Editing Sholem Aleichem (section)

==Literary career==
[[File:Sholem Aleichem.jpg|200px|right|thumb|A volume of Sholem Aleichem stories in [[Yiddish language|Yiddish]], with the author's portrait and signature]]
[[File:Monument to Sholom Alejhem in Bohuslav.jpg|thumb|Monument to Sholem Aleichem in [[Bohuslav]], [[Ukraine]]  ]]
Like his contemporaries [[Mendele Mocher Sforim]], [[I.L. Peretz]], and [[Jacob Dinezon]], Sholem Rabinovitch started writing in [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]], as well as in [[Russian language|Russian]]. In 1883, when he was 24 years old, he published his first [[Yiddish language|Yiddish]] story, צוויי שטיינער ''Tsvey Shteyner'' ("Two Stones"), using for the first time the pseudonym Sholem Aleichem.

By 1890 he was a central figure in Yiddish literature, the vernacular language of nearly all East European Jews, and produced over forty volumes in Yiddish. It was often derogatorily called "jargon", but Sholem Aleichem used this term in an entirely non-pejorative sense.

Apart from his own literary output, Sholem Aleichem used his personal fortune to encourage other Yiddish writers. In 1888–89, he put out two issues of an [[almanac]], די ייִדישע פאָלקסביבליאָטעק ''Di Yidishe Folksbibliotek'' ("The Yiddish Public Library") which gave important exposure to young Yiddish writers.

In 1890, after he lost his entire fortune, he could not afford to print the almanac's third issue, which had been edited but was subsequently never printed.

''[[Tevye the Dairyman]]'', in Yiddish טבֿיה דער מילכיקער&nbsp;''Tevye der Milchiker'', was first published in 1894.

Over the next few years, while continuing to write in Yiddish, he also wrote in Russian for an Odesa newspaper and for ''[[Voskhod (magazine)|Voskhod]]'', the leading Russian Jewish publication of the time, as well as in Hebrew for ''Ha-melitz,'' and for an anthology edited by [[Yehoshua Hana Rawnitzki|YH Ravnitzky]]. It was during this period that Sholem Aleichem contracted [[tuberculosis]].

In August 1904, Sholem Aleichem edited הילף : א זאַמלבוך פיר ליטעראטור אונ קונסט ''Hilf: a Zaml-Bukh fir Literatur un Kunst'' ("Help: An Anthology for Literature and Art"; [[Warsaw]], 1904) and himself translated three stories submitted by [[Leo Tolstoy|Tolstoy]] (''Esarhaddon, King of Assyria''; ''Work, Death and Sickness''; ''[[The Three Questions]]'') as well as contributions by other prominent Russian writers, including [[Anton Chekhov|Chekhov]], in aid of the victims of the [[Kishinev pogrom]].