Peretz

Writer, poet, dramaturgist, journalist, essayist and literay theoretician Iccak Lejb Perec (Yitzhak Leib Peretz) (1852-1915) was born in Congress Poland Zamość, then a part of the Russian Empire. He worked there as an attorney, but due to informing on his political stands for free liberal Poland, his lisence was deprived. He moved to ulica Ceglana, Warsaw in 1886 and began a job as a bureaucrat in the Jewish Community, where he remained until the end of his life

He started writing Hebrew, then turned to Polish and Yiddish. In 1888 he published the Yiddish poem titled "Monish," sparking off a Romantic trend in Yiddish poetry. Most his work is an expression of his deep love to Amcha Israel, the simple people. Being close to socialist streams both the anti Zionist Bund, as well as the Zionist Poaley Tzion, he was attacked by the conservative religious orthodox parties (e.g. Agudat Israel), as well as by burgeois groups

His home in Cegalna Warsaw became a focal point for Jewish cultural life, and a center of the literary Jewish republic. In 1899-1900 he wrote most of his Folktales and Chassidic Motifs. He was treated as one side of the triangle with Mendale Mocher Sefarim and Shulem Aleichem

During the 1905 Revolution he cooperated with the press of the parties political parties Bund and the Jewish wing of the Polish Socialist Party

Despite of his bad economical situation, he donated money to poor people and assisted war refugees

In 1908 Peretz headed the Czernowitz (Bukovina) Convention of Yiddish, dealing with the future status of the language and its role in literature, journalism, poetry and drama

The last and greatest drama of Peretz, the great expressionist play “Night in the Old Market place”, was written in 1907

Peretz died on Pessach, April, 1915, in the midst of World War I. Over one hundred thousand people attended his funeral


Shulem Aleichem (1859-1916), Peretz, Yankl Dinnesshon (1862-1919), Warsaw 1914

(written by Israel Schek)