SH. BER(E)NSHTEYN

SH. BER(E)NSHTEYN

We lack precise biographical details for him.  From published data and the remarks of publishers on the title pages of various editions of his writings, we can say the following: (1) he came from Kamenets-Podolsk (Kamianets-Podilskyi), Ukraine; (2) he signed his name “Sh. Bernshteyn” (with a segel beneath the resh [thus pronounced: Berenshteyn]; and (3) in the early 1880s he had already died.  From his poetry itself, on can see further that he was an educated man and knew Russian and German quite well.  In 1869 there was published in Zhitomir (Zhytomyr) his poetry collection entitled Magazin fun yudishe lider far dem yudishn folk (Storehouse of Yiddish poems for the Jewish people), 84 pp., which was later republished four times: in Warsaw (1880 and 1884) and in Berditshev (1888 and 1891), 73 pp.  Several selections from these poems came out from the publishing house of Morgenshtern (Warsaw, 1902)—entitled Zeks naye yudishe lider fun sh. bernshteyn (Six new Yiddish poems by Sh. Bernshteyn); the undated Shabesdike lider (Sabbath poems), five in number; and Zeltene lider (Rare poems), including “Drunkard with Flask” and five other poems.  In 1903 there was published in Warsaw a short volume of poems by Yitskhok-Mortkhe Vilinberg from Ostrovtse, entitled Dos shreklikhe unglik fun kishenev (The horrific sadness of Kishinev), which included, after the first poem beneath the book’s title, also five poems by Sh. Bernshteyn.

When Magazin fun yudishe lider far dem yudishn folk came out, Kol mevaser (The herald [1869, p. 323]) carried a “bibliographical announcement” concerning the book with a recommendation: “This booklet contains numerous new and beautiful poems from which one can see that Mr. B. has some considerable talent.”  The Magazin included twenty-six poems and eleven epigrams; under three of the last he noted: “from German” and under one “from Russian.”  Also, among the poems there was a citation from Schiller and a motto from Körner’s Tony.  The best poem in the collection, entitled “The Legend or the False Hope,” was written on the motif of Schiller’s Die Hoffnung (The hope).  The third one, according to their current order in the collection, is “A Poem by Mikhl Gordon”—a kind of song of approbation from the eminent Enlightenment poet, who shared a friendship with Berenshteyn and a popularity among the reading public.  Mikhl Gordon compared Berenshteyn’s writing with his own and said: “My own poems are bitter like gall and at times they have a sharp bite, while your poems are soft as butter and most of them—sweet as honey….  I have sung a number of poems, not because I have a nature to sing….  You sing your poems like a bird—singing is in your nature.”  These lines provide a good appraisal of Berenshteyn’s traits as a poet.  He did, indeed, have numerous commonalities with other Enlightenment poets of his generation: “Lament of the Sages” and “Prayer of the Sages” ridiculed Hassidic rabbis; “Deliverance for the Kings” is replete with Enlightenment patriotism for “His Majesty Tsar Alexander,” but aside from a few exceptions, Berenshteyn’s poetry was free of such Enlightenment tendencies; he “sang his poems like a bird.”  For the most part, his poems are close to folksongs, having within them a warmth, gentleness, and tender melancholic philosophy of life.  A great love for the simple toiling people flows from his songs, and not for nothing did people sing and sing again such poems as his, poems such as: “The Little Cradle,” “Young Tears,” “Purim Time,” “How Are You?” and “The Legend”—over the course of two generations.

In 1871 Kol mevaser (issue 21-31) published a theatrical piece entitled R. yakhtse dal gea (R. Yakhtse, beggar on horseback), “a comedy with a romance in five acts” by “Sh. Berenshteyn” (in book form it was published in Odessa in 1872, republished in Kishinev in 1884).  The comedy scoffed at the arrogance of pedigree and concluded with several epigrammatic poems of a social-satirical character.  In the 1860s and 1870s, he wrote articles, human-interest pieces, and satirical poems for Kol mevaser, using the pseudonym “Ani Shilshos bar Yente” (an anagram for Shmuel Berenshteyn; [lit., I am Shilshos son of Yenta), and it was very popular among readers of the newspaper.  His first story, entitled “Di velt hot zikh ibergekert” (The world turned upside down), appeared in Kol mevaser (issue no. 6) in 1870.  His “Fartseykhenungen vegn der shtot podlovits” (Notes on the city of Podlovits), which appeared in Kol mevaser in 1871, had a section entitled “Di vibores” (The elections), Kol mevaser (no. 49), which was later included in Y. Y. Linetski’s collection Dos mishlakhes (The calamity)—“scenes from Jewish life” (Zhitomir, 1875), and it excelled in its sharp satire of the wealthy and the communal leaders of that time.  The city Podlovits figures as well in the preface to a social depiction of his, “A nekome in tsveyen” (Double revenge), Kol mevaser (no. 7-18, 1872), and it evidently occupied for the writer a place much like Kabtsansk for Mendele or Yehupets for Sholem-Aleykhem.  A story of his from the life of the Jewish underworld, entitled “A velt mit kleyne veltelekh” (A world with small worlds), was later published in the newspaper Yisroelik, which Linetski and Goldfaden brought out in Lemberg in 1875-1876.

The likes of Zalmen Reyzen, Y. Tsinberg, and N. Oyslender now identify “Shmuel Berenshteyn” with Sh. Ber(s)nshteyn, author of Magazin fun yudishe lider far dem yudishn folk.  This identifying supposition can be substantiated by: (1) the epigrammatic poems at the end of R. yakhtse and the satirical poems “Ani Shilshos bar Yente” which offer a favorable comparison with a number of verses in Sh. Berenshteyn’s Magazin; and (2) the name “R. Yakhtse” can also be found in the poem “How Are You?” in Magazin.  On the other hand, however, Mikhl Gordon wrote in a note to the poem “My Assent”—“in the booklet called Magazin”—that he republished in the Warsaw edition (1889) of his Yudishe lider: “An enlightened man, a dear soul, Sholem Bernshteyn, may he rest in peace, published in 1868/1869 in Zhitomir his booklet of poems called Magazin.”  If one would assume that Mikhl Gordon made no mistake (the note was written twenty years later) with Bernshteyn’s name, then Shmuel Berenshteyn (Shilshos bar Yente) is an entirely different person.  In any event, it is clear that Shilshos bar Yente was the pseudonym of Shmuel Berenshteyn and not of Dr. Y. L. Kantor, as Sh. L. Tsitron wrote in his Geshikhte fun der yidisher prese (History of the Yiddish press), vol. 1 (Vilna, 1923), p. 52.

Sources: Leo Wiener, The History of Yiddish Literature in the Nineteenth Century (New York, 1899), pp. 82-83, 85-87; Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 1, pp. 376-80; Y. Tsinberg, in Yevreyskii vestnik (1928), p. 248; Y. Entin, Yidishe poetn (Yiddish poets), vol. 1 (New York, 1927), pp. 71-75 (where his name is given as “Sholem”); Morris Basin, Finf hundert yor yidishe poezye (500 years of Yiddish poetry) (New York, 1917), pp. 160-63 (“Sholem”); Nokhum Shtif, Di eltere yidishe literatur (Older Yiddish literature) (Kiev, 1929), pp. 168-75; Z. Zilbertsvayg, Teater-leksikon, vol. 1, p. 209; N. Oyslender, in the anthology Mendele un zayn tsayt (Mendele and his times) (Moscow, 1940), pp. 101, 115-24; Dr. Y. Shatski, in Yivo-bleter (1949), p. 132.

Yitskhok Kharlash