Shalom AleichemShalom Aleichem,
pseudonym of Solomon Rabinowitz (1859-1916), Yiddish short story writer, dramatist, and humorist,
who is regarded as one of the most creative writers in Yiddish. He was born in Pereyaslav (now Pereyaslav-Khmelnitsky), near Kiev, Ukraine. His
pseudonym, also spelled Sholom and Sholem, is a traditional Hebrew and Yiddish greeting that means “peace be with you”. He was a teacher and rabbi. In 1905 he fled Jewish persecution in Russia and at the outbreak of World War I in 1914 settled in New York. His best-known
works, written in Yiddish, describe the life of simple Russian Jews in small towns. Certain characters recur, including Menachem Mendel, the typical small-town Jew; the eternal dreamer and schemer (Luftmensch); and the best loved, Tobias the Dairyman (Tevye der Milchiger), an incorrigible optimist.Shalom Aleichem's works in English translation include Stempenyu (1913), Inside Kasrilevke (1938), The Old Country (1946), Tevye's Daughters (1949), and Adventures of Mottel, The Cantor's Son (1953). The musical comedy Fiddler on the Roof (1964) is based on Shalom Aleichem's stories about Tevye.