YISROEL TSINBERG (ISRAEL ZINBERG) (1873-January
1939)
He
was a literary historian, born in the town of Lagovits (Lagowica), Volhynia. His
father Leyzer was a well-to-to rentier, a follower of the Jewish Enlightenment,
and an admirer of Spinoza. His hope was that his beloved son Yisroel would be a
writer among the Jewish people. Tsinberg’s father brought for him a private
tutor from Odessa (recommended by Mendele Moykher-Sforim), a former teacher at
the Zhytomyr rabbinical academy. In his youth, Tsinberg already distinguished
himself with his talents and diligence. He received his higher education abroad,
graduating in chemical engineering from the Polytechnic Institute in Karlsruhe
and receiving his Ph.D. in Basel, Switzerland. In 1898 he settled in St.
Petersburg and took up a position as manager of a chemical laboratory at the
Putilov Plant (later, the Kirov Plant). He remained in this post until he was
arrested in 1938. But this was not the sole interest of his life. That was to
be mainly literary research. He debuted in print in Yiddish with a work of
popular science entitled “Vos tut zikh af der velt?” (What’s going on in the
world?), which appeared in the weekly Der
yud (The Jew), via the publisher “Aḥiasef” in Cracow (1900). In that same
year, he published his first work in Russian: Isaak Beer Levinzon (Yitskhok-Ber Levinzon) (St. Petersburg: Yu. I.
Gessen), 75 pp. This was a broad treatment of one of the principal leaders of
the Jewish Enlightenment in Russia. He published a second work, “Isaak Ber
Levinzon i ego vremi︠a︡” (Yitskhok-Ber Levinzon and his era), in 1910 in Evreiskaia starina (The Jewish past)
(St. Petersburg) 3 (pp. 504-41), and as an offprint (St. Petersburg: Society
for the Dissemination of Education among the Jews of Russia), 40 pp. In 1901 he
became a contributor to the Russian-language, Jewish Voskhod (Sunrise), in which (signing with only the initial “Z”) he
was in charge of a special division, “Survey of the Yiddish Press.” He became a
regular contributor to such Russian-language, Jewish journals as Evreiskii mir (Jewish world), Novyi voskhod (New sunrise), and Evreiskaia nedelya (Jewish week), in
which he published important work and monographs on literature by Jews. Among
these valuable works was an essay, “Yiddish Literature and Its Readers,” Voskhod 3-4 (1903). This piece was
marked by Zalmen Reyzen as “one of the first, basic works in the field of
Yiddish literary history.” He also published in Voskhod pieces entitled “Proiskhozhdenie Sheiloka” (The origins of Shylock) and “Dva
techeniia v evreiskoi zhizni” (Two trends in Jewish life). In the historical
collection Perezhitoie (The
past) (St. Petersburg), he published such important monographs as: “The First
Socialist Organs in Yiddish Literature,” vol. 1; “The Influence of Pisarev in
Yiddish Literature,” vol. 2; and “The Predecessors of Yiddish Journalists in
Russia,” vol. 4. In Evreiskaia starina he published: “Jewish
Historiography in the Sixteenth Century,” vol. 13; “Szkłów and Its Adherents of
the Jewish Enlightenment,” vol. 12, pp. 17-44; “Works about Yiddish Ethnography
and Yiddish Linguistics,” vol. 12, pp. 341-46; “New Works on Yiddish
Linguistics, Literature, and Ethnography,” vol. 13, pp. 144-63; “The Struggle Against
Rationalism in the Early Fourteenth Century,” vol. 10, pp. 87-111. In these
same collections, he published: the prospectus of Arn-Shmuel Liberman’s Haemet (The
truth), vol. 13, pp. 164-70, and critical essays on Shimen Bernshteyn’s Beḥazon hadorot (In the vision of the
generations), Maks Erik’s Di geshikhte fun der yidisher literatur (The
history of Yiddish literature), and Yitskhok Shiper’s Yidishe folks-dramatik (Jewish popular drama), in vol. 13;
“Writings from the Byelorussian State University,” also in vol. 13. Tsinberg
was also active as a cultural figure: he was the founder, together with several
young people, of the Yiddish publisher “Di naye biblyotek” (The new library)
which over the years 1903-1905 brought out translations from Hebrew and Russian
into Yiddish, such as: Vladimir Korolenko’s “Agode vegn flor, agripe un
menakhem ben yude” (A tale about Flora, Agrippa, and Menaḥem son of Yehuda);
stories by Fayerberg; and Sh. An-ski’s Ashmodai.
When Der fraynd (The friend) was
established in St. Petersburg, the first daily Yiddish newspaper in Russia,
Tsinberg started writing for it, and he frequently wrote about the obligations
of Jewish intellectuals to the people, often fighting against opponents of the
Yiddish language. In the Hebrew newspaper Hazman
(The times) (St. Petersburg), he polemicized with the opponents of Yiddish. At
the same time, he wrote on Yiddish and Yiddish literature in Russian Jewish
periodicals. He did important work for the sixteen-volume Russian-Jewish Evreiskaia entsiklopediia (Jewish
encyclopedia) (St. Petersburg, 1908-1913). He served as editor of the section “Modern
Hebrew and Yiddish Literature.” He then turned his attention to all of the
important Yiddish writers and had them send in their biographies for the
encyclopedia. He received replies from Y. M. Vaysnberg, Mortkhe Spektor, Y. L.
Perets, and Sholem-Aleichem. He himself published in the encyclopedia important
articles “several of which,” according to Hillel Aleksandrov, “could stand on
their own as monographs.” He also wrote the entries for: “Yiddish literature,”
“Hebrew literature,” “Periodical press,” “Jewish Enlightenment,” and “Yiddish
drama,” as well as those on Mendele, Perets, Sholem-Aleichem, Moyshe Mendelson,
Aḥad-Haam, Lilienblum, Y. B. Levinzon, Yehuda Halevi, and Emanuel Haromi. In
addition, he wrote for the encyclopedia general essays on such topics as the
Volozhin Yeshiva, the English Missionary Society, the censor of Yiddish books
in Russia (with Y. Hesen), and assimilation (with D. Pasmanik). He also wrote a
number of short entries which were signed by the number “7.” He did a basic
editing of Ber Borokhov’s essay on Yiddish, published in the encyclopedia. In the long collective work, Istoriia
evreev v Rossii (History of the Jews in Russia)
(Moscow: Mir, 1914), he contributed: “Di antviklung fun rabonisher literatur”
(The development of rabbinic literature,” “Folks-literatur” (Folk literature),
and “Mistishe shtrebungen” (Mystical aspirations). Together with Shoyel
Ginzburg, Shimen Dubnov, Khayim-Dov Hurvits, and Yisroel Efroykin, he founded
the monthly journal Di yudishe velt
(The Jewish world) in St. Petersburg (May-July 1912). In the journal he
published: “Dos bukh fun der erd” (The book of the earth) and “Eyn yoyvl, tsvey
doyres” (One jubilee, two generations) on the jubilee anniversary of Hatsfira (The siren) of Kh. Z. Slonimski
and Nokhum Sokolov. Later, when the journal moved to Vilna, he continued
contributing to it and published such essays as: “Tserisn di keytn” (The chains
broken) about Y. L. Perets, and on Alexander Tsederboym’s Kol mevaser (Herald) 194 (1913). He also remained a member of the
editorial-consultative collective. Of great significance was his volume: Istoriia evreiskoi pechati v Rossii v sviazi
s obshchestvennymi techeniiami (The history of the Jewish press in Russia
in connection with social trends) (Petrograd: I. Fleitman, 1916), 264 pp. For
this book he received an award from “OPE” (Society
for the promotion of enlightenment [among the Jews of Russia]). This history
encompassed the Jewish press in Yiddish, Hebrew, and Russian, and he brought it
down to 1881. He made use of his earlier monographs for this work. During WWI,
when the government banned the Jewish press in Russia, Tsinberg and a group of
Jewish writers led by Shmuel Niger founded the publishing house of “Der tog”
(The day) which periodically brought out anthologies under a variety of titles.
Altogether some thirty such collections came out. In them Tsinberg published
journalistic articles, literary critical essays, and semi-fictional items. Together
with Niger, he published the anthology Tsum
ondenk fun sholem-aleykhem (In memory of Sholem-Aleichem) (St. Petersburg:
Y. L. Perets Fund of the Society for Jewish Literature and Art, 1917), 178 pp. In
addition to his history of the Jewish press in Russia and his monograph on
Levinzon (see above), he also published in Russian in book form: Proiskhozhdenie Sheiloka
(St. Petersburg: A. E. Landay, 1902) and Dva
techeniia v evreiskoi zhizni (St. Petersburg: N.N. Klobykov, 1905), 109 pp.
Some of his Russian-language writing was included in his book, Kultur-historishe
shtudyes (Cultural historical studies) (New York: M. Sh. Shklarski, 1949),
364 pp., which Dr. Yankev Shatski edited and translated. Before this book
appeared, Dr. Shatski translated Dva
techeniia v evreiskoi zhizni as “Tsvey shites in yidishn lebn” and his
“Geshikhte fun der rusish-yidisher prese, 1866-1880” (History of the
Russian-Jewish press, 1866-1880). Also included in the book were a number of
Tsinberg’s works which were originally composed in Yiddish. Tsinberg also
participated in Jewish cultural life in St. Petersburg. He was active in the
Jewish literary society, in the historical-ethnographic society, and in the “Ḥevra mefitse haskala” (Society for the promotion of enlightenment). He
also gave public lectures. “The public addresses that Tsinberg gave in the
years 1910-1914 in St. Petersburg,” wrote Shatski, “were on the whole
structured on the basis of the materials of his literary research; and they
were not simply speeches, but forceful and emotional, polemical public
appearances countering the accepted clichés, concepts, and opinions.” Reports
of these speeches may be found in Novyi
voskhod (1913) and Razsvet (Dawn)
(1914). It would appear that these notices of his talks may be found in the
Tsinberg archive. In these speeches, he predicted the decline of Russian Jewish
literature, and he argued that Yiddish would overcome Russian in Russia and
that Shimen Frug would be the last Russian Jewish poet. Tsinberg came out
against Sh. Dubnov’s thesis on trilingualism (Hebrew, Yiddish, and the native language
of the land). He held that Russian would lead to total assimilation and that a [Jewish]
national literature could only be created in Hebrew and Yiddish (Razsvet 5 [1919]).
Later when the
Bolsheviks seized power (November 1917), Tsinberg withdrew from almost all
community activities. He only assisted in bring out a number of Russian Jewish
anthologies, such as Evreiskii vestnik
(Jewish herald), Evreiskaia letopis'
(Jewish chronicle), and Evreiskaia mysl'
(Jewish thought). He also edited the last volume of Evreiskaia starina (1930), in which he published his study on
Jewish historiography in the sixteenth century, as well as several shorter
items and reviews. In Evreiskii mysl'
1 (1922), Tsinberg published a manuscript with several fragments of Solomon Ibn
Gabirol’s poetry. He also contributed to the Hebrew journal Avar (Past) that Shoyel Ginzburg was
editing (1918). In his youth Tsinberg considered himself a Marxist, but early
in his writing career he abandoned Marxism. He gave lectures in the Baron
Ginzburg courses that were partially transformed in 1917 into a university of
Jewish studies. However, Tsinberg yearned for an active Jewish life, and he had
nowhere to write and in general no possibility for expressing his views on
social issues. He thus expressed a desire to leave Russia and settle in the
United States. He participated practically not at all in Soviet Jewish cultural
activities, and he did not contribute to the various Soviet Yiddish scholarly
publications. As it appears, he published only a few short pieces in these
works. He was, though, glad to contribute to the foreign Yiddish press. He thus
published essays in Warsaw’s Literarishe
bleter (Literary leaves), Bikher velt
(Book world), Filologishe shriftn fun
yivo (Philological writings from YIVO), and New York’s Tsukunft (Future) 1 (1923). “In an atmosphere of creative
solitude,” as Yankev Shatski put it, “Tsinberg began his monumental work, Di geshikhte fun der literatur bay yidn
(The history of Jewish literature).” He initially started writing his work in
Russian. The first volume, which consisted of four parts and included the
entire Middle Ages, he actually completed in Russian in 1920. Only the first
five chapters of the Russian text were published in Kiev (1919). He wrote out
the first four volumes in Russian. In 1919 he began to think about publishing
his work in Yiddish. He then began to translate the work into Yiddish, and he
handed the first part of the first volume to the People’s Press in Kiev. This
same Kiev press planned to publish a collection of Tsinberg’s essays in Yiddish
but did not do so. In December 1927 he completed the first volume in Yiddish. This
was not, however, a translation, as the entire text was completely revised. In
the preface to the Yiddish edition, Tsinberg wrote: “The word is not only the
clothing, the instrument of thought, for it is also the most important part of
the thought itself. The literary history of our people in Yiddish must be
written in another version than would be the case with a foreign language.” This
monumental work did not appear in the Soviet Union, but in Poland. Di geshikhte fun der literatur bay yidn
was published by Tomor in Vilna over the course of 1929-1937: 1. Mitlalter (Middle Ages) (1929), 314 + x
pp.; 2. Mitlalter (1930), 339 pp.; 3.
Mitlalter (1931), 434 pp. (second
printing, Vilna, 1936); 4. Dos italyenish
yidntum in der renesans-tkufe (Italian Jewry in the era of the Renaissance)
(1933), 528 pp.; 5. Der daytsh-poylisher
kultur-tsenter (The Germano-Polish cultural center) (1935), 367 pp.; 6. Alt-yidishe literatur (Old Yiddish
literature) (1935), 441 pp.; 7a. Berliner
haskole (The Jewish Enlightenment in Berlin) (1936), 288 pp.; 7b. Khsides un oyfklerung (Hassidism and Enlightenment)
(1936), 336 pp.; 8a. Khokhmes-yisroel in
galitsyaner haskole (Jewish learning in the Galician Enlightenment) (1937),
263 pp.; 8b. Di haskole-bavegung in
rusland (The Enlightenment movement in Russia) (1937), 276 pp. Several
volumes, such as volume 3, appeared in a second printing. A complete,
photographically produced edition of the work was published in New York in
1943. A Hebrew translation in six volumes, entitled Toldot sifrut yisrael, appeared in Israel in two editions under the
general editorship of Shlomo-Zalman Ariel, David Knaani, and Baruch Karu. The
second edition (Tel Aviv, 1959-1960), based on the first, was re-edited by
David Knaani and important notes were added by A. M. Hoberman. The fourth
volume of the second edition of the Hebrew translation was also edited by David
Knaani, but Mendl Pyekazh provided the supplementary notes. This volume, which
was devoted to Yiddish literature (volume 6 of the original edition), however,
was abridged just in the Yiddishist section, to which Mendl Pyekazh added a
note that does not render Tsinberg’s meaning correctly. A new Yiddish edition
was published in Buenos Aires (Culture Congress, 1964-1970), 10 volumes. The
notes in this edition are those of A. M. Hoberman (from the Hebrew edition) and
Yoyel Shusterovitsh. Tsinberg planned to bring his history down to the outbreak
of WWI. In 1938 he finished the first part of the ninth volume, Der bli-tkufe fun der haskole (The high
period of the Enlightenment). He had not as yet made any move to send the
manuscript to Vilna. And just then he was arrested. A committee was formed in
New York—Dovid Pinski, Khayim Grinberg, Izidor Glauberman, Leon Denen, Yankev
Fishman, and Elye Shulman—to rescue Tsinberg. But there was nothing anyone
could do. We now know that Tsinberg was arrested in late 1938, that he was
deported to a forced labor camp, and that he did not make it to the camp but
was transferred, exhausted and sick from the long and difficult journey, in
Vladivostok into a camp hospital, and there he died in January 1939. The news
reached New York that in the Leningrad state archives Yisroel Tsinberg’s
manuscripts were being preserved. After lengthy negotiations, Brandeis
University received a microfilm of the manuscript of the ninth volume of
Tsinberg’s Geshikhte. According to
the microfilm, this volume was commented on and prepared for publication by
Mikhl Astur. This appeared in print under the title Der bli-tkufe fun der haskole, as volume 9 of the Geshikhte fun der literatur bay yidn,
published by Brandeis University, Tsiko (Central Yiddish Cultural Organization),
and Bikher Tsentrale (Book Central) (New York, 1966), 366 pp. Tsinberg also
prepared for publication: a manuscript on the old Yiddish theater down through
Avrom Goldfaden; “an essay on a German physician of the eighteenth century”; “a
diary,” only one chapter of a monograph on the Yiddish theater, Gilgulim fun akhashveyresh-shpil (Transformation
of the Ahashverosh
play), published in Tsukunft (New
York) 1 (1923). In Hillel Aleksandrov’s report on Tsinberg’s archive, which may
be found in the Leningrad division of the Institute of the Peoples of Asia at
the Academy of Sciences, these manuscripts are not indicated. Their fate for
the time being (as of late 1967) remains unknown. Aleksandrov claims that in
Tsinberg’s archive there are 630 items, among them: a valuable letter
collection, a portion of which Aleksandrov published together with his report
in Sovetish heymland (Soviet
homeland) 2-3 (1965). In addition, in the archive are materials for the
lectures that Tsinberg delivered, materials and notes on the history of the
Jewish socialist press, the Yiddish language, on the cultural history of the
Jews in Russia, and notes on Jewish rationalists in the Middle Ages. Tsinberg
possessed an industriousness, knowledge, insight, and a profound sensibility
regarding literature. In a blissful manner, he combined this with the knowledge
of a literary critic. He was a comprehensively creative person, and literature
was not for him a means to serve some objective—but it was for him an
expression of Jewish life and Jewish creativity. Tsinberg incorporated our
Yiddish literature as an integral part of overall Jewish creation…. He wrote
the sections on our Yiddish literature as one of those involved. He did not do
this as a way of repaying anything, as other historians have and continue to
do. He did with love and responsibility. I don’t know if one would be
exaggerating to say that Tsinberg was a Yiddishist. His Yiddishism is expressed
both in the volume on Yiddish literature and in the last volume to appear, in
which he championed Yiddish and defended it against the attacks by several
writers in the era of the Jewish Enlightenment.
Tsinberg’s literary history
comprises a work that one can and must be used by specialists and researchers—and
at the same time, one can read his history and enjoy it. It is a work that is
definitely both for researchers and for general readers. (Note: There is a
complete English translation: A History
of Jewish Literature [Cleveland: Case Western Reserve University,
1972-1978], 12 volumes.)
“How did Y. Tsinberg systematize,”
asked Shmuel Niger, “all the important and significant creative literary works?
First, according to chronological order; second, according to the geographical
centers which emerged one after the next in the European era of our history;
and third, according to language (Hebrew-Aramaic and—Yiddish). But, the very
fact that he had to use these three different sorting principles leads to his inability
to preserve one at the expense of the others…. More important that the division
of materials is his explanation. How does Y. Tsinberg explain the history of
Jewish literature? Does he have a distinct philosophy of history—of history
generally and of literature in particular? Is he more interested in the role of
the collective (class, people) or the role of individual creative
personalities? It is not so easy to answer these questions. This is simply
because Y. Tsinberg devotes little attention to them. He occupies himself more
with describing the most important
literary works in this or that epoch, than he does in explaining the reasons
that led to them. The question ‘What took place?’ interests him more than the
question ‘Why?’ If he had himself been a writer of literature, he probably
would have been more a describer of lifestyles than a psychologist. Now,
inasmuch as he writes the history of literature, he is also more the deliverer
of reports than a philosopher or sociologist. As a deliverer of historical
reports, he excelled. He turns to the root, to the first source, and he knows
what to draw, what to select. He knows how to detach what is important from
what is less so. This is his greatest strength. He leads us to the well—to the
texts of the ancient religious works. He offers no commentary on the
commentaries. From time to time, he offers explanations, providing certain
commentary. We thus are able to learn from them something, if not much, of his
philosophy of literary history in general and of the history of Jewish
literature in particular…. However, the value of Y. Tsinberg’s Geshikhte fun der literatur bai yidn
lies, as it were, not in its explanation of historical facts, but in its
describing them. He provides us with facts and dates about the lives of the
poets and the philosophers—and he provides this according to the primary
sources; he lets us peer into the ancient texts—he cites from entire chapters,
entire works. We forget when we read individual chapters that we are dealing
with history, with a process of evaluation.”
“The association with Tsinberg,” noted Shloyme Bikl, “leads me to two giant figures in our history: the great commentator on the law, Rashi (R. Shlomo Yitsḥaki), at the beginning of our millennium, and Heinrich Graetz, the father of modern Jewish historiography. Tsinberg inherited from both men the lyrical-passionate point in his commentaries and his plotline. Without this lyrical-passionate point, Rashi would have been unable to have reached the pinnacle of explicit destiny among Jews: the Torah with Rashi’s commentary. In Tsinberg’s storyline with commentaries concerning Geshikhte fun der literatur bay yidn, the gentle Rashi tone dominates even when he reprimands and polemicizes. This is not only an important work, Tsinberg’s nine-volume Geshikhte, but also a beloved text, a familiar, proximate text for the ordinary Jewish reader, for the especially interested Jewish reader, and for the professional.”
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