THE OLD COUNTRY Author:Sholom Aleichem Sholem Aleichem wrote some 300 stories, five novels, many plays and a number of other works in yiddish, his native tongue. His Collected Works (in Yiddish) comprise twenty-eight volumes. Sholom Aleichem is a pan name, which means literally "Peace to you" or can be freely translated as "How do you do." In any case, it is a greeting of good cheer... more ». The man who chose to write under this name of good cheer was born Solomon Rabinowitch in the town of Pereyeslav which is in the Ukraine, and he died at the age of fifty-seven in New York in 1916. He is buried in Brooklyn and his grave there has become a shrine which many Jews visit every year. for if Sholom Aleichem is not the greatest Jewish writer of modern times, surely he is the best beloved. There probably isn't a Jew on earth who can read Yiddish and who hasn't read Sholom Aleichem and lau8ghed till the tears rolled out of his eyes. ILn a way, SHolom Aleichem was the great image of the Jew - the salty and hilarious sage whose tenacious grin is in the lowliest. Of Sholom Aleichem, Macim Gorki said: "I laughed and cried. Wonderful work. I like it immensely. I'll say it again-excellent work." Ben Hicht said: "He is the greatest humorist the Jews ever produced, the peer of Mark Twain."
The stories on which the great musical FIDDLER ON THE ROOF is based.« less