Through the Eyes of David Labkovski:

Sholem Aleichem and His Heroes

The Meeting (Detail), 1988, Gouache on paper, The David Labkovski Museum of Jewish Art

Yiddish author Sholem Aleichem (1859-1916) captures the zeitgeist of Jewish life at the turn of the century. The stories may be specific to a time and place, but the quirks and peccadillos of the characters, the humanity Aleichem shares, are universal and eternal.

Aleichem’s humorous tales address complex issues: antisemitism, emigration, modernization and poverty. His characters play the cards they’ve been dealt, just as his readers were facing the same challenges. Sholem Aleichem’s world was the world before the Holocaust. In the aftermath, his stories take on new meaning; his words resurrect a world that no longer exists.

Lithuanian-Israeli artist David Labkovski (1906-1991) was dedicated to the commemoration of the Jewish ‘world that was’. Labkovski turned to Sholem Aleichem’s stories as his muse to remember the past, to be swept back to his own childhood. The parallels between Labkovski’s Aleichem series and his work depicting his own memories of prewar life are unmistakable. The settings and the characters from his illustrations are intentionally interchangeable with his work representing the “real” townspeople, as if they are one and the same—his love for the characters and for his community can be seen in every brushstroke and pencil line. We meet them all as they are walking in the streets, selling their wares, or enjoying a moment of gossip.

Enter the exhibit and be transported back to another time and another place through the eyes of two artists devoted to telling their communities' story.

Zeit gezunt—be healthy!

Originals are from the collection of Barbara Barishman, Patricia Flaum,

Robert Spektor and the David Labkovski Museum of Jewish Life, Ramat Gan, Israel.

Voiceover: Elizabeth Atherton, Rachel Kaftan and Sam Pribyl.

David Labkovski Greets Sholem Aleichem, 1984

Charcoal on paper

David Labkovski Museum of Jewish Art

Sholem Aleichem and David Labkovski never met—Labkovski was only a boy when Aleichem died. That fact did not stop Labkovski from imagining their warm greeting in front of Kasrilevke.

Labkovski holds brushes and a palette, nothing behind his own shoulders. Aleichem stands before his entire world—Aleichem’s stories carry Labkovski’s memory for him.

Our Setting

Strashun Library in the Synagogue Courtyard, 1964

Oil on canvas

Collection of Barbara Barishman

Labkovski’s childhood home was Vilna, current day Vilnius, Lithuania. Because of its rich cultural heritage and vibrant religious life, Vilna was known as the “Jerusalem of the North”. Labkovski captures the unique essence of Jewish Vilna—both its architecture and its community. Here, the people are portrayed in the shadow of the Great Synagogue, in the heart of the old Jewish quarter.

Critic Dov Sadan writes, “[Labkovski] takes himself on a very special mission—the preservation of the image, the speaking likeness of Vilna as it etched itself on the eyes and soul of one who grew in it and grew out of it.”

Kasrilevke, 1960

Oil on canvas

David Labkovski Museum of Jewish Life

Labkovski represents Kasrilevke, Aleichem’s fictional shtetl (village), in the likeness of Vilna; the Great Synagogue of Vilna is prominent in the town. Notice the exaggerated features and playful curves which lend a storybook quality to the illustration and do not appear in his autobiographical work.

The town of the little people into which I shall now take you, dear reader, is exactly in the middle of that blessed Pale into which Jews have been packed as closely as herring in a barrel and told to increase and multiply. The name of the town is Kasrilevke. —The Town of the Little People

Our Characters

Characters of Sholem Aleichem (etude), 1962

Gouache on paper

Collection of Barbara Barishman

None of [the Jews of Kasrilevke] are gloomy, none of them are worried little men of affairs, but on the contrary they are known everywhere as jesters, story-tellers, a cheerful, light-hearted breed of men. Poor but cheerful.—The Town of the Little People

The Need of a Goat, n.d.David Labkovski Museum of Jewish Art

And it came to pass that one summer day Shimmen-Eli’s wife, Tsippa-Baila-Reiza, came home from the market with her basket of purchases, flung down the bunch of garlic, the few parsnips and potatoes that she had bought, and cried out angrily, “The devil with it! I’m sick and tired of it all. Day after day, day after day, I break my head trying to think what to cook for dinner. You need the brains of a prime minister to think of something new. Every day it’s dumplings and beans, beans and dumplings . . . If there is a goat in the house you can have a glass of milk for the children, you can cook porridge with milk, you can make a milk soup for dinner, noodles and milk for supper, and besides you can count on a pitcher of sour cream, a piece of cheese, a bit of butter. Think of it. If we only had a goat!”—The Enchanted Tailor

The Nose Wipe, n.d.David Labkovski Museum of Jewish Art

“Give me that no-ose of yours, let me put it right!” So long as my nose was called a nose, I could put up with it. But since it became for my mother a no-ose and she took to putting it right, life became unbearable for it, my poor nose. I don’t know what sin my nose more than any other part of my body had committed to turn my mother into its bitter enemy. It seemed to me it was a nose like other noses, a bit fleshy, a bit reddish, a bit tilted up and sometimes it liked to be a bit damp.

—The Purim Feast

Methusaleh, 1972

Oil on canvas

David Labkovski Museum of Jewish Art

Methuselah–that is what he was called in Kasrilevke because he was so old. He didn’t have any teeth in his head except for two or three stumps with which he barely managed to chew whatever food came his way.

—Methuselah (A Jewish Horse)

Aleichem's Arechetypes

Three of Aleichem’s most beloved characters, Tevye, Menakhem-Mendl, and Motl, are archetypes for how the Jewish people confronted the modern world. Tevye is the traditional, uneducated common man who tries to appear learned and worldly. Menakhem-Mendl is the perpetually failing luftmensch, an impractical person with aspirations toward wealth. Motl is the child whose family looks to emigration as the way out of poverty.

Enjoy getting to know them!

Tevye

“What kind of man? A shlimazl with a horse and wagon.”

—Tevye the Dairyman

Tevye is probably the best-known of Sholem Aleichem’s characters; the Tevye stories were adapted into the world-famous play Fiddler on the Roof.

“Tevye Strikes it Rich” begins with Tevye as a hauler of logs, but by the end of the story, he is a dairyman—a much more lucrative profession. Tevye tells our author how he came into such mazel, good luck. In the telling, Tevye unintentionally reveals himself to be unsophisticated and uneducated.

The modernizing world, for which Tevye is unprepared, continually happens to him. His character is a snaggle of customs, traditions and superstitions which play against the global changes of the turn of the century.

Tevye was a frequent subject in David Labkovski’s artwork. Easily identified by his stature, his beard and his facial features, keep an eye out for Tevye!

Tevye Greets Sholem Aleichem, 1959Charcoal on paperDavid Labkovski Museum of Jewish Art

If you are destined to draw the winning ticket in the lottery, Mr. Sholem Aleichem, it will come right in your house without you asking for it.—Tevye Strikes it Rich

Tevye, c. 1970Oil on canvasDavid Labkovski Museum of Jewish Art

In those days I was not the man I am today. That is, I was the same Tevye, and yet not exactly the same. The same old woman, as they say, but a different bonnet. How so? I was as poor as a man could be, completely penniless. If you want to know the truth, I’m not a rich man now either, but compared with what I was then I can now really call myself a man of wealth.

I have a horse and wagon of my own, a couple of cows that give milk, and a third about to calve. We can’t complain . . . Anyway, what did I start to tell you? That’s right. Those days. Oh, was Tevye a pauper then! With God’s help I starved to death—I and my wife and children—three times a day, not counting supper. I worked like a horse, pulling wagonloads of logs from the woods to the railroad station for—I am ashamed to admit it—half a ruble a day.—Tevye Strikes It Rich

Menakhem-Mendl

Readers meet Menakhem-Mendl through letters exchanged between himself and his wife in “The Letters of Menakhem-Mendl and Sheyne-Sheyndl”. He has left Kasrilevka to make his fortune, leaving Sheyne-Sheyndl and their children behind. The letters are a mixture of her annoyance at his missteps and her desire for him to return home. Reading the letters feels personal; they are an outlet for the couple’s innermost lives, insecurities and feelings. The situations the characters face are similar to what the Jewish community faced—almost like Aleichem was reading his readers’ minds—but with a dose of humor!

Menakhem-Mendl, n.d.Oil on canvasDavid Labkovski Museum of Jewish Art
From Sheyne-Sheyndl in Kasrilevke to her husband Menakhem Mendl in Yehupetz

To my dear, learned & illustrious husband Menakhem-Mendl, may your light shine!

First we’re all well, thank God. I hope to hear no worse from you. Second, I’m writing you my sweetheart, to wish a cruel death to all of my enemies. You fiend, you murderer, you wicked man! . . . I can hardly stand on my feet and your children have come down with every illness there is–their teeth, their throats, their stomachs, the whooping cough, diphtheria, all kinds of horrors I could wish on more deserving people. And you sit in Yehupetz [Kiev] without a word! There’s no excuse. If you’re dead, the least you could do is let me know, and if you’re alive, all the more reason to write.

—The Letters of Menakhem-Mendl and Sheyne-Sheyndl

Tevye invests with Menakhem-Mendl who proceeds to lose Tevye’s hard-earned money. This is somewhat autobiographical; Sholem Aleichem lost a small fortune through bad investments—more than once!

In this humorous dialogue, Tevye and his cousin through marriage, Menakhem-Mendl, meet and try to uncover how they are related.

Menakhem-Mendl: I am a relative of yours. That is, your wife Golde is my second cousin once removed.

Tevye: Wait. Your mother-in-law’s grandmother Sarah-Yenta and my wife’s aunt, Fruma-Zlata, were, I believe first cousins, and if I am not mistaken you are the middle son-in-law of Borush-Hersh and Leah Dvoshe. But I forget what they call you. Your name has flown right out of my head. Tell me, what is your name?—The Bubble Bursts

God sent me a relative from somewhere, a distant kinsman of some kind whom I have never seen before. Menakhem-Mendl is his name–a gadabout, a wastrel, a faker, a worthless vagabond; may he never stand still in one place. He got hold of me and filled my head with dreams and fantasies, things that had never been on land or sea. You will ask me: “Wherefore did it come to pass? How did you ever get together with Menakhem-Mendl?” . . . It was fated, that’s all. Listen to my story.

—The Bubble Bursts

Motl, The Cantor's Son

Motl is a young boy from Kasrilevke. His story begins with the untimely death of his father the cantor, which leaves the family impoverished. Aleichem follows Motl’s childhood in the shtetl and then the family’s emigration from Russia to America. While most Jewish readers would have known someone who emigrated, who was preparing to leave or was considering it for themselves, the two artists diverge over the portrayal of Motl. Labkovski only depicted Motl in the shtetl; he never depicts the family journeying to America. Aleichem was writing for an audience who were facing the option of emigration; Labkovski was driven to commemorate those who remained behind.

Motl with his Mother, n.d.Aquarelle on paperDavid Labkovski Museum of Jewish Art

Motl, n.d.David Labkovski Museum of Jewish Art

This illustration depicts one of Motl’s youthful misadventures in the shtetl. In an attempt to improve family finances, Motl’s brother, Elyahu, buys a book filled with “get rich quick” schemes. Motl assists his brother in Elyahu’s attempts to follow the guide to earn money. The first scheme is to make and sell kvass, a fermented barley beverage. Initially successful, in an attempt to stretch the kvass and make more money, Motl begins to fill the jug with water. The kvass becomes undrinkable when Motl fills the kvass jug with soapy water from the laundry barrel instead of the freshwater barrel. Chaos ensues; however, the story concludes, like so many of Sholem Aleichem’s tales, with a spirit of resiliency—on to the next scheme!

“Jews, have a taste of paradise: Cold drink with lots of ice!”

—My Brother Elyahu’s Drink

The Gang's All Here

Sholem Aleichem Greets his Heroes, n.d.

David Labkovski Museum of Jewish Art

Labkovski lovingly brings Sholem Aleichem and his characters together for a warm greeting. Aleichem (yellow hat) holds Tevye’s shoulders surrounded by many other characters—including a goat and a goose. Readers of the time knew and cared for all of Aleichem’s characters, just as Labkovski adored them.

Documenting the World That Was

The Rag Market in Vilna, 1979Oil on canvasDavid Labkovski Museum of Jewish Art

Labkovski depicts his childhood in Vilna in order to remember "the world that was" . Just as in the previous works, the Great Synagogue is central to Labkovski's depiction of Vilna. He blurs elements of his Aleichem illustrations into the real city—the characters are hidden amongst the townspeople, including the woman wiping her son’s nose (detail). Labkovski himself also makes an appearance (detail)!

The Synagogue Courtyard, n.d.

Oil on canvas

David Labkovski Museum of Jewish Art

The schulhof, the courtyard of the Great Synagogue of Vilna, may be recognized by its distinctive features, including the gates and the archways.

The schulhof was home to multiple prayer and study halls, kosher meat stalls and the mikvah, ritual bath.

Sholem Aleichem in the Synagogue Courtyard, n.d.

Oil on canvas

David Labkovski Museum of Jewish Art

Sholem Aleichem converses with his characters in front of the archways in the schulhof.

Over the course of this series, by blurring Aleichem’s world with his own, Labkovski has allowed us to transfer the intimacy we feel with Aleichem’s characters to the real people of Vilna.

Sholem Aleichem’s Characters Put in the Ghetto, 1964

Gouache on Paper

David Labkovski Museum of Jewish Art

Labkovski depicts Sholem Aleichem’s characters being forced from their homes into the Vilna ghetto during the Nazi occupation. Tevye is on the right pushing a cart. Their fate is the fate of the Jewish people of Vilna: dehumanization, starvation and ultimate murder in the pits of Ponar.

Just as Labkovski intended, when we react with horror and sorrow to the idea of Aleichem’s beloved characters suffering during the Holocaust, we are confronted with the very real, very human toll of the murder of Vilna Jewry.

Destruction of Jewish Vilna, n.d.

Gouache on paper

Collection of Barbara Barishman

Approximately 95% of the Jews from Vilna were murdered during the Holocaust.

In the late 1980s, Rivka and David Labkovski were interviewed by Israeli public television. They discuss Labkovski’s need to commemorate the past—specifically, his use of Sholem Aleichem’s stories as a means to reconnect with the past. These illustrations opened the door for a shared nostalgia, to make the ‘world that was’ once again accessible to the living.

Bearing witness is active, not passive. We welcome you into this space where memory becomes action.

Join the conversation: click on the (+) below and leave your comments.

How will you continue Labkovski’s mission? What can you do to commemorate the Jewish ‘world that was’?

Learn more about the important Holocaust education programs at Davidlabkovskiproject.org.

Visit the David Labkovski Project Website

To learn more about the work of the David Labkovski Project, please visit the website, davidlabkovskiproject.org. You can read Sholem Aleichem's stories and more!

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse