Israel Aksenfeld

Born in Nemirov, Ukraine, Israel (Yisroel) Aksenfeld is considered to be the first novelist in Yiddish. Despite being raised in a prominent Bratslaver Hasidic family, Aksenfeld became a committed maskil, promoting the Enlightenment and Westernization of Russian Jewry from the intellectual center of Odessa; he was also an attorney. His Yiddish-language novels and plays emulated the style of Western European genres. While much of his work went unpublished in his lifetime due to tsarist censorship, Aksenfeld succeeded in publishing Dos shterntikhl (The Headband) in 1861 in Leipzig. The novel was noteworthy for its blend of satire with thick description of Jewish life in Eastern Europe together with a rich use of authentic Yiddish dialogue. Aksenfeld’s dramatic works, few of which have survived, are similarly described by critics as notable for their use of comic, but authentic Yiddish speech within a context of weak narration, thin plotlines, and a tendency toward melodrama. Aksenfeld spent the last year of his life living with his son in Paris.