Sholem Asch (1880–1957)
Author of The Apostle
About the Author
Sholem Asch, one of the major figures in Yiddish letters, was born in Kutno, near Warsaw, Poland, in 1880. He began writing in 1901, first in Hebrew, then in Yiddish. His early, quietly humorous stories of Jewish small-town life brought Yiddish literature to international notice. His epic novels show more and plays dealt with the contemporary scene and the Jewish experience on a worldwide scale. The range and reach of his talent were wide; his collected works appeared in Yiddish in 29 volumes. Many of his works have been translated into English, but some translations are now out of print. Asch spent most of his last two years in Bat Yam near Tel Aviv, Israel (although he died in London). His house in Bat Yam is now the Sholem Asch Museum. The bulk of his library, containing rare Yiddish books and manuscripts, including the manuscripts of some of his own works, is held at Yale University. Asch died in 1957. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Disambiguation Notice:
Please note that this is not the same person as Solomon Elliott Asch the social psychologist -- please do not recombine them.
Image credit: Image © ÖNB/Wien
Series
Works by Sholem Asch
Sabbatai Zevi: A Tragedy in Three Acts and Six Scenes with a Prologue and an Epilogue (1930) 21 copies
Der Tehilim-Eid 3 copies
La hechicera de Castilla 2 copies
Joseph and his brothers 2 copies
Een pogrom : Vertelling 2 copies
Condenado a muerte 2 copies
Kleine geschichten aus der bibel 2 copies
Von den Vätern 1 copy
Aposteln (Apostle) 1 copy
Een ||profeet verrijst 1 copy
Naye ertseylungen : roman 1 copy
Naye dramen 1 copy
מערי : ראמאן 1 copy
Motke de dief 1 copy
Sholem Asch : the apostle 1 copy
יוגענד 1 copy
שלום אַש: ערצעהלונגען 1 copy
אַ שטעדטיל; קײן אַמעריקע 1 copy
אָנקל מאָזעס 1 copy
Der Trost des Volkes 1 copy
Von Den Vätern. Roman. 1 copy
Novella in Yiddish 1 copy
Kinder in der Fremde 1 copy
Il diluvio : romanzo 1 copy
המכשפה מקשטיליה 1 copy
Il diluvio 1 copy
אף זו אם 1 copy
וארשה : רומן 1 copy
The Apostle (abridged) 1 copy
Junto al abismo 1 copy
Stories and satires 1 copy
Hebreaj rakontoj 1 copy
Geklibene verk 1 copy
Szriften 1 copy
De ||Messias komt 1 copy
APÓSTOLO 1 copy
Ist River 1 copy
פטרבורג : רומן 1 copy
כתבי שלום אש 1 copy
כתבים 1 copy
געקליבענע ווערק 1 copy
פארן מבול 1 copy
געזאמעלטע שריפטן 1 copy
דער ||ברענענדיקער דארן 1 copy
Doortocht door de nacht 1 copy
A shṭedṭil 1 copy
The Mazarene 1 copy
Mother 1 copy
דאָס געזאַנג פֿון טאָל 1 copy
Associated Works
The Jewish caravan : great stories of twenty-five centuries (1935) — Contributor, some editions — 132 copies
Workers' Tales: Socialist Fairy Tales, Fables, and Allegories from Great Britain (2018) — Contributor — 42 copies
Have I Got a Story for You: More Than a Century of Fiction from the Forward (2016) — Contributor — 31 copies
Sholem Ash : zayn lebn, zayne verk : biografye, opshatsungen, polemik, briv, bibliografye — Associated Name — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Asch, Sholem
- Other names
- ASZ, Szalom
ASH, Shalom
ASCH, Shalom - Birthdate
- 1880-11-01
- Date of death
- 1957-07-10
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- Russia (birth)
USA (passport) - Birthplace
- Kutno, Poland, Russian Empire
- Place of death
- London, England, UK
- Places of residence
- Warsaw, Poland
Palestine(Israel)
USA
France
Bat Yam, Israel - Occupations
- novelist
dramatist
essayist
translator - Relationships
- Asch, Moses (son)
Asch, Nathan (son)
Nomberg, Hersh David (friend)
Peretz, I.L. (friend) - Organizations
- Yiddish PEN Club (honorary president)
- Awards and honors
- Polonia Restituta (Polish Republic)
- Short biography
- Sholem Asch was the youngest of 10 children in a Hasidic Jewish family in Poland. He was given a traditional Jewish education and, being a talented student, also began teaching himself German and other secular subjects. His parents disapproved, so he moved out of their home and settled in the town of Włocławek, where he earned a living writing letters for illiterate people. Stimulated by his wide reading in European literature, Asch began writing stories himself. In 1900, he went to Warsaw, where his first Yiddish short story,"Moyshele," appeared in the journal Der yud. He followed this with a volume of Hebrew stories in 1902 and one of Yiddish stories in 1903. That same year, he married Mathilde (Madzhe) Shapiro, the daughter of a well-to-do Hebrew teacher and poet, with whom he had two sons. In 1904, he published the first of his major works, A Shtetl, a long prose poem. His first play, Mitn shtrom (With the Current), written in Polish, was staged that year in Krakow. In 1907, Asch completed his most sensational play, Got fun nekome (G-d of Vengeance), first produced in a German version by Max Reinhardt in Berlin and later staged on Broadway. Asch made his first visit to Palestine in 1908 and wrote a series of sketches under the general title Erets Yisroel (Land of Israel), published in 1911. In 1909 and 1910, Asch made his first visit to the USA, gathering impressions that he later incorporated into his fiction. In the single year 1913, he published five major works. After the start of World War I, Asch emigrated to the USA, settling in New York, and became an American citizen. He became a regular contributer to the Forverts (Jewish Daily Forward), the most widely-read Yiddish newspaper in America, for nearly 25 years. He also became involved in public life, becoming one of the founders of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC). After the war, Asch returned to live in Warsaw, but made frequent trips to Weimar Germany. By 1920, Asch had become a famous writer and in honor of his 40th birthday, a New York committee published his collected works in 12 volumes. In 1932, he was elected honorary president of the Yiddish PEN club. His monumental trilogy Farn mabl (Before the Flood), consolidated his international reputation. Written and published in stages between 1921 and 1931, it was translated into English in 1933 under the title Three Cities. A prolific writer who continually expanded the range of his work, Asch brought Yiddish literature into the mainstream of European and American culture, although he remained deeply attached to the legacy of the Jewish past. In 1938, as Nazism and World War II threatened, Asch returned to the USA. His 1939-1949 trilogy of novels, The Nazarene, The Apostle, and Mary, caused great controversy and harsh criticism from the Jewish community. During his last 10 years, Asch returned to Jewish themes and settings. His final completed novel was The Prophet (1955). At the end of his life, Asch lived in Bat Yam, a suburb of Tel Aviv.
- Disambiguation notice
- Please note that this is not the same person as Solomon Elliott Asch the social psychologist -- please do not recombine them.
Members
Discussions
Group tags in YIVO Encyclopedia (March 2012)
collaborative work on Sholem Aleichem in Collaborative work (October 2009)
Reviews
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Jewish Books (1)
Awards
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Statistics
- Works
- 114
- Also by
- 14
- Members
- 2,014
- Popularity
- #12,781
- Rating
- 3.6
- Reviews
- 26
- ISBNs
- 109
- Languages
- 9
- Favorited
- 4
This is a tough one to rate only because Moses is such an interesting character but the book was so long.