Joseph Israel Zevin

Background

Zevin was born on January 31, 1872 in Horki, Belarus, the son of Judah Leib and Feige (Muravin) Zevin.

Education

Zevin was educated in the Cheder (Jewish elementary school) and privately, acquiring a comprehensive knowledge of the traditional Hebrew studies and Talmudic lore.

Career

In 1889, at the age of seventeen, Zevin emigrated to New York City. He started as peddler and newsboy in Park Row, satisfying his hunger for learning by studying evenings. He even attempted the study of medicine. While selling candy from a stand in the Bowery, however, he composed a few Yiddish stories which were published in the Jewish Daily News (Jüdisches Tageblatt). They attracted so much attention that he was invited to join the staff. With the interval of a short time as editor of the Yiddishe Presse in Philadelphia, he was associated with the Jewish Daily News until his death as one of its chief contributors, also serving for some time after the death of John Paley as its editor-in-chief. As a journalist endowed with a clear and popular style Zevin played his part in the development of Yiddish journalism in America. His reputation in Yiddish literature, however, was won as a writer of humorous stories, and here he gained his huge following, often being called the Yiddish Mark Twain. His keen powers of observation and intimate knowledge of Jewish-American life enabled him to penetrate the foibles of the immigrant Jewish masses and depict in humorous vein the pathetic vicissitudes of their lives as they adjusted themselves to their new environment. In his characters, Zevin presented to his readers an unforgettable gallery of portraits, easily recognizable, which they greeted with laughter and delight. Zevin, however, did not laugh at his characters; he laughed with them. He had shared their joys and sorrows, their hopes and disappointments. In addition to his regular weekly feuilleton for the Jewish Daily News he contributed to the leading Yiddish journals in the United States and abroad. He also wrote in Hebrew and in English. During the years 1914-1917 some eighty of his humorous stories appeared in the Sunday magazine section of the New York Herald. Of his selected Yiddish writings issued in book form worthy of note are Tashrak's beste Erzeilungen (New York, 1910), Maaselech far Kinder (New York, 1919), Fun Achzen dis Dreisig (New York, 1929), a novel of American-Jewish life. In the last years of his life he began collecting and rendering into popular Yiddish the ancient Jewish folklore, his mastery of the original rabbinical sources being here of great avail. The fruits of these studies were Ale Agodos fun Talmud (3 vols. , New York, 1922), a collection of legends, fables, allegories, anecdotes, historic and biographic stories contained in the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmud, and a similar work drawn from the Midrash entitled Der Ozer fun ale Midroshim (4 vols. , New York, 1926). He also published Ale Mesholim fun Dubner Maggid (2 vols. , New York, 1925), a collection of the parables of Jacob Kranz, the the famous preacher of Dubno (Poland) in the eighteenth century. Zevin died on October 6, 1926.

Achievements

• Zevin was a Jewish story-writer, notable for his works.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Parables of the Preacher of Doubno, V1-2 (Yiddish Edition)

    (Two Volumes In One. This Book Is In Yiddish.)

  • Tashrak's Beste Ertzehlungen: Books 3 and 4 (2 Books)
  • Legends Of The Talmud
  • Shulem the Shadchen
  • The marriage broker;: Based on the stories of Shulem the shadchen,

Personality

Zevin was bodily deformed, being a hunchback, the result of a fall when he was a two-year-old child, but nature had amply compensated him by endowing him with a sound mind and a charming personality. An excellent conversationalist, romantically inclined, affable and bubbling with wit and humor, he was always the center of attraction. Overflowing with life and energy, he maintained his literary production at full pitch.

Connections

In 1908 Zevin married Sophia Berman, by whom he had two daughters.

Father:

Judah Leib Zevin

Mother:

Feige Muravin

Spouse:

Sophia Berman