Short Story Criticism | Aleichem, Sholom - Jonathan Boyarin (essay date 1986)

Jonathan Boyarin (essay date 1986)

SOURCE: "Sholem-Aleykhem's 'Stantsye Baranovitsh'," in Identity and Ethos: A Festschrift for Sol Liptzin on the Occasion of His 85th Birthday, edited by Mark H. Gelber, Peter Lang, 1986, pp. 89-99.

[In the following essay, Boyarín discusses Aleichem's narrative technique as evinced in his short story "Stantsye Baranovitsh."]

Sholem-Aleykhem's works bridge the gulf between us and the world he evokes. That gulf, immeasurably deepened by the Holocaust, was already evidenced by the distinction between the Russian-speaking author, Sholem Rabinovitsh, and the Yiddish persona "Sholem-Aleykhem." One aspect of Rabinovitsh's enduring genius may be identified as the awareness of the break between the world in which live storytelling was commonplace and the world in which Rabinovitsh lived, and his consequent creation of unique artifices—such as the Sholem-Aleykhem persona¹—to bridge the gap without...

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