Joseph Opatoshu

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Joseph Opatoshu (יוסף אָפאַטאָשו in Yiddish), (1886 – 1954) was a Polish-born Yiddish novelist and short story writer.

Contents 1 Biography 2 Works 2.1 Books 2.2 A Movie 3 References and external links 4 Image Links

[edit] Biography

Opatoshu was born in 1886 as Yosef Meir Opatowski to a Hasidic family, in the Polish town Mlawa.

His father was a Jewish Maskil, who sent Yosef to Russian and Polish schools. At the age of 19 he went to study engineering in Nancy, France. However, privation sent him to the USA in 1907, where he settled in New York City, where his name became Joseph Opatovsky, and he later took the professional name of Joseph Opatoshu.

In New York he dedicated himself to writing, beginning with short stories that he published for several years in magazines and newspapers. He earned his initial fame as a writer from the trilogy In Polish woods (אין פוילישע וועלדער). Excerpts from this (as In Polish Forests) had previously been published in The Pagan, a magazine produced by the bookshop owner, linguist, and teacher Joseph Kling, in 1917. It was published in 1921 in Yiddish, and was translated to several languages, among them a 1938 English translation. It is a broad historical novel, describing the decline of Hasidism.

In 1928 he published a 14-volume collection of his works.

Opatoshu's hundreds of works include descriptions of his many travels to various Jewish communities around the world. In particular, he is well known for his rejection of the pacific tenor of his contemporary "classical" Yiddish writers. This can be found, for example, in his description of the Jewish criminal underworld in Eastern Europe, in his book Romance of a Horse Thief. In this approach Opatoshu was influenced by Micha Josef Berdyczewski. His works were translated to several languages, including English and Hebrew.

אָפאַטאָשו יוסף ג' חנוכה תרמ'ו יום כיפור תשט'ו 1886 - 1954

Joseph Opatoshu died on Yom Kippur of 1954 (The Jewish year ה'תשט"ו), and is buried in the old Arbeter Ring (אַרבעטער-רינג – The Workmen's Circle) cemetery in New York City, alongside Sholem Aleichem, Yehoash and others. The inscription on his tombstone is shown on the right.

[edit] Works

[edit] Books

• אין פוילישע וועלדער, 1921; translated to English from the Yiddish by Isaac Goldberg: In Polish woods, The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1938
• ראמאן פון א פערד גנב, 1917; Romance of a Horsethief
• The last revolt, the story of Rabbi Akiba; translated from the Yiddish by Moshe Spiegel, The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1952
• א טאג אין רעגעסבורג, Di Goldene Pave Paris 1955; translated to English from the Yiddish by Jacob Sloan: A day in Regensburg; short stories, The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1968

[edit] A Movie

• A movie based on "Romance of a Horsethief" was released in 1971. His son, David Opatoshu wrote the screenplay and it was Directed by Abraham Polonsky. The cast includes, among others, Yul Brynner as Captain Stoloff, Eli Wallach as Kifke, Jane Birkin as Naomi, and his son David as Schloime Kradnik.

[edit] References and external links

• Lists of Opatoshu's books in the Chabad library catalogs:

• The Hebrew catalog list.
• The English catalog list.

• Sidebar in Ha'aretz Daily Newspaper, January 13, 2006, page ה1 (in Hebrew).
• "Workbook" on the Asch-Howe Quarrel, on the Hartford, CT, Trinity College web site
• "Romance of a Horsethief" on the IMDb web site

[edit] Image Links

• His tombstone on the University of Cape Town "TOMB STONE EXHIBIT" web site
• Studio portrait of (right to left) Moshe (Moses) Kulbak, Joseph Opatoshu, Maks Eryk and Zalman Reisen, board members of the Yiddish P.E.N. Club.1928 (from the Vilna page on the Eilat Gordin Levitan web site)
• a portrait by Marc Chagall on the The McGill University Digital Collections Program web site.