SHEMARYE (SCH) GORELIK

SHEMARYE (SCH) GORELIK (1877-October 25, 1942)

            He was born in Lokhvytsia, near Poltava, Ukraine.  He received a traditional Jewish education.  At age thirteen, together with his father, a scholar and a follower of the Jewish Enlightenment, he moved to Vilna where he worked as a business employee, later a bookkeeper, and at the same time devoting himself to self-study.  He began his literary activities in the late 1890s as a Russian journalist.  He contributed, using the pen name “Postoyanni” (Permanent), to the Vilna Russian newspaper Severo-zapadnoie slovo (Northwestern word) and Novaya zarya (New dawn).  For a period of time, he stood close to the Bundist movement.  In 1905 he left the Bund and joined the Zionist Organization.  He began to write in Yiddish in the Zionist organ, Dos yidishe folk (The Jewish people), edited by Dr. Yosef Luria.  Aside from current events pieces and criticism, he published a series of essays, “Briv tsu a fraynd” (Letters to a friend), which later appeared in book form, in which he criticized the radical Jewish parties and directions, and he opposed them with Zionist ideology.  He also contributed to Rassvet (Dawn) in Russian and to Hebrew newspapers and magazines: Had hazman (Echo of the times), Haolam (The world), and Hashiloaḥ (The shiloah).  His articles in Hebrew were translated from Yiddish manuscripts.  In 1908, together with Shmuel Niger and A. Vayter, he founded the Literarishe monatshrift (Literary monthly), “the tribune for a Jewish cultural renaissance.”  In 1910 he edited the anthology Der idisher almanakh (The Jewish almanac) (Kiev) and contributed to various Yiddish newspapers and anthologies in Poland and the United States—in particular, Folk un land (People and country), ed. M. Shalit; Yudish (Yiddish), ed. Y. L. Peretz; Dos bukh (The book), ed. A. Vevyorke; Lebn un visnshaft (Life and science); and the daily newspapers Unzer lebn (Our life), Di naye velt (The new world), and Der fraynd (The friend).  He spent the years of WWI in Switzerland where he contributed to a pacifist newspaper and was held under arrest for six months.  He later settled in Berlin and there contributed in German to Jüdische Rundschau (Jewish circular) and to Ost und West (East and West).  Over the years 1923-1924, he made a trip to Canada and the United States and published his travel impressions in Tog (Day) in New York, Moment (Moment) in Warsaw, and elsewhere.  Later, he wrote some pieces for Morgn-zhurnal (Morning journal).  In 1933 he settled in Palestine where he contributed to Davar (Word), Haarets (The land), Haboker (This morning), and also to the magazine Bustanai (Gardener).

            Among his books: Briv tsu a fraynd (Letters to a friend) (Vilan, 1906), 96 pp.; Di libe provints (The beloved province), “spiritual images of a small Jewish town” (Vilna, 1913), 160 pp. (also in a German translation: Berlin, 1913); Literatur-bilder (Literary images), “a series of critical articles on world literature” (Warsaw, 1912), 117 pp. (concerning Ibsen, Hamsun, Strindberg, Wilde, France, Rodenbach, and Shevchenko); In vanderlebn (Itinerant life), “travel impressions and human interest pieces” (Warsaw, 1918), 159 pp. (among other things, articles on Glikl fun Hameln, Baron Edmund de Rothschild, Captain Scott, and Y. L. Peretz); Groyse neshomes (Great souls) (Dresden: Farlag “Vostok,” 1921), 170 pp. (concerning Angelo, Pascal, Carlyle, Ruskin, Whitman, Tolstoy, and Tagore); Yidishe kep (Jewish heads) (Dresden, 1921), 132 pp. (concerning Graetz, Beaconsfeld [Disraeli], Spinoza, Brandes, Heine, Mendele, Sholem-aleykhem, Peretz, Dinezon, Asch, Vayter, and Levitan); Yoysef budko (Joseph Budko) (Warsaw, 1924), illustrated, 30 pp.; and Eseyen (Essays) (Los Angeles: Farlag Mayrev, 1947), 350 pp.  In his Berlin period, he published a book in German, Fünf Jahre im Lande Neutralien (Five years in neutral lands), a description of his wandering in neutral countries during the years of WWI (Berlin, 1919), 137 pp.  In 1937 there appeared in Tel Aviv a book of his essays in Hebrew, Masot (Essays), translated by A. Shlonsky.  Gorelik also published a volume of translations, Dertseylungen fun rabindranat tagor (Stories of Rabindranath Tagore) (Berlin, 1922), 138 pp.

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 1; Bal-Makhshoves, Geklibene shriftn (Collected writings), vol. 2 (Vilna, 1910); Vladek, in Tsukunft (New York) (October 1912); Tsvi Hirshkon, in Morgn frayhayt (New York) (February 4, 1925); D. Tsharni, in Tsukunft (January 1929); Tsharni, Barg-aroyf (Uphill) (Warsaw, 1935); Shmuel Niger, in Yoyvl-bukh draysik yor keneder odler (Jubilee volume for the thirtieth anniversary of Keneder odler) (Montreal, 1938); David Tidhar, Entsiklopedyah leḥalutse hayishuv uvonav (Encyclopedia of the founders and builders of Israel), vol. 1 (Tel Aviv, 1947), pp. 335-36; Dr. H. Frank, in Fraye arbeter shtime (New York) (August 8, 1947); Mikhl Horelik, in Gorelik, Eseyen (Los Angeles, 1947); N. Meyzel, Y. l. perets un zayn dor shrayber (Y. L. Peretz and his generation of writers) (New York, 1951); Yankev Glatshteyn, In tokh genumen (In essence) (New York, 1956), pp. 98-102; Sh. Slutski, Avrom reyzen biblyografye (Avrom Reyzen’s bibliography) (New York, 1956), no. 4550.