Joseph Berger
NY Times, July 24, 2011
Sholem Aleichem arrived in New York in 1906 as the world’s most famous Yiddish writer — a distinction his comic but often disturbing stories of Eastern European life might have mocked as grandiose. Seeking refuge from Russian pogroms, he hoped to explore “the Golden Land” his readers were settling in and earn needed money as a playwright.
Yet like more than a few newcomers to this flinty city, the Jewish Mark Twain, as he was known, left within a year, humiliated and disillusioned. He got caught up in what he himself might have called an earthquake — a churlish reception from the cutthroat New York literary, newspaper and theater worlds.
One editor’s review contained a Dorothy Parker-like swat: “I made use of the privilege ordinary mortals have when they don’t like a play and I left in the middle.”
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