Sholem Aleichem, the pen name of Solomon Naumovich Rabinovich, was a Yiddish-language author and playwright, born in 1859 and died in 1916, who lived for much of his life in the Russian Empire before emigrating to the United States. He is best remembered for his stories of Tevye the Dairyman, a poor Jewish milkman in a shtetl struggling to marry off his daughters while holding to his faith amid a changing world, stories that later formed the basis of the musical Fiddler on the Roof. Often compared to Mark Twain for his warmth and humor, Sholem Aleichem was a passionate advocate for Yiddish as a legitimate national Jewish literary language, and he remains one of the most widely read and beloved figures of modern Yiddish literature.
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1. Sholem Aleichem (Wikipedia)
WikipediaLead sentence, opening parenthetical with full name and dates
Solomon Naumovich Rabinovich (Russian: Соломон Наумович Рабинович; March 2 [O.S. February 18] 1859, May 13, 1916), better known under his pen name Sholem Aleichem, was a Jewish author and playwright who wrote in Yiddish and lived in the Russian Empire and in the United States.
Death section
Sholem Aleichem died in New York on May 13, 1916, from tuberculosis and diabetes, aged 57, while working on his last novel, Motl, Peysi the Cantor's Son, and was buried at Old Mount Carmel cemetery in Queens.
Original language statement
Sholem Aleichem, the pen name of Solomon Naumovich Rabinovich, was a Yiddish-language author and playwright, born in 1859 and died in 1916, who lived for much of his life in the Russian Empire before emigrating to the United States.
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