Peretz, Isaac Leib

(1852–1915)

   Yiddish and Hebrew writer. Peretz is one of the three ‘classic’ Yiddish authors, the others being MENDELE and SHALOM ALEICHEM. He was born in Russian Poland and wrote most of his early works in Polish, believing that Yiddish and Hebrew would soon die out. His outlook changed after the pogroms of 1881, though he was sceptical about Zionism’s prospects and preferred ‘Diaspora nationalism’ based on Yiddish as the language of the Jews. His own writings, and his editing of literary journals such as Yom Tov Bletlech (‘Festival Pages’), gave Jargon (as Yiddish was called) an enhanced status.

   Peretz played a significant role in the fledgling Jewish socialist movement, for which he spent several months in prison (1899).

   His most important literary works were his stories in both Hebrew and Yiddish, and his Yiddish poetical dramas, of which the best-known was ‘At Night in the Old Market’ (1907), produced by the Moscow Yiddish State Theatre in 1925. Many of his stories were based on folk tales. He was one of the first Hebrew writers to show Chassidism in a favourable light, and he published two collections of chassidic tales (1908–9). His later works are increasingly gloomy about the situation of the Jews.