26 Adar I 5619 – March 2 1859
One of the greatest Yiddish authors of all time, Shalom Rabinowitz, who wrote under the pen-name Shalom Aleichem, was born in Pereyaslav, near Kiev in the Ukraine. Among the most major modern Jewish writers, Shalom Aleichem grew up and received a traditional Jewish heder education in Voronkov, a small town which later served as the model for the fictitious town of Kasrilevke, the setting for his book Tevye the Dairyman, on which the musical Fiddler on the Roof was based. Rabinowtiz started writing early, and by the age of 21 was already publishing his short stories. His sharp pen and wicked humour are probably the most vivid portrayals we have of the changes overtaking the lives of East European Jewry at the turn of the nineteenth century.
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