Within the Herman Bernstein collection at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research lies an unknown and previously unpublished letter by Sholem Aleichem (Shalom Rabinowitz, 1859–1916), one of Yiddish literature’s most renowned writers. Unidentified for over a century, it was first recognized in 2017, 101 years after the author’s death. In the letter, Sholem Aleichem addresses the theme of Jewish cultural assimilation in general, and Americanization in particular.

Apparently written not long after Sholem Aleichem first arrived in America in 1906, the letter is significant because it demonstrates his approach to the phenomenon of Jewish American children, a subject which he developed during the last decade of his life and which culminated in his final literary work, Motl, the Cantor’s Son. A close reading of the letter sheds new light on the his impressions of American Jewish immigrants and, in particular, of American Jewish children. The excitement and fascination generated by this topic would turn out to be one of his main literary subjects until his death 10 years later.

In this presentation, Yael Levi will explore the letter’s content, situating it within the historical and cultural context of Sholem Aleichem’s biography and epistolary legacy, with a particular focus on the pivotal period of Jewish migration and the experience of East European Jewish children in America.