“Going through the Seven Circles of Hell–Joyfully, àla Motl”: Sholem Aleichem’s Missing Film Script aboutMotl the Cantor’s Son

Ber Kotlerman

Jewish Quarterly Review, Volume 105, Number 2, Spring 2015, pp.155-173 (Article)

Published by University of Pennsylvania PressDOI: 10.1353/jqr.2015.0011

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T H E J E W I S H Q UA R T E R LY R E V I E W, Vol. 105, No. 2 (Spring 2015) 155–173

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‘‘Going through the Seven Circles ofHell—Joyfully, a la Motl’’:

Sholem Aleichem’s Missing Film Scriptabout Motl the Cantor’s Son

B E R K O T L E R M A N

THE ADVENTURES OF LUCKY MOTL

IN THE MID-1920s, a decade after Sholem Aleichem’s death, the Amer-ican Jewish journalist and social activist Ben-Zion Goldberg reminiscedabout events that had taken place in March 1915. He recalled how Its-khok Dov Berkowitz, Sholem Aleichem’s son-in-law and assistant inmany matters, had sent a housemaid to his New York apartment with ashort note. In the note Berkowitz asked Goldberg, then a psychologystudent at Columbia University, to join Sholem Aleichem right away innearby Lakewood, New Jersey, where the writer was on vacation. Gold-berg set out for Lakewood the very next morning. It turned out thatSholem Aleichem needed him to transcribe in English a film script he thathad conceived in Yiddish. As Goldberg described it, the author beganimmediately, in a torrent of words, to turn his well-known Motl Peysi demkhazns stories (Motl the cantor Peisi’s son) into a motion picture screen-play. He proceeded chapter by chapter, ‘‘as if he were describing eachmovie scene as he saw it before him.’’1

Goldberg’s keen power of observation did not deceive him. SholemAleichem really was envisioning each movie scene as he reviewed in his

I want to thank the secretary of the Tel Aviv Beth Shalom-Aleichem (SholemAleichem House), Leib Roitman, the archivist of the New York YIVO Institute,Leo Greenbaum, and the staff of the Library of the Herbert D. Katz Center forAdvanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania for their help whileI was working on the papers of Sholem Aleichem, Ben-Zion Goldberg, andJames Faller used in the preparation of this essay.

1. Ben-Tsiyon Goldberg, ‘‘Momentn Sholem-Aleykhem,’’ in Dos Sholem-Aleykhem-bukh, ed. Y.-D. Berkovitsh (New York, 1926), 144.

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memory a film script he had written before coming to America in Decem-ber 1914. It seems that at the time of the Lakewood meeting, and even adecade later, Goldberg did not know about the existence of the earlierwork portraying the adventures of Motl for the screen. Others, however,did know about it, for example, the Habima theater director BaruchChemerinsky. Writing in 1926 about a Soviet movie based on SholemAleichem’s lengthy novel Der mabl (The deluge), Chemerinsky stated thatthe Yiddish author had dreamed about seeing his heroes on the screenand even tried to get involved personally in the search for the actor whowould play the role of Motl.2 It is obvious that the Habima directorobtained his information from the posthumous collection of tributes tothe writer, Tsum ondenk fun Sholem-Aleykhem (In memory of SholemAleichem), edited by Israel Zinberg and Samuel Niger in Petrograd in1917. A number of letters written by Sholem Aleichem were published inthat work, among them several addressed to Mendel Vorkel, an organizerand actor in the Yiddish theater of Riga. At the end of 1913 and duringthe first half of 1914, Vorkel served as the intermediary in exchanges thewriter had with the Riga filmmaker Semen Mintus about the productionof silent movies based upon Sholem Aleichem’s writings. In a letter toVorkel dated December 21, 1913, Sholem Aleichem asked: ‘‘Does he[Mintus] have a boy actor, 12–13 years old? (Someone like ‘Willie’?) Ihave a big comic role for him based on all 22 stories about Motl son ofCantor Peisi!’’ In the same letter Sholem Aleichem explained: ‘‘I am nowworking on a film script about Motl, under the [Russian] name,‘Pokhozhdenia schastlivogo Motelia’ (The adventures of Lucky Motl).’’3

It was precisely this screenplay—originally composed in Russian andrecalled to memory by Sholem Aleichem in the absence of the writtentext—that served as the basis for what appeared to B.-Z. Goldberg inMarch 1915 in Lakewood, New Jersey, to be an improvisation.

SHOLEM ALEICHEM’S CINEMATOGRAPHIC LEGACY

Cinematography obviously attracted Sholem Aleichem as a new andexciting sphere of creativity. As Berkowitz recalled in his memoirs, fromat least the beginning of the 1910s he was already ‘‘a big admirer andtrembling worshiper of the cinema.’’4 This was contrary to the predomi-nant opinion of the time among European Jewish circles that ‘‘movies

2. Borekh Tshemerinski, ‘‘Vi mir hoben oyfgefirt Sholem-Aleykhems ‘Mabl’farn film,’’ Literarishe bleter 104 (April 30, 1926): 286–87. The movie based on DerMabl was filmed in 1925 with participation of Habima actors.

3. See Yisroel Tsinberg and Shmuel Niger, eds., Tsum ondenk fun Sholem-Aleykhem (Petrograd, 1917), 122 (no. 4).

4. Yitskhok-Dov Berkovitsh, Undzere rishoynim: Zikhroynes-dertseylungen vegnSholem-Aleykhem un zayn dor, vol. 5, In shturem (Tel Aviv, 1966), 82.

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were for teen-agers and lonely women. The few who praised Asta Niel-sen, Charlie Chaplin, and Max Linder as serious and great actors wereregarded as literary snobs and show-offs.’’5 Sholem Aleichem’s receptive-ness to new trends can perhaps be attributed to the fact that for manyyears he lived far from most cultural institutions and literary circles,detached from the dictates of high culture.6 ‘‘The cinema is much moreinteresting [than the Folies Bergere],’’ he reported from Paris to Berko-witz at the end of 1913,7 as he was already seriously considering how hemight enter this new media.8

This was just the time when Sholem Aleichem’s Yiddish ‘‘cinema fan-tasy,’’ Di velt geyt tsurik (The world goes backward) was being publishedalmost simultaneously in the New York weekly Der amerikaner (TheAmerican) and in the Paris Der nayer zhurnal (The new journal).9 SholemAleichem left behind several other never-published film scripts, mostly inRussian. Some of them, like Pokhozhdenia schastlivogo Motelia, have beenlost. As early as the 1920s some of the film scripts were mentioned inpassing by Berkowitz in his memoirs.10 However, the fact that they werebeing preserved in the archives of the Tel Aviv Beth Shalom-Aleichem(Sholem Aleichem House) was noted for the first time only in the 1980s,in Chone Shmeruk’s bibliographical guide.11

According to Berkowitz, Sholem Aleichem ‘‘foretold prophetically thata time would come when ‘silent pictures’ would push aside the live theaterand even literature.’’12 Although he came upon cinematography while it

5. Joseph Schildkraut, as told to Leo Lania, My Father and I (New York,1959), 139.

6. ‘‘I am so weaned from the literary milieu that I am no longer drawn to it,’’Sholem Aleichem’s letter to the Kovno literary critic Bal-Makhshoves (IsidorYisroel Eliashev), June 18, 1909 (Yiddish), Tel Aviv Beth Shalom-Aleichem(Sholem Aleichem House, hereafter BSA), LB 44/11.

7. Sholem Aleichem to Berkowitz, December 31, 1913 (Yiddish), BSA, MB37/225.

8. For Sholem Aleichem’s relations with the cinema industry, see Ber Kotler-man, Disenchanted Tailor in ‘‘Illusion’’: Sholem Aleichem behind the Scenes of Early Jew-ish Cinema, 1913–16 (Bloomington, Ind., 2014).

9. Sholem-Aleykhem, ‘‘Di velt geyt tsurik,’’ Der amerikaner, December 26,1913; Der nayer zhurnal, January 2, 1914. The film script was later included in thewriter’s collected works Ale verk fun Sholem-Aleykhem (New York, 1921), 23:187–91. Regarding this film script, see Ber Kotlerman, ‘‘Sholom Aleichem, the YiddishAuthor Who Flirted with Screenwriting,’’ Haaretz—Herald Tribune, February 17,2012.

10. Yitskhok-Dov Berkovitsh, ‘‘Baym varshtat,’’ in Berkovitsh, Dos Sholem-Aleykhem-bukh, 323.

11. H. one Shmeruk, Shalom-Aleykhem—madrikh le-h. ayav u-le-yetsirato (Tel Aviv,1980), 74.

12. Berkovitsh, Undzere rishoynim, 82.

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was still in the stage of variety show—sumatograf, according to his ownironic definition, yoking in one word the Russian sumatokha (turmoil)and cinematography13—Sholem Aleichem was already able to foresee itseventual transformation into a culturally potent art form, in which hemight also find a place. However, he did not leave any clear formulationof his view of cinematography in general and Jewish cinematography inparticular. His approach to cinema can be characterized most accuratelyas ‘‘intuitive.’’ The German film script writer and director Ewald AndreDupont noted depreciatingly in 1919 that the man of letters undertakingto become a cinema script writer ‘‘writes film . . . based upon conceptionspicked up in a movie theater.’’14 Since Sholem Aleichem never took partin the actual shooting of a film, it was natural for him to obtain his ideasabout cinematography entirely from movies. He wrote his movie scripts‘‘a-la Dupont,’’ on the basis of firsthand impressions obtained from view-ing numerous films.

In 1913–14 Sholem Aleichem approached various filmmakers in Ger-many, the United States, and the Russian empire, but these contactsbrought no tangible results. The plans for making a film with SemenMintus’s Riga film studio, mentioned above, fell through because of theoutbreak of World War I. However, Sholem Aleichem did not lose hope.From shortly after his arrival in America in December 1914 as an immi-grant, until the last days of his life, he tried to promote his screenplays.Motl was the work he was most active in promoting in America (see figure1). He was confident that the adventures of a Jewish immigrant boywould have great appeal to an American audience.

‘ ‘LITTLE WILLIE’ ’ AS THE PROTOTYPE FOR ‘‘LITTLE MOTL’’

In December 1913, when Sholem Aleichem was corresponding with hiscontacts in Riga about the possibility of producing a film, he had no inten-tion of personally seeking an actor for the role of Motl (contrary to Hab-ima director Baruch Chemerinsky’s assertion made in 1926). With hiswords to Vorkel—‘‘Someone like ‘Willie,’ ’’—the writer was simplydescribing the type of youth he would like to see in the movie basedupon his screenplay. Just who was this ‘‘Willie’’ whom Sholem Aleichemviewed as the motion picture prototype of Motl? The list of films beingscreened at the time in the movie theaters of Lausanne, Switzerland

13. Sholem Aleichem to Berkowitz, October 28 (November 10), 1910(Hebrew), in Berkovitsh, Dos Sholem-Aleykhem-bukh, 98 (no. 84).

14. Ewald Andre Dupont, Wie ein Film geschrieben wird und wie man ihn verwertet(Berlin, 1919), 7.

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Figure 1. Motl was the work Sholem Aleichem was most active inpromoting in America. Cartoon by Samuel Cahan, The World Magazine,January 2, 1916. Courtesy of BSA archives, Tel Aviv.

(where Sholem Aleichem was residing with his family), reveals that ‘‘Wil-lie’’ was the popular actor and child prodigy Willie Sanders (or WillySaunders, 1906–90)—the ‘‘little cinema rascal’’ (Der kleine Kino-Bengel),using the expression of the contemporary Swiss cinema journal Kinema.15

Sanders played in numerous films that were shown all over Europe.He made his debut on screen in 1910 in the short comedy The Man to BeatJack Johnson, filmed in London by the British Tyler Film Company. JackJohnson was the world heavyweight boxing champion of the first decadeof the twentieth century. At the age of four, Willie appears on the screenin boxing gloves. In his book Popular Culture in London, Andrew Horralldescribed the scene: ‘‘Sanders, a blonde-headed Scouse four-year-old,boxed an adult who sat on the floor. Hard, swift punches were delivered

15. See ‘‘Frankreich,’’ Kinema 19 (May 10, 1913): 12.

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by both fighters, but Willie flexed his biceps in triumph and smiled at thecamera after knocking out his opponent in the third round.’’16 Willie wassoon invited to Paris by the French company Eclair, as a competitor tothe popular Gaumont child stars, four-year-old Clement Mary, who per-formed in the Bebe (Baby) series of comedies, and little Rene Poyen, whoperformed in the Bebe serial’s sequel, Bout-de-Zan.17 From 1911 to 1916Willie played the hero of about seventy (!) series, acting in a variety ofcomic situations, including one more celebrated boxing match, this timewith the famous English boxer Billy Wells, in the 1913 film Little Willyvs. Bombardier Wells (Eclair British).18

Sholem Aleichem could have seen films starring ‘‘Little Willie’’—as the‘‘Eclair’’ company advertised the child—not only in Lausanne but in anyother European city he visited between 1911 and 1913. At the time hehad a distinctly ‘‘professional’’ interest in how movies were being made.It seems that Little Willie first inspired in him the idea of making a moviebased on Motl. From his letter to Vorkel one gets the impression that heimagined his Motl as a kind of Jewish answer to the new French fashionof producing films with child stars. Indeed, the discrete character of theMotl stories, with the young protagonist being practically the only ele-ment connecting them, made them well suited to the format of the Frenchchild star serials. The Motl stories—whether they involved preparing ink,selling kvass, trapping mice, or whatever—were ready-made plots for aseries of motion pictures, just like the seemingly endless flow of Williefilms that appeared one after the other on motion picture screens at thetime: Willie and the Poor Peasants, Willie and the Gendarmes Engage in Sport,Willie Prefers Liberty to Wealth, and others.19 Little Willie made a deepimpression on Sholem Aleichem, and several months later, in mid-1914,we find this figure still occupying his thoughts. Thus, in a letter to Ber-kowitz the writer talks about his very promising joint plans with a certainOdessa producer and remarks: ‘‘He will find a boy performer like Williefor Motl Peisi.’’20

16. Andrew Horrall, Popular Culture in London, c. 1890–1918: The Transformationof Entertainment (Manchester, 2001), 132. An extract from this film is featured aspart of How They Laughed, Paul Merton’s interactive guide to early British silentcomedy, http://www.btplc.com/BFI/narrowband/Interface.html.

17. On these successful series starring children, see Donald Crafton, ‘‘ComicSeries,’’ in Encyclopedia of Early Cinema, ed. R. Abel (New York, 2005), 210.

18. Horrall, Popular Culture in London, 137.19. For Willie Sanders filmography, see http://www.imdb.com/name/nm076

1759/.20. Sholem Aleichem to Berkowitz, April 28, 1914 (Russian), BSA, MB 38/

99.

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Since neither the Russian text of the film script, Pokhozhdenia schastli-vogo Motelia nor B.-Z. Goldberg’s English translation has been discovered,it is difficult to say whether and how extensively the work was influencedby the image of Little Willie. We also do not know how different it was,if at all, from the original text of Motl Peysi dem khazns. However, there isa document available that serves as evidence for the supposition that Lit-tle Willie did exert some influence, at least as a general idea. This docu-ment, preserved in the archives of Beth Shalom-Aleichem, is a shortEnglish-language cinema synopsis, evidently also prepared by Goldberg(see below). To begin with, the title of this work, Little Motl Goes toAmerica, alludes very clearly to the Eclair company’s Little Willie series.

LITTLE MOTL GOES TO AMERICA

Goldberg’s description of the March 1915 film script about Motl is ratherscanty. It does not give enough information to enable us to get an impres-sion of the content of the plot, apart from the fact that it was comical.What Goldberg’s remarks do reveal quite graphically, however, is the‘‘cinema technique’’ Sholem Aleichem adopted:

He performed every role and every scene, while simultaneously playingthe role of the audience. When he lifted his finger, showing how thefinger would move on the screen, writing the words, ‘‘Eli-ink maker,’’I clearly saw the screen and became totally immersed in the illusionthat I was looking at a motion picture. Then we both laughed. SholemAleichem laughed with all his might, a frank, heartfelt laughter. I neversaw him laugh like that at any other time . . . If any outsider had seenus then, he would have taken us for a couple of lunatics. There wewere, two guys sitting and howling with laughter like frivolous kids ata Charlie Chaplin movie.21

The appearance on the screen of a finger writing words like ‘‘Eli-inkmaker’’ was a quite common device in the moviemaking of SholemAleichem’s day. The cinema was in the process of developing new con-nections between words and visual images, so there was a great need fortextual support, especially when the movies were based upon works ofliterature. Other screenplays by Sholem Aleichem that have been pre-served share the same features. A finger or hand will appear on the screenpresenting a verbal message of several words or a close-up shot of the

21. Goldberg, ‘‘Momentn Sholem-Aleykhem,’’ 144.

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text of a letter, book, or other verbal matter, with the aim of linking thesequence of photographic frames to the initial story.

But what caused the author and his interlocutor to find themselves‘‘howling with laughter’’ were obviously Sholem Aleichem’s attempts to‘‘cinematize’’ his authentic sentimental-comical heroes, who derived theirstrength from behavioral norms familiar to a Yiddish-speaking audience.Adapting Sholem Aleichem’s literary approach (which J. Hobermancalled, in reference to the silent film director Sidney Goldin, the ‘‘insider’’aspect22) to the screen was not the easiest of tasks, especially when start-ing from his vernacular style of writing. As the Soviet literary critic MeirWiener observed, here the elements were carefully drawn, ‘‘not from avisual perspective (not in the way things, nature, and people look), butfrom the acoustical-verbal point of view.’’23

Sholem Aleichem’s ‘‘cinematizing’’ efforts deserve a separate analysis,based upon all of his film scripts that have reached us in their fullydeveloped form. Insofar as Motl is concerned, it is only possible to makesome observations about the role the film script played in relation to theoriginal text of Motl Peysi dem khazns. As becomes clear from SholemAleichem’s December 1913 letter to Vorkel in Riga, the initial version ofthe film script, Pokhozhdenia schastlivogo Motelia, covered all of the storiesthat had been published up to that time, twenty-two in number (as Sho-lem Aleichem wrote: ‘‘I have a big comic role for him based on all 22stories about Motl son of Cantor Peisi!’’).24 The initial stories take placein the Russian Pale of Settlement and the last ones in London, whereMotl and his family arrive on their way to America. In August 1914 anew episode appeared in the Vilna journal Di yudishe velt (The Jewishworld), edited by Shmuel Niger, titled, ‘‘Di vasershtub’’ (The waterhouse).25 This piece described Motl and Co.’s voyage across the AtlanticOcean.

The cinema synopsis of Little Motl, dating to the first half of 1915,carried the story even further in time, and in fact it represents what has

22. J. Hoberman, Bridge of Light: Yiddish Film between Two Worlds (New York,1991), 29.

23. Meir Viner, Tsu der geshikhte fun der yidisher literatur in 19tn yorhundert (ety-udn un materyaln), vol. 2, Mendele Moykher Sforim, Sholem-Aleykhem (New York,1946), 297.

24. See Tsinberg and Niger, Tsum ondenk fun Sholem-Aleykhem, 122 (no. 4).25. Sholem-Aleykhem, ‘‘Motel Peysi dem khazns (ksuvim fun a yungel a

yosem): Tsveyter teyl: Di vasershtub,’’ Literatur un leben—Di yudishe velt 8 (1914):315–27.

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been until now a missing link in the composition of the Motl corpus.26 Thesynopsis consists of six parts:

1. Motl becomes an orphan;2. Motl’s brother Eli considers establishing his own business;3. The preparation of cider (called ‘‘kvass’’ in the story);4. The preparation of ink;5. A story having to do with rat poison;6. Crossing the border and arriving in America, at Ellis Island.

As can be seen from the description of part 6, the cinema synopsis doesnot end with the heroes crossing the ocean on the steamship but ratherat the gateway to the United States. This is also reflected in the additionalname Sholem Aleichem gave the synopsis in Yiddish: Shat, mir forn keynAmerike! (Shh, we’re going to America!).27 It seems that he had conceivedof this plot at the very beginning of 1914. Chone Shmeruk, in his detailedstudy of the whole corpus of the Motl stories, published a letter fromSholem Aleichem to Shmuel Niger, dated January 17, 1914. There thewriter reported that he was continuing his work on Motl: ‘‘Well, so yousee, I already have him going on the ocean to America, and coming toNew York, and going through the seven circles of hell there ‘with mybrother Eli,’ with his friend Pini, and with all the other characters, joy-fully, a la Motl, and the last picture [bild in the original Yiddish] (theapotheosis), as I have already told you.’’28 Since we know that SholemAleichem was working on the film script Pokhozhdenia schastlivogo Moteliaat that time, it seems reasonable to assume that he viewed the continua-tion of Motl’s adventures as both a literary creation and a film script.There is even reason to assume that he used the word ‘‘bild’’ in the letterjust cited in a cinematographic sense as ‘‘picture’’ (although it can also betranslated as image, scene, or episode).

According to B.-Z. Goldberg’s account of the events of March 1915,in the spring of that year Sholem Aleichem was still working on a filmscript with Motl as its hero, making alterations and refinements. Thisbeing so, it is quite possible that considerations having to do with the filmscript exerted some influence on the style of the second part of the story,

26. For the detailed overview of this corpus, see Khone Shmeruk, ‘‘Nokh-vort,’’ in Sholem-Aleykhem, Motl Peyse dem khazns (Jerusalem, 1997), 317–24.

27. As the title of one of the chapters of the story. See Sholem-Aleykhem, MotlPeyse dem khazns, 83–91.

28. H. one Shmeruk, ‘‘Sipurey Motl ben he-h. azan le-Shalom-‘Aleykhem: Ha-situatsiya ha-epit u-toldot ha-sefer,’’ Siman kriya 12–13 (1981): 316.

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which takes place in America and which began to be published about ayear later, in February 1916, in the New York Yiddish newspaper Varhayt(Truth).29 Comparing the first and the second parts of Motl, one is struckby the fact that the young protagonist undergoes a significant transforma-tion. While in the first part he was an active participant in the events,later he appears merely as the narrator. Paradoxically, ‘‘our friend’’ Pininow takes center stage, and indeed, the adventures are Pini’s, not Motl’s.From the very beginning of the second part, Motl the spectator merelyobserves and describes in detail what happens to Pini.

The basic characteristic of Pini as well as a number of the other charac-ters in the Motl stories, apart from Motl himself, is their incompatibilitywith the surrounding world or the ‘‘progressive irrationality of theirbehavior,’’ as the American psychologist and philologist Abraham AaronRobak called it in his study of the nature of Sholem Aleichem’s humor.30

It seems that it was in this behavioral ‘‘surd’’ (to use the terminology ofRobak’s Psychology of Common Sense),31 or in the special ‘‘Jewish style ofacting’’ (to use a phrase favored by American film and theater critics),that Sholem Aleichem found great cinematographic potential. From thevery moment the Motl series was published in English, at the beginningof 1916, the press called its heroes ‘‘real prototypes of Potash and Perl-mutter,’’ popular Jewish comic characters from the 1913 Broadway playnamed after them.32

From a different angle, the so-called Jewish style of acting was quicklyascribed to Charlie Chaplin, an attribution that has been much discussedover the years.33 Thus, it was only natural for observers to note an inher-ent similarity between Sholem Aleichem’s disfranchised and uprootedheroes and the characters played by Chaplin. Robak, for example,stresses this point.34 In 1915–16 Sholem Aleichem displayed a personalfondness for Chaplin’s comical films, which has been noted by scholars,35

29. See Sholem-Aleykhem ‘‘Mazl-tov! Mir zenen shoyn in Amerike!’’ Di var-hayt, February 2, 1916.

30. A. A. Robak, ‘‘The Humor of Aleichem,’’ in Sholom Aleichem Panorama, ed.M. Grafstein (London, Ont., 1948), 22.

31. Abraham Aaron Robak, Psychology of Common Sense: A Diagnosis of ModernPhilistinism (Cambridge, Mass., 1939), passim.

32. Sholom Aleichem, ‘‘Off for America: The Story of a Yiddish Family Exo-dus,’’ The World Magazine, January 2, 1916.

33. For an overview of Chaplin’s ‘‘Jewishness,’’ see J. Hoberman, ‘‘The First‘Jewish’ Superstar: Charlie Chaplin,’’ in Entertaining America: Jews, Movies, andBroadcasting, ed. J. Hoberman and J. Shandler (New York, 2003), 34–39.

34. Robak, ‘‘The Humor of Aleichem,’’ 22.35. See, for example, Dovid Matis, ‘‘Sholem-Aleykhem un Tsharli Tshaplin,’’

Di velt fun Tsharli Tshaplin (New York, 1959), 109–23.

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but none has connected it with his creative endeavors. Today it is ratherdifficult to determine how far the writer’s interest in the actor actuallyextended. However, it is noteworthy that there was no other movie actorof the day apart from Chaplin whom Sholem Aleichem especiallyacknowledged in both his stories and his private correspondence. Onecommentator, the New York journalist and translator Naftali Linder,who knew Sholem Aleichem personally, testifies that almost from themoment Sholem Aleichem arrived in the United States he was interestedin Chaplin. Linder quotes him as saying that he and Chaplin had in com-mon, first of all, an ‘‘audience of children.’’ Sholem Aleichem expressedhis sincerest admiration of the fact that Chaplin was ‘‘able to fill so manyhearts with joy, especially the pure hearts of children, without whose joythe world would simply cease to exist.’’ Sholem Aleichem also aspired toachieve the aesthetic level of Chaplin’s moviemaking. ‘‘Children awfullylove acting, but everything must be genuine, without sham. The actingmust be done in such a way that it is clear that it is acting, as they, thechildren themselves, would play the part if given the opportunity. This,Sholem Aleichem summed up, is what Charlie Chaplin does, and it is whyhe is so successful in entering the hearts of the small fry.’’36

Bearing these remarks in mind, we can imagine Motl as the ‘‘audienceof children’’ and Pini, in his eyes, as someone close to being a Chaplin-esque type (see figure 2). The following two quotations from Motl Peysidem khazns graphically illustrate this interpretation.

The rush of people was so powerful that Pini nearly got kicked, justthe way he had been in London not long ago when we had only justarrived there. That is, in just a few moments he would already havebeen lying crushed and trampled on the street. But this time he escapedwith only a blow to the side. The blow was so hard, though, that hislittle cap flew off his head and, being snatched up by the wind, whirledaway somewhere off to the side.

The conductor slammed the door shut. The subway car started offwith a jerk. Our Pini, standing by the door pensive and embarrassed,jumped back quickly. In an instant he was lying in the embrace of aNegro woman. She threw him off herself with both hands so stronglythat he went flying over to the opposite bench, and his little cap flew

36. N. B. Linder, ‘‘Sholem-Aleykhem un Tsharli Tshaplin,’’ Der Tog, April 2,1939. See also ‘‘Ibergegebn fun N. B. Linder,’’ in Berkovitsh, Dos Sholem-Aleykhem-bukh, 357–60.

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Figure 2. Pini as a Chaplinesque type. Cartoon by Samuel Cahan, TheWorld Magazine, January 2, 1916. Courtesy of BSA archives, Tel Aviv.

off to the door. To top off the whole disaster, loud laughter rang out inthe subway car. All the passengers were roaring with laughter.37

Furthermore, Chaplin himself is mentioned in the story, for the first andonly time in Sholem Aleichem’s writings, as a model worthy of imitation,when one of Motl’s friends mimics the actor:

37. Sholem-Aleykhem, ‘‘Motel Peysi dem khazn’s: Tsveyter teyl: in Amerike,’’Ale verk fun Sholem-Aleykhem (New York, 1937), 14:65, 74. Translated hereinafterby M. Aronson.

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SHOLEM ALEICHEM’S MISSING SCRIPT—KOTLERMAN 167

Well, what’s he up to, that master craftsman Charlie Chaplin, when hedoes his various tricks! Our Max imitates him down to the last detail.When we left the theater he put on a black moustache like CharlieChaplin’s, pulled a bowler hat over his forehead, like Charlie Chaplin,turned out his feet and began to walk, swaying backward and swinginga slender cane—Max and Charlie Chaplin, as alike as two drops ofwater!38

Perhaps upon viewing Chaplin’s talented acting Sholem Aleichem felt aneed to express something like it in his writing. ‘‘This figure,’’ the writertold Linder with feeling sometime during the summer of 1915, ‘‘is in itselfan artistic production, which no brush and no pen anywhere has everportrayed before, on canvas or paper.’’39 Sholem Aleichem said this justat the time when he was trying to interest several film studios in the Motlstories.

MOTL AND EARLY AMERICAN CINEMA

The initial stimulus for Sholem Aleichem’s efforts to sell his Motl storiesas movies in America came in March 1915 when he was approachedby a certain entrepreneurial moviemaker. In her memoirs, the writer’sdaughter Marie (called Marusia, who was to become B.-Z. Goldberg’swife two years later), labeled this person anonymously as ‘‘the AmericanMenachem Mendel.’’40 Sholem Aleichem was not in New York at thetime the man first appeared, so he was invited to meet with Berkowitz.From a letter written after the meeting we learn that the guest made anambiguous impression on Berkowitz, who advised his father-in-law toreceive the man but to be on guard, ‘‘because this . . . overly slick andshrewd fellow intends to buy all your works for a mess of pottage. Hepretends that he doesn’t know who you are and hasn’t read you, but infact, as I became convinced during our conversation, he knows and hasread you more than his ‘a little.’ ’’41

The visitor turned out to be David Keizerstein, a native of Vilna whohad joined many other Jewish immigrants in deciding to pursue a career

38. Ibid., 14:187.39. Linder, ‘‘Sholem-Aleykhem un Tsharli Tshaplin.’’40. Marie Waife-Goldberg, My Father, Sholom Aleichem (New York, 1968),

291. See the Russian manuscript of Marie’s memoirs at in the University of Penn-sylvania’s Library of the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies,B.-Z. Goldberg (Benjamin Waife) Collection, box 29.

41. Berkowitz to Sholem Aleichem, March 18, 1915 (Hebrew), BSA, LB 57/152. Emphasis added by Berkowitz.

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in the movie business. He founded a modest company, Consumers’ Film,with premises on Broadway, which did not itself engage in moviemakingbut distributed European-made productions in New York, Chicago, andother American cities.42 According to Marie, the businessman reportedthat he had discussed the idea of a film based on her father’s works withcertain ‘‘people higher up’’ who were supposedly interested in such aproject. Keizerstein did not say who these people were, but he did ask fora sample scenario in English—to be delivered with some urgency.43 Atthe same time he told Berkowitz that since the United States was neutralin the war in Europe, works critical of the combatants, like Maysesfun toyznt un eyn nakht (Tales about a thousand and one nights), werenot suitable for screening in America. The work mentioned was SholemAleichem’s most recent publication, published in February-March 1915in the New York Yiddish newspaper Der Tog (The day) and dealt withthe pogroms against the Jews in Russia.

In the wake of his conversation with Keizerstein, Berkowitz turned toB.-Z. Goldberg and asked him to join Sholem Aleichem in order to trans-late a film script from Yiddish into English. Sholem Aleichem chose (evi-dently at Berkowitz’s suggestion) to use the Motl stories, which werequite neutral, but he still insisted on including references to the Russianauthorities’ unjust treatment of Russia’s Jewish population. The text ofthe movie synopsis that has come down to us, which evidently reflects alater version of the missing film script, makes it clear that SholemAleichem altered his original story in regard to at least one importantpoint, namely, the reason Motl’s family leaves Russia. In the originalstory the family emigrates because Motl’s mother simply decides that theyshould do so. In the new cinema version the police come and give Motl’sfamily, along with all the other Jewish inhabitants of the shtetl, threedays to leave, since their homes were within the fifty-mile zone along theborder where Jews were forbidden to reside. Such a regulation wasindeed being enforced at that time along Russia’s western borders as partof the country’s war effort.44 The fact that Sholem Aleichem introducedthis issue into the movie version indicates clearly that he was trying tomake his screen production current by linking the emigration of RussianJews to America with real events taking place in the war zones of WorldWar I, and he did so despite Keizerstein’s warnings about possible cen-sorship problems.

42. ‘‘Real ‘Movie’ News,’’ Chicago Eagle, November 7, 1914.43. Waife-Goldberg, My Father, 291.44. The Jews in the Eastern War Zone (New York, 1916), 61–64.

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SHOLEM ALEICHEM’S MISSING SCRIPT—KOTLERMAN 169

Sholem Aleichem considered Keizerstein’s proposal very seriously. Hemade inquiries about the businessman through his brother, Bernard(Berl) Rabinowitz, a kid glove manufacturer in Newark, New Jersey, inorder to be sure that he really had connections in the cinema world.45 Inthe end, unfortunately for Sholem Aleichem’s cinema dreams, it turnedout that Keizerstein was unable to interest his colleagues in the Yiddishwriter.

However, Sholem Aleichem did not lose hope. The synopsis titled LittleMotl is apparently the one mentioned in a short letter Sholem Aleichemwrote on September 8, 1915, to James (Jacob) Faller. Faller was a writerfor the New York Yiddish newspaper Morgen-zhurnal (Morning journal)whom Sholem Aleichem frequently employed as an agent in his cinemabusiness dealings: ‘‘I just received two letters from you, and in them syn-opses . . . I have this synopsis in New York . . . You should be at the‘appointment’ at two o clock!’’46 The last sentence refers to a meetingplanned for New York dealing with cinema matters, at which Faller wassupposed to serve as translator. It is possible that the specific referencehere was to a meeting Sholem Aleichem planned to have with a represen-tative of the Universal Film Manufacturing Company. Such a meetinghad been mentioned several weeks earlier in correspondence with Fal-ler,47 but no evidence has yet come to light indicating that it ever tookplace.

Sholem Aleichem’s belief in the motion picture potential of Motlreceived a big boost in January 1916, soon after his series of storiesbegan to be published in English (translated by Marion Weinstein),under the title Off for America: The Story of a Yiddish Family Exodus. Thestories appeared in The World Magazine, Sunday supplement to NewYork’s largest newspaper, the weekly New York World. The supplementwas syndicated all over the United States and reached about five millionreaders. The critics greeted the stories very favorably. ‘‘This is a goodbeginning,’’ Sholem Aleichem wrote to his daughter Lyalya Kaufman inOdessa. ‘‘No Jewish writer has had such a huge success, not even[Israel] Zangwill. This gives me a chance to gain a place in Englishliterature at large.’’48

45. Berl Rabinowitz to Sholem Aleichem, March 30, 1915 (Yiddish), BSA,LR 5/2.

46. Sholem Aleichem to Faller, September 8, 1915 (Yiddish), YIVO, RG 643,box 1.

47. Sholem Aleichem to Faller, August 18, 1915 (Yiddish), BSA, MF 6/48.48. Sholem Aleichem to Lyalya Kaufman, January 29, 1916 (Russian), BSA,

MK 5/68.

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Sholem Aleichem promptly tried to carry this success over into thesphere of the cinema, as we learn from his correspondence with hiswife. At the end of February 1916, just two and a half months beforehis death, he asked her to organize a meeting for him—through themediation of a certain Philadelphia impresario—with the prominentfilmmaker Siegmund Lubin, whose studio was located in Philadelphia.‘‘They say he is a simple Jew and knows of me. And I want very muchto meet him. He’s a millionaire and big entrepreneur. I am convincedthat through him I will be able to bring my Motl to the screen.’’49 Beingquite serious about trying to interest Lubin in his cinema ideas, he pro-posed sending the entrepreneur chapters from The World Magazine’sEnglish version of the Motl stories. He was quite confident that thesepieces would make the necessary impression. However, no meetingwith Lubin ever took place, and, sadly, Sholem Aleichem did not liveto see his heroes on screen.

Three more unpublished episodes of the Motl Peysi dem khazns storieswere discovered among the writer’s papers after his death.50 The first ofthem was called ‘‘Hellou, landsman!’’ (Hello, fellow countryman!). In theweek of his death, Sholem Aleichem intended to send it to the New YorkYiddish newspaper Varhayt but never got around to doing so. In thischapter Motl and his friends are portrayed going to the movies and talk-ing about Charlie Chaplin—the only time the topic of motion picturesappeared in the series.

From the manuscript of this episode, which is preserved in the archivesof BSA, we can see how Sholem Aleichem, on his deathbed, was reread-ing what he had written, making revisions, and dotting the last i’s. At thebottom of the last page he squeezed in one more sentence, as a separate,terse subchapter: ‘‘Since that time my brother Eli doesn’t go to the ‘mov-ing pictures’ any more and doesn’t want to hear anything about CharlieChaplin.’’51 This sentence, against the background of Sholem Aleichem’suniformly unsuccessful efforts to break into the movies either in Europeor the United States, sounds like an acknowledgment of disappointmentand defeat. Indeed, it stands out like the caption card epilogue one mightsee in a silent movie, putting the final touch on what we may label a‘‘cinematic drama’’ in which the author himself was the main star.

49. Sholem Aleichem to his wife Olga, February 23, 1916 (Russian), BSA,MR 3/49.

50. See Berkowitz’s note to Sholem-Aleykhem, ‘‘Motel Peysi dem khazn’s’’(1937), 206–7, also Shmeruk, ‘‘Nokhvort,’’ 320.

51. See the manuscript in BSA, 10/36.

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SHOLEM ALEICHEM’S MISSING SCRIPT—KOTLERMAN 171

LITTLE MOTL GOES TO AMERICA

Taken from a book of the same name by Sholem Aleichem52

[Cinema synopsis, 1915, Lakewood, N.J.—New York, translated byBen-Zion Goldberg]

Little Motl Is Left an Orphan

Scene of extreme poverty. Motl’s father is sick in bed. The doctor calls,gives little hope. On leaving he is surrounded by the rest of the familyand the neighbors crowding for information.

Motl appears from a nook. A calf hops out from behind the oven. Motlembraces it.

Motl promises his father to say Kaddish.The funeral.

Eli, Motl’s Brother, Is Looking for Business

The furniture of the house is either sold or pawned.Eli discovers an advertisement of a book, For One Dollar a 100, which

promises to show how to make $100 a week from $1.Eli spends his last dollar and sends for the book.

Good Cider? Only Too Much Soap in It

Eli and Motl, reading the book How to Make Cider of a Powder and thePeelings of Oranges and make a barrel full.

When the cider is ready Motl tastes one glass and then another andtreats the others to it. To make up for it he pours some water into thebarrel, and in his haste, instead of taking the water from the pail he takesit from the wash tub.

Motl sells cider. He hangs two jugs under his arms and a sign reading‘‘The Best Cider in the World by the Famous Cider-Maker.’’

Those who bought the cider soon feel the soap in it, a quarrel ensues;only by the intervention of some Jew is Motl saved from the hands of thepolice.

Fine Ink but No Buyers

In the mystery of the night, following directions of the book, Eli and Motlmake ink, using the same barrel which the cider was made in.

52. The name ‘‘Motl’’ appears in the original text as ‘‘Motel,’’ and ‘‘SholemAleichem’’ as ‘‘Sholom Aleichem.’’

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Motl goes out with a square placard reading ‘‘The Best Ink You CanGet at Wholesale at Eli, the Famous Ink Maker.’’

In the house all look in the window to see if any customers come. Atlast a little shaggy girl appears with a tiny goblet in her hand, asking fora kopeck’s worth of ink. Despairing, Motl and Eli resolve to get rid ofthe ink in the night. In their haste they pour it over a line of washing anda white goat, which are brought to them the next morning by their owner.

Excellent Rat Killer, but the Rats Wouldn’t Have It

Late at night Eli and Motl prepare a powder destroying rats and all kindsof bugs, according to the directions of the book. The next morning Motlgoes out with a placard reading ‘‘The Best Thing for Your Rats You CanGet at Eli, the Famous Rat-Killer.’’

A wealthy Jew comes to Eli asking him to destroy the rats in his home.Eli spends the night there. In the morning the man finds him asleep anda few rats are hopping about him. He sees Eli’s sack of powder in thecorner, and as he comes near it, he begins to sneeze. His wife enters theroom and begins to sneeze too. Eli awakes and also begins to sneeze. Ina while Motl appears, and both are driven out of the house, Motl carryingoff the sack of powder on his back. On the way he begins to sneeze andfalls with the sack in the street. A crowd gathers, and everyone comingnear the place sneezes, even the police who came to inquire what thetrouble was.

Motl Goes to America

Eli’s wife throws the book For One Dollar a 100 in the fire. The police comewith orders for the whole family to leave the town as it lies within fiftymiles of the borders. Only three days are given them to get ready. Neigh-bors come weeping and crying, having received similar orders.

Eli sells his house and he sews the money in his back pocket. Eli’s wifeis packing—pillows and pillows, up to the brim. Motl climbs to the topand slides down crying, ‘‘I go to America.’’

The gendarmes don’t allow them to take the intended train and thewhole family remains outside with their baggage. Motl keeps on saying‘‘I go to America.’’ Eli deals with agents about stealing across the Russianborder. He is cheated out of all his money. At night two peasants cometo get them across.

The gendarmes fire. They all begin to run, Motl ahead of them. Theymeet a Jew with a goat. ‘‘Where are you running?’’ ‘‘To Austria.’’ ‘‘You

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SHOLEM ALEICHEM’S MISSING SCRIPT—KOTLERMAN 173

are in Austria now.’’ ‘‘Here?’’ He points to a sign reading ‘‘Brodi, Aus-tria.’’

They are looking for a relief committee which sends them from onecity to the other until after much suffering they reach London. There theymeet their neighbors and board a ship together.

They arrive at Ellis Island. The emigration officer asks Eli if he hasany money to show. Eli replies ‘‘Money? We have strong arms and astrong will to work. What else do we need here?’’

Motl interrupts him and says: ‘‘Money? Here I have money to show.’’They all look very astonished. But Motl takes out one dollar from one ofhis side pockets and hands it to the officer saying: ‘‘This is my savingsfrom last year.’’ All laugh but the family is detained while the others arepermitted to land. In time a message comes from Washington asking theemigration officer to allow them to land.

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