David Pinski
Encyclopedia
David Pinski was a Yiddish language
writer, probably best known as a playwright. At a time when Eastern Europe was only beginning to experience the industrial revolution
, Pinski was the first to introduce to its stage a drama about urban Jewish workers; a dramatist of ideas, he was notable also for writing about human sexuality
with a frankness previously unknown to Yiddish literature
. He was also notable among early Yiddish playwrights in having stronger connections to German language
literary traditions than Russian
.
, and was raised in nearby Vitsebsk. At 19 he left home, originally intending to study medicine
in Vienna
, Austria
, but a visit to I.L. Peretz
in Warsaw
(then also under Russian control, now the capital of Poland
) convinced him to pursue a literary career instead. He briefly began studies in Vienna (where he also wrote his first significant short story, "Der Groisser Menshenfreint" ("The Great Philanthropist"), but soon returned to Warsaw, where he established a strong reputation as a writer and as an advocate of Labor Zionism
, before moving to Berlin
, Germany
in 1896 and to New York City
in 1899.
In 1904, he nearly received a doctorate from Columbia University
, but his play Family Tsvi premiered on the day set for his Ph.D. examination. He failed to show up for the exam, and never received his doctorate. http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=GolNewy.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=all
His dark comedy Der Oitzer (The Treasure), written in Yiddish 1902-1906 but first staged in German
, by Max Reinhardt
in Berlin
in 1910, tells of a sequence of events in which the people of a town dig up and desecrate their own graveyard because they have come to believe there is a treasure buried somewhere in it. Rich and poor, secular and religious, all participate in the frenzy; a supernatural climax involves the souls of the dead, annoyed by the disruption.
Family Tsvi (1904), written in the wake of the Kishinev pogrom
, is a call for Jews not to passively accept violence against them. In this tragedy, various Jews—a religious zealot, a socialist
from the Bund, a Zionist
, and a disillusioned assimilationist—resist the onslaught in different ways, and for different ideologies
, but they all resist. The play could not be officially published openly performed in Imperial Russia, but circulated there surreptitiously, and was even given clandestine amateur productions.
Yenkel der Schmid (Yankel the Smith, 1906) set a new level of frankness in Yiddish-language theater in dealing with sexual passions. Although Yiddish theater was more open to such themes than the English-language theater of the same era, it had mostly entered by way of works translated from miscellaneous European languages. The central couple of the play must balance their passion for each other against their marriages to other people. Ultimately, both return to their marriages, in what Sol Liptzin
describes as "an acceptance of family living that neither negated the joy of the flesh nor avoided moral responsibility". [Liptzin, 1972, 86] A film based on the play was made in 1938, filmed at a Catholic monastery in New Jersey
; it starred Moyshe Oysher, was the film premier of Herschel Bernardi
(playing Yankel as a boy), and is also known as The Singing Blacksmith. It has also been adapted by Caraid O'Brien as the English-language play Jake the Mechanic.
He continued to explore similar themes in a series of plays, Gabri Un Die Froen (Gabri and the Women, 1908), Mary Magdalene (1910), and Professor Brenner (1911), the last of which deals with an older man in love with a young woman, again breaking Jewish theatrical tradition, because such relationships had always been considered acceptable in arranged marriages for financial or similar reasons, but socially taboo as a matter of emotional fascination.
During this same period, the one-act messianic
tragedy Der Eibiger Yied (The Eternal Jew, 1906) is set at the time of the destruction of the Second Temple
. A messiah is born on the same day as the destruction of the Temple, but borne away in a storm; a prophet must wander the Earth searching for him. In Moscow
, in 1918 this was to be the first play ever performed by the Habima Theater
, now the national theater of Israel
. He revisited a similar theme in 1919 in Der Shtumer Moshiakh (The Mute Messiah); he would revisit messianic themes in further plays about Simon Bar-Kokhba, Shlomo Molcho, and Sabbatai Zevi
.
His work took a new turn with the highly allegorical
Die Bergshteiger (The Mountain Climbers, 1912); the "mountain" in question is life itself.
During the period between the World Wars, he wrote numerous plays, mostly on biblical subjects, but continuing to engage with many of his earlier themes. For example King David and His Wives (1923?) looks at the biblical David
at various points in his life: a proud, naively idealistic, pious youth; a confident warrior; a somewhat jaded monarch; and finally an old man who, seeing his youthful glory reflected in the beautiful Abishag, chooses not to marry her, so he can continue to see that idealized reflection. During this period, Pinski also undertook a large and fanciful fiction project: to write a fictional portrait of each of King Solomon
's thousand wives; between 1921 and 1936, he completed 105 of these stories.
During this period he also undertook the major novels Arnold Levenberg: Der Tserissener Mentsh (Arnold Levenberg: The Split Personality, begun 1919) and The House of Noah Edon which was published in English translation in 1929; the Yiddish original was published in 1938 by the Wydawnictvo ("Publishers") Ch. Brzozo, Warsaw.The former centers on an Uptown, aristocratic German Jew, who is portrayed as an overefined and decadent
, crossing paths with, but never fully participating in, the important events and currents of his time. The latter is a multi-generational saga of a Lithuania
n Jewish immigrant family, a interpretation of assimilation modeled on Peretz's Four Generations—Four Testaments.
and one about King Saul
. However, this was a period in which Yiddish theater barely existed anywhere (even less so than today), and these were not staged.
Yiddish language
Yiddish is a High German language of Ashkenazi Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world. It developed as a fusion of German dialects with Hebrew, Aramaic, Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages...
writer, probably best known as a playwright. At a time when Eastern Europe was only beginning to experience the industrial revolution
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
, Pinski was the first to introduce to its stage a drama about urban Jewish workers; a dramatist of ideas, he was notable also for writing about human sexuality
Human sexuality
Human sexuality is the awareness of gender differences, and the capacity to have erotic experiences and responses. Human sexuality can also be described as the way someone is sexually attracted to another person whether it is to opposite sexes , to the same sex , to either sexes , or not being...
with a frankness previously unknown to Yiddish literature
Yiddish literature
Yiddish literature encompasses all belles lettres written in Yiddish, the language of Ashkenazic Jewry which is related to Middle High German. The history of Yiddish, with its roots in central Europe and locus for centuries in Eastern Europe, is evident in its literature.It is generally described...
. He was also notable among early Yiddish playwrights in having stronger connections to German language
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
literary traditions than Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
.
Early life
He was born in Mahiliou, then part of Imperial Russia, now in BelarusBelarus
Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...
, and was raised in nearby Vitsebsk. At 19 he left home, originally intending to study medicine
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
, but a visit to I.L. Peretz
I.L. Peretz
Isaac Leib Peretz , also known as Yitskhok Leybush Peretz and Icchok Lejbusz Perec or Izaak Lejb Perec , best known as I.L. Peretz, was a Yiddish language author and playwright. Payson R. Stevens, Charles M...
in Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
(then also under Russian control, now the capital of Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
) convinced him to pursue a literary career instead. He briefly began studies in Vienna (where he also wrote his first significant short story, "Der Groisser Menshenfreint" ("The Great Philanthropist"), but soon returned to Warsaw, where he established a strong reputation as a writer and as an advocate of Labor Zionism
Labor Zionism
Labor Zionism can be described as the major stream of the left wing of the Zionist movement. It was, for many years, the most significant tendency among Zionists and Zionist organizational structure...
, before moving to Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
in 1896 and to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
in 1899.
In 1904, he nearly received a doctorate from Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, but his play Family Tsvi premiered on the day set for his Ph.D. examination. He failed to show up for the exam, and never received his doctorate. http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=GolNewy.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=all
Works
His naturalistic tragedy Isaac Sheftel (1899) tells of a technically creative weaver, whose employer scorns him, but exploits his inventions. He finally smashes the machines he has created, and falls into drunken self-destruction. Like many of Pinski's central characters, he is something other than a traditional hero or even a traditional tragic hero.His dark comedy Der Oitzer (The Treasure), written in Yiddish 1902-1906 but first staged in German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, by Max Reinhardt
Max Reinhardt (theatre director)
----Max Reinhardt was an Austrian theater and film director and actor.-Biography:...
in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
in 1910, tells of a sequence of events in which the people of a town dig up and desecrate their own graveyard because they have come to believe there is a treasure buried somewhere in it. Rich and poor, secular and religious, all participate in the frenzy; a supernatural climax involves the souls of the dead, annoyed by the disruption.
Family Tsvi (1904), written in the wake of the Kishinev pogrom
Kishinev pogrom
The Kishinev pogrom was an anti-Jewish riot that took place in Chişinău, then the capital of the Bessarabia province of the Russian Empire on April 6-7, 1903.-First pogrom:...
, is a call for Jews not to passively accept violence against them. In this tragedy, various Jews—a religious zealot, a socialist
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
from the Bund, a Zionist
Zionism
Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
, and a disillusioned assimilationist—resist the onslaught in different ways, and for different ideologies
Ideology
An ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to...
, but they all resist. The play could not be officially published openly performed in Imperial Russia, but circulated there surreptitiously, and was even given clandestine amateur productions.
Yenkel der Schmid (Yankel the Smith, 1906) set a new level of frankness in Yiddish-language theater in dealing with sexual passions. Although Yiddish theater was more open to such themes than the English-language theater of the same era, it had mostly entered by way of works translated from miscellaneous European languages. The central couple of the play must balance their passion for each other against their marriages to other people. Ultimately, both return to their marriages, in what Sol Liptzin
Sol Liptzin
Sol Liptzin was a scholar, author, and educator in Yiddish and German literature.- Life :Liptzin was born in Sataniv, Ukraine, and moved to New York at the age of nine. He graduated from City College of New York and did postgraduate work at the University of Berlin. He earned a master's degree and...
describes as "an acceptance of family living that neither negated the joy of the flesh nor avoided moral responsibility". [Liptzin, 1972, 86] A film based on the play was made in 1938, filmed at a Catholic monastery in New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
; it starred Moyshe Oysher, was the film premier of Herschel Bernardi
Herschel Bernardi
Herschel Bernardi was an American film, Broadway, and television actor....
(playing Yankel as a boy), and is also known as The Singing Blacksmith. It has also been adapted by Caraid O'Brien as the English-language play Jake the Mechanic.
He continued to explore similar themes in a series of plays, Gabri Un Die Froen (Gabri and the Women, 1908), Mary Magdalene (1910), and Professor Brenner (1911), the last of which deals with an older man in love with a young woman, again breaking Jewish theatrical tradition, because such relationships had always been considered acceptable in arranged marriages for financial or similar reasons, but socially taboo as a matter of emotional fascination.
During this same period, the one-act messianic
Messiah
A messiah is a redeemer figure expected or foretold in one form or another by a religion. Slightly more widely, a messiah is any redeemer figure. Messianic beliefs or theories generally relate to eschatological improvement of the state of humanity or the world, in other words the World to...
tragedy Der Eibiger Yied (The Eternal Jew, 1906) is set at the time of the destruction of the Second Temple
Second Temple
The Jewish Second Temple was an important shrine which stood on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem between 516 BCE and 70 CE. It replaced the First Temple which was destroyed in 586 BCE, when the Jewish nation was exiled to Babylon...
. A messiah is born on the same day as the destruction of the Temple, but borne away in a storm; a prophet must wander the Earth searching for him. In Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
, in 1918 this was to be the first play ever performed by the Habima Theater
Habima Theater
The Habima Theatre , is the national theatre of Israel and one of the first Hebrew language theatres. It is located in Habima Square in the center of Tel Aviv.-History:...
, now the national theater of Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
. He revisited a similar theme in 1919 in Der Shtumer Moshiakh (The Mute Messiah); he would revisit messianic themes in further plays about Simon Bar-Kokhba, Shlomo Molcho, and Sabbatai Zevi
Sabbatai Zevi
Sabbatai Zevi, , was a Sephardic Rabbi and kabbalist who claimed to be the long-awaited Jewish Messiah. He was the founder of the Jewish Sabbatean movement...
.
His work took a new turn with the highly allegorical
Allegory
Allegory is a demonstrative form of representation explaining meaning other than the words that are spoken. Allegory communicates its message by means of symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representation...
Die Bergshteiger (The Mountain Climbers, 1912); the "mountain" in question is life itself.
During the period between the World Wars, he wrote numerous plays, mostly on biblical subjects, but continuing to engage with many of his earlier themes. For example King David and His Wives (1923?) looks at the biblical David
David
David was the second king of the united Kingdom of Israel according to the Hebrew Bible and, according to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, an ancestor of Jesus Christ through both Saint Joseph and Mary...
at various points in his life: a proud, naively idealistic, pious youth; a confident warrior; a somewhat jaded monarch; and finally an old man who, seeing his youthful glory reflected in the beautiful Abishag, chooses not to marry her, so he can continue to see that idealized reflection. During this period, Pinski also undertook a large and fanciful fiction project: to write a fictional portrait of each of King Solomon
Solomon
Solomon , according to the Book of Kings and the Book of Chronicles, a King of Israel and according to the Talmud one of the 48 prophets, is identified as the son of David, also called Jedidiah in 2 Samuel 12:25, and is described as the third king of the United Monarchy, and the final king before...
's thousand wives; between 1921 and 1936, he completed 105 of these stories.
During this period he also undertook the major novels Arnold Levenberg: Der Tserissener Mentsh (Arnold Levenberg: The Split Personality, begun 1919) and The House of Noah Edon which was published in English translation in 1929; the Yiddish original was published in 1938 by the Wydawnictvo ("Publishers") Ch. Brzozo, Warsaw.The former centers on an Uptown, aristocratic German Jew, who is portrayed as an overefined and decadent
Decadence
Decadence can refer to a personal trait, or to the state of a society . Used to describe a person's lifestyle. Concise Oxford Dictionary: "a luxurious self-indulgence"...
, crossing paths with, but never fully participating in, the important events and currents of his time. The latter is a multi-generational saga of a Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
n Jewish immigrant family, a interpretation of assimilation modeled on Peretz's Four Generations—Four Testaments.
Emigration
In 1949 he emigrated to the new state of Israel; already in his eighties when he emigrated, while living in Israel he wrote a play about SamsonSamson
Samson, Shimshon ; Shamshoun or Sampson is the third to last of the Judges of the ancient Israelites mentioned in the Tanakh ....
and one about King Saul
Saul the King
According to the Bible, Saul was the first king of the united Kingdom of Israel. He was anointed by the prophet Samuel and reigned from Gibeah. He commited suicide to avoid arrest in the battle against the Philistines at Mount Gilboa, during which three of his sons were also killed...
. However, this was a period in which Yiddish theater barely existed anywhere (even less so than today), and these were not staged.
Sources
- Liptzin, Sol, A History of Yiddish Literature, Jonathan David Publishers, Middle Village, NY, 1972, ISBN 0-8246-0124-6, 84 et. seq., 136 et. seq.
- NNDB