PERETS
HIRSHBEYN (PERETZ HIRSCHBEIN) (November 7, 1880-August 16, 1948)
He was born at a water mill (Lipe’s
Mill) about three kilometers from the small town of Kleszczele,
between Bielsk and Visoko-Litovsk, in Grodno Province of what had been
Russia. His father Lipe the Milner was a
reticent man; growing up, he had been told numerous frightful stories, which
had turned him into a very quiet man.
Hirshbeyn’s mother Sheyne was a patient woman and was forever anxious
about her four children. She gave birth
in her life to eleven children, four of them with her first husband, all of
whom died, and for that reason she was compelled to demand a divorce, and seven
with Lipe the Milner, three of whom also died.
In his sixth year they turned Perets over to a teacher of young children
in Kleszczele, whence someone from the household would
take him on foot. He walked to his Torah
teacher twice each day on his own amid “the town marketplace and the rabbi’s
street” to the elementary school. He
studied with various teachers in Kleszczele and Brisk (Brest) until his
bar-mitzvah, and afterward he went with his mother on foot (over twelve versts [about thirteen kilometers]) to
the town of her birth Milejczyce, where he began to study “away from home,” eat at
others’ homes, and sleep on a hard bench.
That summer there arrived in Milejczyce a wandering book salesman from
whom Hirshbeyn saw for the first time in his life among the Pentateuchs,
holiday prayer books, and prayer books for women written in “zhargonish”
(Yiddish), storybooks by Shomer (Nokhum Meyer Shaykevitsh), Ozer Bloshteyn,
Ayzik-Meyer Dik, Shiye Mezakh, and others.
With his few saved pennies, he bought a small book of poems by Elyokim
Tsunzer, read through his “Di sokhe” (The hook plough) and “Shivas tsien”
(Return to Zion), and surreptitiously attempted to sing them to melodies he
devised. From the bookseller he learned
for the first time that, outside this small town, there lay a great world, and
he set out wandering from town to town until he arrived in Orle (Orlova), where
he came to a synagogue study hall and soon befriended another zealot, a child
prodigy, somewhat older than he was.
This was “Yitskhok, the rabbi’s son”—Yitskhok Pribulski, author of
poetry in Yiddish—the son of the now deceased rabbi. Thanks to Yitskhok, Hirshbeyn became
acquainted with Hebrew literature, turned against speculative religious texts,
and on his own began to write poetry in Hebrew.
From Orle, Hirshbeyn left for Brisk where he continued his studies in a
minor synagogue study hall and in the evenings quietly read books in
Yiddish. A bit later he left for Grodno
and from there to the town of Kuznitse (Kurenets) to see Yitskhok who was now
married, and with him he spent a long period of time and with his help mastered
the Russian language. At age eighteen he
moved on to Vilna, slept in a synagogue there, suffered pangs of hunger,
assembled in the cobblers’ synagogue a group of yeshiva students (dubbed “Tora
mitsiyon” [Torah from Mt. Zion]), and with them studied Tanakh, Hebrew grammar,
and Jewish history—and wrote Hebrew poetry.
One of the members of the group, Eltshik, both a prodigy and a follower
of the Jewish Enlightenment, introduced him to the Vilna writers in Hamelits (The advocate) and Hatsfira (The siren), who praised
Hirshbeyn’s poems and encouraged him to write and send his poetry somewhere to
be published. This, he did. Meanwhile, he became ill and returned home to
the mill to recover somewhat. When he
returned to Vilna, he discovered in Dovid Frishman’s Hador (The generation)—Cracow, issue 20 (May 16, 1901)—his first
published poem, “Gaguim” (Yearning) which he signed “Perets Hirshenbeyn.” This poem made him well-known among Jewish
youth in Vilna.
He became a Hebrew teacher, gave
private lessons, and also taught “Hebrew in Hebrew” with groups of girls in the
Yehudiya schools which the “daughters of Zion” managed in various parts of the
city. He also ran an illegal circle for
working boys and girls in a basement lodging in Zarechie. In 1902 he published in the literary
supplement put out by Hamelits,
second section, his poem “Bakatsir” (At the harvest). At that time he also composed stories in
Yiddish which were, however, not published.
One winter’s evening, a fortuitous meeting with a young, female, Jewish
street urchin made such a huge impression on him that he decided on his own to
descend from the lyrical poetry pathway and begin to write about real
life. Thus was born in Hebrew his first
three-act drama, Miriam, which when
it was staged several years later in Yiddish translation in a Yiddish theater
in Buenos Aires, a hysterical lament erupted among the unhappy, deluded young
women who filled the theater at that time.
That same winter, Hirshbeyn also wrote (again in Hebrew) a four-act
drama Shevarim (Pieces), which
depicted the inner tragedy of the intellectual who cannot win the trust of the
masses—translated into Yiddish under the title Der inteligent (The intellectual), three acts, published in 1907 by
the publishing house of Yavneh and in 1914 by Gitlin; in 1919 it was brought
out by Meyer Goldfayn publishers; and there was a Russian translation as well. In the summer of 1904, Hirshbeyn came to
Warsaw for the first time, where Y. L. Perets closely befriended him and
brought him together with Khayim Nakhmen Bialik. He also at this time became acquainted in
Warsaw with the Hebrew novelist Y. Bershadski.
Back in Vilna, he wrote the drama Holkhim
vekavim (Slowing going out), which together with Miriam was published in 1905 in the Vilna monthly Hazman (The time) whose literary editor
at the time was Y. D. Berkovitsh. In
1906 Miriam was also published in
Yiddish in Idisher kemfer [Jewish
fighter] in New York; later, Hirshbeyn himself translated it into Yiddish with
the title Barg arop (Downhill). Holkhim
vekavim was translated into Yiddish by A. A. Ben Gur—Arn Hurvits—under the
title Vayte un noente (Far and near),
and it was published by the Bundist publisher “Di velt” (The world), Vilna,
1906, 69 pp. Later, Hirshbeyn translated
it himself with the title Vu dos lebn
fargeyt (Where life passes by). In
the summer of 1905, Hirshbeyn wrote the four-act play Nevela (Carcass)—published in Hazman,
then under the editorship of Dovid Frishman.
Realistic, with strong dramatic action, Nevela in its Yiddish translation [Di neveyle] had a powerful, persistent success on the stage. Over the 1905-1906 winter, he wrote a one-act
play, Olamot bodedim (Lonely
worlds)—in Yiddish: Eynzame veltn
(Vilna: Di velt, 1906), 16 pp.—the last work that he would initially write in
Hebrew and the first of a new genre in his oeuvre. In the spring of 1906 he wrote his first
drama from the start in Yiddish: Af yener
zayt taykh (On the other side of the river), which was published in Dos yidishe folk (The Jewish people)
(Vilna, 1906)—a three-act symbolist play.
In 1906 Hirshbeyn published in the Territorialist weekly Der nayer veg (The new road) his own
translation of Nevela and his
symbolist one-act play Kvorim-blumen
(Grave flowers). At that time he also
composed the three-act dramatic poem Demerung
(Twilight)—he later changed its title to Tsvishn
tog un nakht (Between day and night)—a symbolist allusion to international
catastrophe and world revolution. At
Perets’s suggestion, Hirshbeyn once again made his way to Warsaw and from there
to Berlin, where he spent several months (1907) and wrote the three-act drama Di erd (The earth). Back in Vilna, he composed the dramatic study
In der fintster (In the dark) (Vilna:
Di velt, 1907), 20 pp. That same year he
traveled to St. Petersburg, where they were at the time publishing a volume of his
plays in Russian with the title Odinokie
miry (Lonely worlds), 197 pp.—in addition to Eynzame veltn, it also included In
der fintster, Krovim-blumen, and Af yener zayt taykh—in an authorized
translation by Anna Brumberg and L. Trivush, published by the organization
“Izdatel′skoie byuro” in 1908. While in
St. Petersburg, he wrote his popular drama Der
tkies-kaf (The handshake), a theme similar to An-sky’s Dibek (Dybbuk) which had a major impact on local writers, and
people compared it with L. Andreev’s collection Shipovnik (Dog rose) (1909).
He also began to write some poetry and prose there—Vanderer-troymer (Wanderer-dreamer), published in Literarishe monatshriftn (Literary
monthly) (Vilna, 1908).
In the spring of 1908, Hirshbeyn
came to Odessa, settled by the sea, and wrote his play Yoyel (Joel). Meanwhile, the
director Dovid Herman summoned him to Lodz where he was staging Der tkies-kaf and wanted Hirshbeyn to be
nearby and help with the play. In Lodz
he and Herman came up with the idea of creating their own theater, but he was
called back to Odessa where the Russian director Konstantin Mardzhanov was
staging in Russian at the state theater Hirshbeyn’s play Af yener zayt taykh. At the
initiative of Kh. N. Bialik, B. Shafir, the student Vaysblat (later, known as
the poetic reciter and writer “Verite”), and a group of Jewish students from
the Odessa drama conservatory, that fall they founded the “Drama Troupe under
the Direction of Perets Hirshbeyn”—the Hirshbeyn Troupe—with the aim of
literary plays and raising the artistic level of Yiddish theater. The troupe consisted of a couple of amateurs,
several students from the Russian conservatory (among them later to become
distinguished were Leye Nomi-Kugel, Sonya Orlovskaia, and others), and some professional
actors (Yankev Shchirin and later: Yankev Ben-Ami, Lazar Frid, Volf Zilberberg,
and later still was added Sh. Kutner, among others). Among the plays in the troupe’s repertoire
were: Hirshbeyn’s Di neveyle, Yoyel, and Der tkies-kaf; B. Shafir’s Avroml
der shuster (Little Abraham the cobbler); Sholem Asch’s Mitn shtrom (With the stream), Got fun nekome (God of vengeance), and Yikhes (Pedigree); Sholem-Aleykhem’s Tseteyt un tseshpreyt (Scattered far and
wide) and Mentshn (People); Dovid
Pinski’s Yankl der shmid (Yankl the
smith) and Ayzik sheftl (Isaac
Sheftel); Yankev Gordin’s Got, mentsh un
tayvl (God, man, and devil); and several translations, including Semyon
Yushkevich’s In shtot (In the city
[original: V gorode]) and Heiermann’s
Geto (Ghetto). Over the course of just two years, the troupe
traveled in turn through various cities in southern Russia, Byelorussia, and
Lithuania, and everywhere they were received with great enthusiasm. The troupe had particularly bad fortune,
against all expectations, at their ten performances in Warsaw in February
1910. Hirshbeyn felt spiritually
incapable of continuing with the troupe, and it lasted a brief time without
him, before they soon called him back.
He came and joined in, but in Dvinsk the troupe fell apart (July 10,
1910).
In late summer 1910, Hirshbeyn was
in Bobruisk and began writing his three-act play Bam breg (At the shore), and under the influence of Tolstoy’s
dramatic flight from Yasnaia Polyana, he did a series of translations from
“Prince Nekhlyudov’s diaries”[1]
(Warsaw: Shreberk Publ., 1912). From
winter to fall, 1911, Hirshbeyn wore high waterproof boots as he set out with
Mendl Elkin (his friend of many years) to raft across the Dnieper River from
Bykhov, Mogilev district, to Ekaterinoslav.
He spent eight weeks on this semi-fantastic trip traveling on in a canoe
to Kiev where he met with Yiddish writers (Dovid Bergelson, M. Litvakov, N.
Mayzil, and Volf Latsky-Bertoldi). From
Ekaterinoslav, he went to Odessa, from there to Warsaw, and then on to Vienna,
Paris, London, and Liverpool to New York where he arrived for the first time in
November 1911. In January 1912 in New
York, he wrote Di puste kretshme (The
haunted Inn), a popular drama in four acts, which later became one of the most
popular and most successful works on the Yiddish stage in Europe and
America. Personally, nothing went well
for him in this “new home”—he simply had nothing to live on, and in the summer
of 1912 he went to work on a farm in the Catskill Mountains where he wrote Dos kind fun der velt (The child of the
world), a symbolist drama about the double life that men lead in our society. Back in New York, that year he wrote A farvorfn vinkl (A forgotten corner), a
play in four acts, once again with the same realism, mixed with hidden popular
mysticism. In autumn 1913 he returned to
Europe, and Mendl Elkin established for him in Vilna the publishing house of
Menakhem and brought out Hirshbeyn’s Mayn
bukh (My book). The anxiety and
desire to continue his wandering got the better of him, and in the fall of 1914
he left for Argentina and traveled there over land until the outbreak of WWI; he
was then on a British vessel on its way back to North America. En route the German battleship Karlsruhe sank the British ship, and
Hirshbeyn and other passengers were held captive. After lying around for ten days on a
transport vessel loaded with coal, ultimately in November 1914 he was returned
to New York once again.
In 1914 the daily Yiddish newspaper,
Der tog (The day), was founded in New
York; Hirshbeyn soon became a regular contributor and published in it the
majority of what he would write over the rest of his life. He began with the impressions from his
travels in South America—which later appeared in book form as Fun vayte lender (From distant
countries)—which with its exceeding freshness and poetic charm made an enormous
impression on readers. In the summer of
1915 Der tog sent him to the Panama
Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. That summer he also wrote the dramatic
village tale, Elyohu hanovi (Elijah
the prophet)—published in Tsukunft
(Future) in New York (1915)—the idyll Bebele
in Tsukunft (September 1915), the
one-act popular idyll Roshinkes mit
mandlen (Raisins and almonds) in Tsukunft
(November 1915), and the three-act play A
lebn far a lebn (A life for a life), also concerned with the village
environment. He traveled a great deal in
those days through the United States and was well received by audiences for his
original lectures (the descriptions of his travels were later, 1918, published
in his volume, Iber amerike [Across
America]). At the time he also wrote the
one-act plays: Afn shvel (At the
threshold), A zaverukhe (A blizzard),
and Ven es falt der toy (When the dew
falls), as well as his celebrated works for the stage Dem shmids tekhter (The smith’s daughters) and Grine felder (Green fields), which (together with Di puste kretshme and A farvorfn vinkl) introduced a fresh
current into Yiddish dramatic literature and established Yiddish theatrical art
at a high level. At the end of 1918
Maurice Schwartz staged with great success A
farforfn vinkl and Dem shmids tekhter, and this launched the Yiddish Art
Theater in America. In 1921 Rudolph
Schildkraut staged Hirshbeyn’s A lebn far
a lebn, and in 1922 Bertha Kalish enacted his symbolist play Dos kind fun der velt. The Vilna Troupe (founded in Vilna in 1916 during
the German occupation) performed with extraordinary success his popular plays
in Europe. In 1918 during a trip through
western Canada, Hirshbeyn met his destined beloved in the town of Calgary, the
poetess Esther Shumiatcher, and in late 1920 he and his wife set off on a
lengthy voyage through Australia and South Africa. The trip took about two years, and his
descriptions of the trip were included in his Iber der velt (Across the world)—Tahiti, New Zealand, Australia,
and South Africa. Meanwhile he published:
A kholem fun der tsayt (A dream of
the times) (New York: Idishe literatur farlag, 1919); Tsvey shtet (Two cities), Tsukunft
(October-December 1919); and the three-act play In shotn fun doyres (In the shadow of generations), in the
collection Shriftn (Writings) (New
York, Autumn 1921). After he returned
from this voyage, he published, in Tsukunft
6-8 (1923), his “Epilogue in Three Acts”—Leyvi
Yitskhok, the last part of his Grine
felder trilogy; and the “Story in Six Scenes”—Sheydim veysn vos (Demons know what), in Tsukunft 3-5 (1924), which was staged in November 1924 at the
Yiddish Art Theater (directed by Maurice Schwartz). He was a member that year of the organization
committee of the “Yiddish Theater Society” in New York and thereafter of the Arts
Council of the troupe “Unzer teater” (Our theater) created by the Society; and
he co-directed An-sky’s Tog un nakht
(Day and night), adapted by Dovid Pinski and Mendl Lefin, according to
fragments left by the author. Hirshbeyn
also helped with the staging of A. Raboy’s Shtekhik
drot (Barbed wire) with the same troupe.
In January 1925 Tsukunft
carried his dramatic poem Di moyz mitn
glekl (The mouse with a bell), and in May 1925 he and his wife set off on
their second lengthy voyage, this time truly a world tour which lasted about
five years and included South Africa (a second time), Japan, China, India,
Israel, Soviet Russia, and various countries in Europe. The literary products from this trip were two
volumes of travel narratives—Erets-yisroel
(The land of Israel) and Indye
(India)—as well as the book Shvartsbrukh
(Black ploughed earth) which included descriptions, stories, and monologues
from life amid the Soviet Jewish colonization of southern Russia. This new life of these Jewish migrants in
Soviet Russia also served as artistic material for his subsequent novel Royte felder (Red fields). In November 1929 he returned to the United
States and took up a new realm of writing—artistic memoirs and great prose
novels. He was almost completely done
with the writing of plays; his last dramatic works were: Hent (Hands), “a play in three acts and seven scenes” (published in
Yidishe velt [Jewish world] in 1928);
Afn letstn yarid (At the last fair),
“from the life and struggle of Jewish migrants in the Soviet Union” (included
in the repertoire of the Yiddish State Theater in Ukraine); and a series of
plays, dramatic poems, and a Biblical tragedy, Der ershter meylekh fun yisroel (The first king of Israel)—all of
which remain in manuscript. In 1932 he
opened a new road of artistic memoirs with the book, Mayne kinder-yorn (My childhood years) which described his youth
through the beginning of his life as a writer; his subsequent memoirs may be
found in his In gang fun lebn (In the
course of life), one part of which appeared in 1948 and a second part, fully
prepared for the publisher, remains in manuscript. In 1935 his two-volume novel Royte felder and in 1942 his trilogy Bovl (Babylonia), a challenge to
describe the multiform life of a Jewish family from the survival of the Jewish
people (in 1882) on the East Side of New York through the beginning of WWII,
were published. From 1934 when the
Hirshbeyns’ son Omus (Amos) was born until 1940, he was regular resident of New
York City. Thereafter he started on
another trip across the states and Canada, and at the end of 1940 he made his
permanent home in Los Angeles. In
September 1941 the “Oyfboy-grupe” (Construction group) in Los Angeles
celebrated Hirshbeyn’s sixtieth birthday at the Wilshire Avenue Theater, and
for the celebration they brought out two special publications dedicated to the
honoree—see bibliography below concerning these works. Beginning on November 23, 1947, he began to
serially publish in Tog in New York
his novel Af fremde vegn (On foreign
roads), “a novel of Jewish life in America” (publication of the novel was
completed on September 26, 1948, after the author’s death). During his last three years, Hirshbeyn
suffered from a severe illness in his spinal cord. He died in Los Angeles.
Hirshbeyn’s writings were published
and republished in a variety of newspapers and by various publishing
houses. Some of them were also
translated into several languages. A
bibliography of the different editions of his thirty-eight plays in Yiddish, as
well as the translations into Hebrew, Russian, German, and English (Lupus
Blumenfeld translated his Tsum breytn veg
[Toward a wide road] into French in Anthologie
des conteurs yidisch [Paris, 1922]), can be found in Z. Zilbertsvayg’s Leksikon fun yidishn teater (Handbook of
the Yiddish theater), vol. 1 (New York, 1931), pp. 613-28. In book form, there are collections of his
plays as well as his prose writings published in the following editions: Fun veg tsu veg (From road to road)
(Warsaw: Progres, 1911), 122 pp.—including the plays Afn sheydveg (At a crossroads), Bam
breg, and Der letster (The last
one), all later reprinted in his Gezamlte
dramen (Collected plays); Leo Tolstoy, Geklibene
shriftn (Selected writings), translated into Yiddish by Hirshbeyn, with a foreword
by Sh. Gorelik, “from Prince Nekhlyudov’s diary—‘Lyutsern’ (Lucerne), ‘Korney
Vasiliev,’ ‘Shvester’ (Sister), ‘Dray toytn’ (Three deaths [original: ‘Tri
smerti’]), ‘Di muter’ (The mother [original: ‘Mat′’]), ‘Molitva’ (Prayer),
‘Albert’ (original: ‘Al′bert’), and ‘A shneyshturm’ (A snowstorm [original:
‘Metel′’])” (Vilna: Sh. Shreberk, 1912), 215 pp.; Dramen (Dramas)—Yoyel, Di erd, and Di tkies-kaf—(Vilna: Progres, 1913), 176 pp.; Mayn bukh—Vanderer-troymer,
Tsvishn tog un nakht, Farlangen (Desires), and the dramatic
dialogue Tsum breytn veg—(Vilna:
Menakhem, 1913), 168 pp., reissued (Vilna: Kletskin, 1914); Farn morgnshtern (For the morning star)
(New York, 1918), 98 pp., reissued (Vilna: Kletskin, 1923), 98 pp.; Fun vayte lender—argentine, brazil,
yuni-november, 1914 (From distant countries—Argentina, Brazil,
June-November 1914) New York, 1956), 256 pp.; Gezamlte dramen (Collected dramas) (New York: Literary-dramatic
societies of America, 1916), five volumes: (1) Rozhinkes mit mandlen, Afn shvel,
Bebele, A zaverukhe, Eynzame veltn,
Elyohu hanovi, Ven es falt der toy, In der
fintster, Funken (Sparks), and Kvorim-blumen—all one act plays—and A lebn far a lebn in three acts; (2) Di puste kretshme, Dem shmids tekhter, and A
farvorfn vinkl; (3) Der letster, Bam breg, Der tkies-kaf, and Dos kind
fun der velt; (4) Khave (Eve [Yoyel]), Di neveyle, Di erd, Tsvishn tog un nakh, and Afn sheydveg; (5) Barg arop (Miriam), Vu dos lebn fargeyt (Where life ends), Vayte un noente (Far and near), Af yener zayt taykh, and Grine felder; Iber amerike (New York: Literarisher Farlag, 1918), 237 pp.; Mayselekh (Stories), earlier published
in Yiddish children’s magazines in New York, with drawings by Z. Moud (New
York: Yidish, 1919), 32 pp.; Eynakters
(One-act plays) (Warsaw: Kultur-lige, 1922), 311 pp.—including the same one-act
plays as in volume 1 of Gezamlte dramen,
plus the one-act play Frost-blumen
(Frost flowers); Elnt un noyt
(Lonesome and in need) (Vilna: Kletskin, 1923), 306 pp.—including Miriam, Vu dos lebn fargeyt, An
iberiker mentsh (An eternal person), Eynzame
veltn, and In der fintster; A mayse mit a ber (A story with a bear)
(New York: Matones, 1925), 40 cols., drawings by B. Aronson, cover by A.
Gudlman; A mayse mit a kamilyon (A
story with a chameleon) (New York: Matones, 1925), 24 cols., drawings and cover
by A. Gudlman; Arum der velt,
rayze-ayndrukn, 1920-1922 (Around the world, travel impressions,
1920-1922), “from Tahiti, New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa” (New York:
Literatur, 1927), 240 pp.; Ale verk fun
perets hirshbeyn (Collected works of Perets Hirshbeyn) (Vilna: Kletskin,
1929-1930): (vol. 1) Vintmiln
(Windmills), Di puste kretshme, A lebn far a lebn, and Der tkies-kaf; (2) Erets-yisroel, travel descriptions), 237 pp.; (3) Indye, 292 pp.—published in Moscow by
Central Publishers under the title Garbn
fun shtilshvaygn (Sheaves of silence), 279 pp., in Hebrew under the title Hodu (India), translated by Uri Zvi
Grinberg (Tel Aviv: Mitspe, 1931), 216 pp.; (4) Felker un lender, new edition of Arum der velt; (5) Grine
felder trilogye (Green fields trilogy)—Grine
felder, Tsvey shtet, and Leyvi yitskhok—285 pp.; (6) A farvorfn vinkl—including Dos shmids tekhter, A farvorfn vinkl, and Sheydim
veysn vos—319 pp.; (7) Shvartsbrukh,
tsen khadoshim mit yidishe ibervanderer in ratn-farband, agai, krim, 1928-1929
(Black ploughed earth, ten months with Jewish migrants in the Soviet Union, the
Aegean, and Crimea, 1928-1929), 330 pp.; Mayne
kinder-yorn (Warsaw: Literarishe bleter, 1932), 356 pp.; Royte felder (New York, 1935), vol. 1 Baginen (Dawn), 415 pp., vol. 2 Erd un heym (Earth and home), 447 pp.; Dales, bild (Poverty, a scene) (Vilna:
Naye yidishe shul, 1938), 7 pp.; Monologn
(Monologues) (Chicago: M. Stein, 1939), 136 pp.; Bovl, a trilogy (New York, 1942), vol. 1 Goles (Exile), 436 pp., vol. 2 Tserisene
vortslen (Shredded roots), 446 pp.; vol. 3 Bovl, 468 pp.; In gang fun
lebn (New York: CYCO, 1948), 448 pp.; “New edition of Hirshbeyn’s works”
published by “Perets Hirshbeyn book committee” (New York-Los Angeles, 1951): (1)
Mayne kinder-yorn (a reissue of the
Warsaw edition of 1923); (2) Eynakters
(reissue of the Kultur-lige edition of 1922 in Warsaw); (3) Grine felder trilogy (Vilna edition of
1929); (4) Dramen (vol. 2 of his Gezamlte shriftn); (5) Erets-yisroel Vilna edition of
1929). In addition to their appearance
in Tog, Hirshbeyn published his
travel writings in Fraye arbeter shtime
(Free voice of labor) in New York, Moment
(Moment) in Warsaw, and elsewhere.
Hirshbeyn and his wife
Sources:
The literature on Hirshbeyn is rich but scattered, and there is no systematic
Hirshbeyn bibliography. Recently, the
following works have appeared: (1) an autobiographical letter from Hirshbeyn to
Yokhanen Tverski (a response to a private questionnaire), in Di goldene keyt (Tel Aviv) 2 (1949); (2)
Hirshbeyn’s letters to Yoysef Opatoshu (written at various times), in Tint un feder (Toronto) (September
1950); (3) his letters to N. Mayzil, in Yidishe
kultur (New York) (August-September 1951).
The best material on Hirshbeyn until 1920 or so can be found in his
volumes of memoirs (Mayne kinder-yorn
and In gang fun lebn). Many biographical and critical materials on
Hirshbeyn may be found in the jubilee volume Perets Hirshbeyn (Perets Hirshbeyn), edited by Shmuel Niger and published
in 1941 (328 pp.), and it included biographical, bibliographical, literary
critical, and memoiristic articles by: Y. Ofman, Arn Tsaytlin (a poem for
Hirshbeyn), Shmuel Niger, B. Rivkin, Osip Dimov, H. Royznblat, Meylekh Ravitsh,
Dovid Pinski, H. Leivick, Y. Opatoshu, Menakhem Boreysho, Kadye Molodovski,
Dovid Ignatov, Khayim Grinberg, A. Glants-Leyeles, Borekh Glazman, Shloyme
Saymon, Danyel Tsharni (Daniel Charney), Dr. Sh. Margoshes, B. Lapin, Avrom
Reyzen, Mendl Elkin, Yoyel Entin, Maurice Schwartz, Mark Shveyd, Ludvig Zats,
Misha Fishzon, A. Bresler, Lazar Vayner, M. Kastof, and Moyshe Shtarkman. Aside from the above, see: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 1 (with a bibliography);
Z. Zilbertsvayg, Leksikon fun yidishn
teater, vol. 1 (with a longer bibliography); B. Smolyar, “Perets hirshbeyn
in moskve” (Perets Hirshbeyn in Moscow), Literarishe
bleter (Warsaw) 13 (1934); Literarishe
bleter 5 (1932), devoted to Hirshbeyn’s fiftieth birthday, with articles
by: N. Mayzil, Y. M. Nayman, B. Kletskin, Daniel Charney, Mark Ornshteyn,
Shloyme Kutner, Lazar Kahan, Tsili Adler, M. Ravitsh, A. Tsaytlin, and Zigmunt
Turkov; Shmuel Niger, in Literarishe
bleter 13 (1934); Niger, in Tog-morgn
zhurnal (New York) (January 10 and January 17, 1954); K. Molodovski, in Literarishe bleter (November 26, 1937);
Sh. Rozhanski, Dos yidishe gedrukte vort un teater in argentine (The
published Yiddish word and theater in Argentina) (Buenos Aires, 1941), pp.
51-54, 152, 160, 207-8, 251; L. Fogelman, in Tsukunft (New York) (December 1941); Dr. Shloyme Bikl, Detaln un sakhaklen, kritishe un polemishe bamerkungen (Details and sum totals, critical and polemical
observations) (New York, 1943), pp. 84, 229; Y. Y. Sigal, in Keneder odler (Montreal) (October 24,
1944; August 23, 1948); D. Ignatov, “A kapitl yunge” (A young chapter), Tsukunft (December 1944); N. Mayzil, Forgeyer un mittsayler (Forerunner and
contemporary) (New York, 1946), pp. 265-74; Mayzil (concerning Bovl), in Ikuf (Buenos Aires) (September 1948); Yidishe kultur (New York) (September 1948), with articles by:
Sholem Asch, Z. Vaynper, N. Mayzil, and Yankev Mestel; A. Zak, in Kiem (Paris) (September-October 1948);
Y. Segal, “Perets hirshbeyns ‘grine felder’ in vilner geto” (Perets Hirshbeyn’s
Grine felder in the Vilna ghetto), Tsukunft (October 1948); D. Pinski, in Tsukunft (October 1948); M. Knapheys, in
Dos naye lebn (Lodz) 64 (233) (1948);
Y. M. Sherman, “Perets hirshbeyn in dorem-afrike” (Perets Hirshbeyn in South
Africa), Dorem afrike (Johannesburg)
(October 1948); Roza Shomer-Batshelis, “Di perets hirshbeyn-geshtalt” (The
image of Perets Hirshbeyn), Yidishe
kultur (October 1948); P. Kats, in Ikuf
(October-November 1948); Y. Ts. Sharger, “Perets hirshbeyn in erets-yisroel”
(Perets Hirshbeyn in the land of Israel), Nayvelt
(Tel Aviv) 63 (1948); Y. Entin, in Idisher
kemfer (New York) (February 11, February 18, and February 25, 1949); Dr.
Mikhl (Ernst) Miller, “Mayne zikhroynes vegn perets hirshbeyn” (My memories of
Perets Hirshbeyn), Loshn un lebn
(London) (February 1949); Kh. Kon, “Zikhroynes vegn perets hirshbeyn” (Memories
of Perets Hirshbeyn), Naye prese
(Paris) (March 12, 1949); Kon, in Forverts
(New York) (September 20, 1956); Moyshe Vaysman, “Zikhroynes vegn perets
hirshbeyn” (Memories of Perets Hirshbeyn), in: (1) Fraye arbeter shtime (New York) (October 27, 1950); (2) his Fun nekhtn un haynt (From yesterday and
today) (Ontario, California, 1956), pp. 121-28; (3) Fraye arbeter shtime (February 1, 1952); and (4) Fraye arbeter shtime (November 15,
1958); B. Rivkin, Undzere prozaiker
(Our prose writers) (New York, 1951), see index; M. Ravitsh, in Keneder odler (November 26, 1951;
October 30, 1958); Y. Botoshanski, Pshat
(Exegesis) (Buenos Aires, 1952); Sh. Perlmuter, Yidishe dramaturgn un
teater-kompozitorn (Yiddish playwrights and theatrical composers) (New
York, 1952); H. Abramovitsh, in Tog-morgn
zhurnal (August 16, 1953); Y. Mestl, 70 yor teater-repertuar
(Seventy years of theater repertoire) (New York, 1954), see index; Mestl, in Yidishe kultur (August-September 1958);
M. Yardeni, in Keneder odler
(February 14, 1954); Yardeni, in Di
shtime (Mexico City) (November 5, 1955); Dr. N. Sverdlin, in Tog-morgn zhurnal (April 26, 1956); D.
Ignatov, Opgerisene bleter, eseyen,
farblibene ksovim un fragmentn (Torn off sheets, essays, extant writings,
and fragments) (Buenos Aires: Yidbukh, 1957), pp. 99-106; A. Almi, In gerangl fun ideyen (In the struggle
of ideas) (Buenos Aires, 1957), pp.10-21; Tsili Adler, in Forverts (March 30, 1958); S. Kahan, in Di shtime (July 11, 1958); M. Ravina, in Hapoel hatsair (Tel Aviv) (October 8, 1958); Sh. D. Zinger, in Unzer veg (New York) (October 1958); Z.
Vaynper, Shrayber un kinstler
(Writers and artists) (New York, 1958); Meyer
Braun, Mit yidishe oygn (With Jewish
eyes) (New York, 1958), see index; L. Feldman, in Dorem-afrike (Johannesburg) (April 1959); Tsili adler dertseylt (Celia Adler recounts) (New York, 1959), see
index.
Yitskhok Kharlash
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