of life, as did his puny predecessors. He did not care for the praise or blame of other peoples, for he wrote for his own people, to lift them up, to give them something of which they might be proud.
Equally at home, and equally as interesting and entertaining. in Hebrew as in Yiddish, "Mendele" did not scorn the handmaiden, but used it to minister to its mistress. Language was not the end of his mission. It was immaterial to him whether he expressed himself in Hebrew or in Yiddish, for he wrote for his own people, and their language was to be his language, their medium of communication was to be his.
So impregnated with Jewish feeling is the old "Seide," that his idiom is almost untranslatable. That is the loss of all those who read neither Yiddish nor Hebrew. But occasional translations have been made, and "Mendele" has been revealed to many who are not at home with him in the original.
Every one who appreciates what he has done for the Jewish people will join in expressing their hope for good health and long life to the venerable, good old man, of whom the Jewish nation is proud.
Sholom Jacob Abramowitz was born at Kopyl, Lithuania, in 1836. His father died when he was thirteen, and his youth was spent in wandering from town to town as a student, visiting Slutsk and Wilna. where he studied in the Yeshibas. At the age of eighteen he sett!ed in the city of Kamenetz- Podolsk, where he made the acquaintance of
the Hebrew poet, Gttlober. In 1856 he became a teacher in the Jewish Boys’ College of the government of Kamenetz, and in the same year published his first essay. He was one of the leaders of the Haskalah movement, and wrote political articles for the periodicals and likewise published many essays in Hebrew on natura! science In 1868 he published a novel entitled “Fathers and Sons,” a deseriptive tale, in which he pietured the ‚struggles between orthodox parents and their progressive sons. His first novel in Yiddish was “Das Kleine Menschel,” in 1865, which was a satire on an unworthy favorite of the government of the province. In 1869 he published “Die Taxe,” another satire on the management of the community. “Die Taxe” aroused the zealots of the congregation, and Abramowitz was foreed to move to Zhitomir. In 1873 he published “Die Kliatsche,” an allegory which describes the life of the Jews in Galuth. A few years later he wrote “An Abridged Account of the Travels of Benjamin III.” From 1888 to 1890 he published “Fischke der Krummer” and the ‘“Wuenschfingerl,” the first a remarkable story of the life of Jewish beggers, and the second a historical story of the time of Nicholas I and Alexander II. In 1881 Abramowitz removed to Odessa, where he became principal of the Talmud Torah. He has also written innumerable sketches and stories and essays. He now resides in Geneva, Switzerland.