Jizchok Leib Perez

Jizchok Leib Perez

Jizchok Leib Perez ( יצחק־לייבוש פּרץTranscription Jicxok-Lejbuš Perec ; born May 18, 1852 in Zamość , then Russian Poland ; died April 3, 1915 in Warsaw ) was a Yiddish-speaking writer from Poland, who also wrote in Polish and Hebrew .

In Poland at the time, his name was reproduced as Icchok Lejbusz Perec ; in addition, there are many other forms of name due to transcriptions , transliterations or adjustments to the first name spellings common in other diaspores: Jizchak Leib Perez, Isaak Leib Perez, Jizchok Lejb Perez, Itzhok Lejb Perez Isaak Leib Peretz etc. As a columnist he used the pseudonyms Lucifer, Lez and Ben Tamar .

In addition to Mendele Moicher Sforim and Scholem Alejchem , Perez is one of the founders of modern Yiddish literature and Jewish fiction in general. He is considered "one of the most important psychologizing poets in world literature and at the same time the most outstanding Yiddish playwright".

Perez wrote his literary work in Polish, Hebrew and Yiddish. His early work is still completely caught up in Jewish emancipation and enlightenment . After the failed revolution of 1905 , he addressed the life problems of Hasidic Jews in Eastern Europe in realistic short stories . In his late work this resignation faded more and more into the background, in favor of his symbolic dramas, in which mysticism was very important.

Life

Jakob Dinesohn and J. L. Perez. In the background a picture by Mendele Moicher Sforim

Perez, born to wealthy and benevolent parents of Sephardic origin, received the usual education ( Tanakh , Talmud and his commentaries), but acquired a great deal of self-taught knowledge in religious and secular questions, and also received private lessons in Hebrew grammar, German and Russian. At the age of twenty he married the daughter of the Hebrew writer Gabriel Jehuda Lichtenfeld, with whom he published a small volume of poems. Perez studied at the University of Warsaw Law . After graduating in 1877, at the age of 26, he settled in his hometown as a lawyer . Perez was already politically active during his studies. As a lawyer, he repeatedly appeared as a political speaker and was involved in workers' education .

After several warnings by the Bar Association Perez was in 1889 for sedition admission as lawyer withdrawn. He moved to Warsaw, where he was employed as a secretary by the Jewish community. Perez earned his living as an employee in a statistical office and later as an overseer of the Jewish cemeteries in Warsaw. Working in the statistical office confronted him with the reality of life and the misery of the rural population. As a result, he preferably described the life of the Jewish lower class in his literary work and propagated the new ideals of socialism .

In addition to the numerous political and party-political newspapers and magazines , literary magazines also developed in Poland . Perez had already started in 1891 with the establishment of the Yiddish Library , but it took a few years before this journal became established. In 1894 he tried a second time and in 1896 a third time to publish this Jewish weekly in order to spread the ideas of the Enlightenment and socialism . This literary magazine dealt with Yiddish and Hebrew culture and language . In this way, the writer and editor tried to provide a forum for Yiddish literature. The published copies are testimony to the revolutionary spirit of these years and the search for new means of expression. In 1899 he was arrested and spent several months in prison. That hadn’t hurt his reputation.

From then on, Perez fought against the Chibbat Zion movement , against Hebraists and against Orthodoxy alike, rather saw the Jewish future in the diaspora and the Yiddish language, paired with mild socialism. In 1894 he published a sharp criticism of Achad Haam in the Hebrew collector's book Hachez; Incidentally, he was critical of the " Bund ", the Jewish socialist party of his time. Since his speech at the Yiddish conference in Chernivtsi in 1908, he has become one of the spokesmen for the champions of Yiddish. However, at the conference he had opposed the resolution that Yiddish was the only national language of the Jews. In 1910 he was appointed head of the Jewish-Literary Society in Warsaw.

Perez was without question the focal point of Jewish literature in Poland. Students and academics turned to him, asking him to evaluate their writings or for advice on social issues. Thus Warsaw became the center of Jewish poetry and theater. After his death, expressionism found its way into Yiddish literature. Hirsch David Nomberg became the main literary figure in Warsaw after Perez's death.

Itzhok Lejb Perez died on April 3, 1915 in Warsaw at the age of 64. His funeral at the Jewish Cemetery on Okopowa Street grew into a spontaneous political event that attracted well over 100,000 people.

After the death of Jizchok Leib Perez, whose apartment had been a meeting place for writers, the Jewish Association of Writers and Journalists was founded in 1916. This club became known under the name Tlomatske 13 .

Works (selection)

• Sippurim beschir, 1877 (poems, together with GJ Lichtenfeld)
• Although he sinned, he is a Jew, 1887
• The dibbuk and the madman, 1887
• Justification of the accused, 1887
• Monisch, 1888
• The gojlem, 1890
• Pictures fun a provints-rajse, 1891
• Di Jidische Bibliothek (as editor), 1891 ff.
• Ha-ugaw, 1894
• Lel sewa'a, 1894
• Jontew-Bletlech (as editor), 1894–1896 (17 deliveries)
• Bakante pictures, 1895 (short stories)
• The meschugener batlen (Habatlan hameschugga), 1895 (short stories)
• Churbn bites tzaddik 1903
• Folk stories . 1903-1904
• Bajnacht ojfn altn mark, 1907 ("The night on the old market": a game in four acts. After the Jew. By Hugo Zuckermann. In. By Martin Buber. Löwit, Vienna 1915.)
• Di goldene kejt ("The golden chain"), 1907 1908
• Hasidic, 1908
• Yiddish, 1910 (collector's book)
• Also the kwire, 1914
• He and She, 1914
• A early morning, 1914
• Schampanjer, 1914
• S'burns, 1914
• Wegn children, 1914
• Hasidic stories, from Jüd. by Alexander Eliasberg, Löwit, Vienna 1917
• In the stagecoach, 1919
• Wrath of a Woman, 1919
• My memories, 1928 (autobiography)

Without year or not determined

• A kaas vun a Yidene
• The Straimel
• The Hamoju (magazine)
• The Meschullach
• Di three Neitorins ("The Three Seamstresses"; poem)
• The frume cat
• Die Hilf (magazine)
• The Kabbalists
• The small town
• A night of horror (hebrew)
• Ha'ischa marat Channa
• Hakaddish (his first Hasidic poetry)
• Hina haktana ("Here is the little one"; German under the title Krähwinkel )
• Idea and Harp (Hebrew)
• In Fligel far Meschuggoim
• In Polisch ojf der kejt (drama)
• Meisselach
• Mendel Braines
• Moshiach's times
• Mussar
• R. Chanina ben Dosa
• Rabbi Jossel
• Shalom bajit
• Wus is in Fidale (Hasidic drama, reworking of the story A Klesmers toit )
• Timelines

Editions of works (selection):

• Collected Hebrew Works (Tuschiah Edition, 10 volumes), 1899–1901
• Complete edition (Hebrew and Yiddish), 1901
• Progres-ojsgabe, 1908 (10 volumes, Yiddish)
• Jewish stories, 1916 (German)
• Hasidic stories, 1917 (German)
• From this and that world, 1919 (German)
• Three Dramas, 1920 (German)
• New York 1920 (13 volumes, Yiddish)
• Die Zeit, 1923 (German)
• Wilna 1925–1929 (20 volumes, Yiddish, Kletzkin Verlag)
• Morgn-frajhajt-ojsgabe, New York (15 volumes, Yiddish, unfinished)
• Klibene derzejlungen, Winnipeg 1942
• Buenos Aires 1944 (18 volumes, Yiddish)
• New York 1946 (11 volumes, Yiddish)
• Ojsgewejlteschrift, Bucharest 1959
• In keler-schtub. Derzejlungen, Moscow 1959
• Stories from the Ghetto, 1961 (German)
• The Golem, 1967 (German)
• Baal Schem as match maker and other stories, 1969 (German)
• Geklibene derzejlungen, Mexico City o. J.
• Annette Weber (Ed.): Isaak Leib Perez: You should live. East Jewish stories. From Yiddish by Mathias Acher . With pictures by Marc Chagall . Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1993.

Commemoration

Several streets and squares in Poland were named after Jizchok Leib Perez (ulica or plac Icchaka Lejba Pereca), for example in Zamość, Warsaw, Breslau and Kutno, as well as a Jewish school in Łódź that was dissolved in Poland as a result of the March unrest in 1968 (1945–1968 ).

literature

in order of appearance

• Nachman Meisel: יצחק לייבוש פרץ. Special issue of the Warsaw weekly magazine dedicated to Jizchok Leib Perezליטערארישע בלעטער( Literary sheets ), No. 15–16, April 15, 1927 (Yiddish).
• Salman Reisen : Lekßikon fun der Yidischer literature un press. Volume II, Vilnius 1927 (Yiddish).
• Abraham Aaron Roback: IL Peretz. Psychologist of Literature. Sci-Art Publications, Cambridge MA 1935.
• Samuel Niger : YL Perets. Buenos Aires 1952.
• Yehuda Arye Klausner: Studies on the Life and Work of Yishaq Leyb Peretz with Special Reference to an Unknown Manuscript . Diss., University of London 1958.
• Isaac Leib Peretz. In: Leksikon fun der Najer Yidischer literature. Volume 7, New York 1968 (with bibliography).
• Peretz, Isaac Leib. In: Encyclopaedia Judaica , Volume 13, 1973, Col. 279-282.
• Ruth R. Wisse : IL Peretz and the Making of Modern Jewish Culture . University of Washington Press, Seattle 1991.
• Marie Schumacher-Brunhes: Entre tradition et modernité. L'oeuvre de YL Peretz, 1852-1915 . Diss., Université Charles de Gaulle, Lille 2005.
• Dan Miron : Bontshe. In: Dan Diner (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Jewish History and Culture (EJGK). Volume 1: A-Cl. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2011, ISBN 978-3-476-02501-2 , pp. 381-386.
• Ruth R. Wisse : Peretz, Yitskhok Leybush . In: YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe , 2008, pp. 1339-1342

Web links

Commons : Jizchok Leib Perez  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Jizchok Leib Perez in the catalog of the German National Library
• Isaak Leib Peretz (1852-1915). ( Memento from October 23, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Biography and picture (The Jewish Agency for Israel)
• Free Notes Dos Prayer. Text by JL Perez

Individual evidence

1. ^ Salomon Wininger : Jizchak Leib Perez. In: Great Jewish National Biography. Volume V, Druckerei Orient, Czernowitz 1931, p. 3, according to the birth certificate.
2. ↑ Dan Miron: Bontshe. In: Dan Diner (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Jewish History and Culture (EJGK). Volume 6: Ta-Z. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2015, ISBN 978-3-476-02506-7 , p. 70.
3. ↑ In contrast to Mendele or Schalom Aleichem, he also describes life in the small Jewish towns of Europe, but places more value on the drawing of the individual fate than on the general group picture.
4. ↑ Perez, Jizchok Lejb. In: Brockhaus encyclopedia. Volume 14, 1972, p. 367; the pieces The golden chain, The night on the old market, In Polisch auf der Keit and others stand for this .
5. ↑ Gabrielle Oberhänsli-Widmer: Job in Jewish antiquity and modernity. The history of the impact of Job in Jewish literature. 2nd Edition. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2017, ISBN 978-3-7887-3172-4 , p. 188.
6. ↑ Aviel Roshwald: Jewish cultural identity in Eastern and Central Europe during the Great War . In: Aviel Roshwald, Richard Stites (Ed.): European culture in the Great War. The arts, entertainment, and propaganda, 1914-1918 . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1999, ISBN 0-521-57015-8 , pp. 89-126, here p. 120.
7. ↑ ^{a b c d} In Sokolov's magazine He-assif
8. ↑ A longer narrative poem in the form of a ballad, published in Scholem Alejchems Jüdischer Volksbibliothek, describes the struggle of a young ascetic Jew with the demonic powers that persecute him in the form of a beautiful Christian girl.
9. ↑ Story about Rabbi Löw of Prague: The golem in its clay form still exists, but the knowledge of the divine name, with which it alone could be animated, has been lost.
10. ↑ Description of the poor life in the Jewish Paleon of Settlement .
11. ↑ "The Flute", collection of Hebrew love songs with an individualistic, erotic note.
12. ↑ "Sheets on the Holidays", in which, because of the censorship, behind observations of the holidays, information and socialist propaganda were hidden. One of the main contributors was David Pinski .
13. ↑ "The Downfall of the Tzaddik's House", Hebrew drama, the first version of his Yiddish play Di goldene Kejt ("The Golden Chain", 1907), thematizing the generation conflict
14. ↑ Translated into many languages, e.g. B. in Spanish by Schachna Resnik under the title Los Cabalistas, Buenos Aires 1919.
15. ↑ Symbolistic Hasidic verse drama, the individual scenes of which are only held together by the role of the jester, it depicts Jewish history in Poland and its hopelessness and futility with full pessimism.
16. ↑ Hasidic Drama; the gold chain is the symbol of the Hasidic tradition in the family; it gets weaker and weaker and finally breaks.
17. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} one-act play, successfully performed in America
18. ↑ In the original: Majne sichrojneß (written 1913–1914, unfinished).
19. ↑ Against the oppression of Jewish women within the patriarchal family
20. ↑ Short story full of biting irony about the false piety of the community leaders.
21. ↑ One of his most famous poems, in which Jom Tov Bletlech appeared.
22. ↑ Poem in which he glorifies life in the shtetl .
23. ↑ ^{a b c} Against the oppression of Jewish women.
24. ↑ His first story, published in Sokolov's magazine He-assif; Criticism of the conditions of the Jewish residents of Zamosc.