Editing Sholem Aleichem (section)

==Biography==
[[File:שלום עליכם-JNF014304.jpeg|thumb|Sholem Aleichem in 1910]]
Solomon Naumovich (Sholom Nohumovich) Rabinovich ({{langx|ru|Соломо́н Нау́мович (Шо́лом Но́хумович) Рабино́вич}}) was born in 1859 in [[Pereiaslav]] and grew up in the nearby ''[[shtetl]]'' of  [[Voronkiv, Kyiv Oblast|Voronkiv]], in the [[Poltava Governorate]] of the [[Russian Empire]] (now in the [[Kyiv Oblast]] of central [[Ukraine]]).<ref name=pereyaslav/> (Voronkiv has become the prototype of Aleichem's [[Kasrilevka]].<ref>[https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/shalom-aleichem Shalom Aleichem (1859 - 1916)], Jewish Virtual Library</ref>) His father, Menachem-Nukhem Rabinovich, was a rich merchant at that time.<ref name = "jewishvirtuallibrary.org">{{Citation | url = https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/aleichem.html | contribution = Aleichem | title = Jewish virtual library | format = biography}}.</ref> However, a failed business affair plunged the family into poverty and Solomon Rabinovich grew up in reduced circumstances.<ref name = "jewishvirtuallibrary.org" /> When he was 13 years old, the family moved back to Pereiaslav, where his mother, Chaye-Esther, died in a [[cholera]] epidemic.<ref>{{Citation | first = Sholem | last = Aleichem | title = From the Fair | publisher = Viking Penguin | year = 1985 | chapter = 34. Cholera | pages = 100–4}}.</ref>

Sholem Aleichem's first venture into writing was an alphabetic glossary of the [[epithet]]s used by his stepmother. At the age of fifteen, he composed a Jewish version of the novel ''[[Robinson Crusoe]]''. He adopted the [[pseudonym]] ''Sholem Aleichem,'' a [[Yiddish]] variant of the [[Hebrew]] expression ''[[shalom aleichem]],'' meaning "peace be with you" and typically used as a greeting.

In 1876, after graduating from school in Pereiaslav, he began to work as a teacher. During 1877-1880 in Sofijka village, [[Bohuslav]] region, he spent three years tutoring a wealthy landowner's daughter,<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20161228120710/http://boguslav-rda.gov.ua/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=340:2012-05-24-06-39-27&catid=166:2012-05-24-06-28-01&Itemid=56 Poberezhka-Sofijka villages. 24.04.2016.(in Ukr.)]</ref> Olga (Hodel) {{Proper name|Loev}} (1865&ndash;1942).<ref>Dates on base of Rabinowitz's gravestone.</ref>  From 1880 to 1883 he served as [[crown rabbi (Russia)|crown rabbi]] in [[Lubny]].<ref name="Kaplan2010">{{Cite book |title=The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe |url=http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/ |chapter=Crown Rabbi |chapter-url=http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Crown_Rabbi |last1=Kaplan Appel |first1=Tamar |date=August 3, 2010 |website=YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe |publisher=[[Yale University Press]] |isbn=9780300119039 |oclc=170203576 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150327120806/http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Crown_Rabbi |archive-date=March 27, 2015 |access-date=May 31, 2015 }}</ref>

On May 12, 1883, he and Olga married, against the wishes of her father, whose estate they inherited a few years later. Their first child, a daughter named Ernestina (Tissa), was born in 1884.  In 1890, Sholem Aleichem lost their entire fortune in stock [[speculation]] and fled from his creditors.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Huttner|first1=Jan Lisa|title=Tevye's Daughters: No Laughing Matter|date=September 18, 2014|publisher=FF2 Media|location=New York City, NY|asin=B00NQDQCTG|url=https://www.amazon.com/Tevyes-Daughters-No-Laughing-Matter-ebook/dp/B00NQDQCTG/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top?ie=UTF8|access-date=October 21, 2014}}</ref>  Daughter Lyalya (Lili) was born in 1887. As Lyalya Kaufman, she became a Hebrew writer. (Lyalya's daughter [[Bel Kaufman]], also a writer, was the author of ''[[Up the Down Staircase]]'', which was also made into a successful film.) A third daughter, Emma, was born in 1888. In 1889, Olga gave birth to a son. They named him Elimelech, after Olga's father, but at home they called him Misha. Daughter Marusi (who would one day publish "My Father, Sholom Aleichem" under her married name [[Marie Waife]]-Goldberg) was born in 1892. A final child, a son named Nochum (Numa) after Solomon's father was born in 1901 (under the name [[Norman Raeben]] he became a painter and an influential art teacher).

After witnessing the [[pogrom]]s that swept through southern [[Russian Empire]] in 1905, [[Kiev pogrom (1905)|including Kiev]], Sholem Aleichem left [[Kiev]] (which was fictionalized as [[Yehupetz]]) and emigrated to [[New York City]], where he arrived in 1906. His family{{clarify|date=August 2013}} set up house in [[Geneva]], [[Switzerland]], but when he saw he could not afford to maintain two households, he joined them in Geneva in 1908. Despite his great popularity, he was forced to take up an exhausting schedule of lecturing to make ends meet. <!--BROKEN LINK [http://www.kedproductions.org/about_Sholem_Aleichem.htm]--> In July 1908, during a reading tour in Russia, Sholem Aleichem collapsed on a train going through [[Baranovichi|Baranowicze]]. He was diagnosed with a relapse of acute hemorrhagic [[tuberculosis]] and spent two months convalescing in the town's hospital. He later described the incident as "meeting his majesty, the Angel of Death, face to face", and claimed it as the catalyst for writing his autobiography, ''Funem yarid'' [From the Fair].<ref name=pereyaslav>{{cite news |first=Chaim |last=Potok |author-link=Chaim Potok |title=The Human Comedy Of Pereyaslav |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D03EFDE1738F937A25754C0A963948260 |work=[[New York Times]] |date=July 14, 1985 |access-date=June 16, 2008 }}</ref> He thus missed the first [[Czernowitz Conference|Conference for the Yiddish Language]], held in 1908 in [[Chernivtsi|Czernovitz]]; his colleague and fellow Yiddish activist [[Nathan Birnbaum]] went in his place.<ref>[http://www.ibiblio.org/yiddish/Tshernovits/fridh.html First Yiddish Language Conference. Two roads to Yiddishism (Nathan Birnbaum and Sholem Aleichem)] by Louis Fridhandler</ref>

Sholem Aleichem spent the next four years living as a semi-invalid. During this period the family was largely supported by donations from friends and admirers (among his friends and acquaintances were fellow Yiddish authors [[I. L. Peretz]], [[Jacob Dinezon]], [[Mordecai Spector]], and [[Noach Pryłucki]]). In 1909, in celebration of his 25th Jubilee as a writer, his friend and colleague [[Jacob Dinezon]] spearheaded a committee with Dr. Gershon Levine, Abraham Podlishevsky, and [[Noach Pryłucki]] to buy back the [[Publishing contract|publishing rights]] to Sholem Aleichem’s works from various publishers for his sole use in order to provide him with a steady income.<ref name="YIVO Institute for Jewish Research">''Guide to the Sutzkever Kaczerginski Collection, Part II: Collection of Literary and Historical Manuscripts RG 223.2'', YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, ''[http://www.yivoarchives.org/index.php?p=collections/findingaid&id=932702&q=&rootcontentid=218934]''</ref> At a time when Sholem Aleichem was ill and struggling financially, this proved to be an invaluable gift, and Sholem Aleichem expressed his gratitude in a thank you letter in which he wrote,
{{Blockquote
|text=“If I tried to tell you a hundredth part of the way I feel about you, I know that that would be sheer profanation. If I am fated to live a few years longer than I have been expecting, I shall doubtless be able to say that it’s your fault, yours and that of all the other friends who have done so much to carry out your idea of ‘the redemption of the imprisoned.’”<ref name="Sholom Aleichem Panorama">''Sholom Aleichem Panorama'', I. D. Berkowitz, translator, M. W. (Melech) Grafstein, editor and publisher, (London, Ontario, Canada: The Jewish Observer, 1948), pp. 343-344</ref>
|author=Sholem Aleichem
}}

Sholem Aleichem moved to New York City again with his family in 1914. The family lived at first in [[Harlem]] at 110 [[Lenox Avenue]] (at 116th Street) and later moved to 968 [[Kelly Street]] in the [[Bronx]]. His son, Misha, ill with tuberculosis, was not permitted entry under United States immigration laws and remained in Switzerland with his sister Emma.

Sholem Aleichem died at his Bronx apartment in 1916. He is buried in the main (old) section of [[Mount Carmel Cemetery (Queens)|Mount Carmel Cemetery in Queens, New York City]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Wilson |first1=Scott |title=Resting places: the burial sites of more than 14,000 famous persons |date=22 August 2016 |location=Jefferson, North Carolina |isbn=978-0786479924 |page=14 |edition=Third |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7-DgDAAAQBAJ |access-date=22 January 2021}}</ref>