed the scientific knowledge of the day. For instance, he is the first person in history to mention performing a tracheostomy. His works were widely distributed for centuries afterwards, and made up much of the medical curriculum of the Middle Ages. Itzhak was also a great philosopher, kabbalist, and mystic. He fused together Greek Neoplatonism with traditional Jewish mysticism, paving the way for the forthcoming explosion of Kabbalistic texts and Jewish mystical circles. His main disciple, Dunash ibn Tamim, wrote a profound commentary on Sefer Yetzirah, the most ancient of Kabbalistic texts. In addition to inspiring many rabbis, he was studied and quoted by great non-Jewish scholars like Thomas Aquinas and Roger Bacon. Among his many other writings is a deeply philosophical commentary on Genesis. In his day, Isaac Judaeus was the world’s leading sage, doctor, and scientist, and Arabic texts of the time refer to him as “master of the seven sciences” and “more valuable than gems”.

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Words of the Week

We do not have to accept theories as certainties, no matter how widely accepted, for they are like blossoms that fade. Very soon science will be developed further and all of today’s new theories will be derided and scorned and the well-respected wisdom of our day will seem small-minded.
– Rav Kook, First Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel