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ary page of the Yiddish journal, Di Naye Velt. Several volumes
of his collected stories were published in Hebrew and Yiddish
from 1910 onwards.
In 1913 he went to the United States where he edited the
weekly Ha-Toren as well as Miklat (1920–21). He settled in
Palestine in 1928, and became one of the first editors of the
weekly, Moznayim. Berkowitz published his translation of the
collected works of Shalom Aleichem and his masterfully written
reminiscences of the great Yiddish writer and his generation,
under the title Ha-Rishonim ki-Venei Adam (1933–48).
While his contemporaries, G. *Schoffman, J.Ḥ *Brenner,
and U.N. *Gnessin revolted against the style of *Mendele
Mokher Seforim and Ḥ.N. *Bialik, Berkowitz remained true
to the older prose writing tradition, displaying his individuality
in the choice of subject, methods of characterization, and
structure of the story. Although his less conformist contemporaries
were not always accepted by the literary establishment,
he himself was praised by Bialik. Berkowitz’s stories,
novels, plays, and memoirs appeared in Yiddish and Hebrew.
The bulk of his work was written in Hebrew.
Berkowitz is important as a writer of short stories. In
his early years he wrote realistic stories under the influence
of Mendele, Bialik, and Chekhov but soon was captivated by
the technique and style of Shalom Aleichem. The influence of
the greater writer tended to weaken Berkowitz’s originality.
Berkowitz’s stories were written out of the context of the social
crisis which shook Eastern European Jewry in his day. Among
his central themes are (1) the weakening of parental authority:
“Lifnei ha-Shulḥan” (“Before the Table”); “Pere Adam” (“The
Ill-Mannered One”); “Malkot” (“Lashings”); “Ba’al Simḥah”
(“The Feted”); “Maftir”; “Moshkele Ḥazir”; (2) the problems
resulting from changes in the protagonists’ social status and
from their cultural isolation: “Viddui” (“Confession”); “Talush”
(“Severed”, in Israel Argosy, 1936); “Kelei Zekhukhit” (“Glass,” in
Reflex, 1927); (3) problems resulting from emigration: “Karet”
(“The Outcast,” in The Jewish Standard, 1936); “El ha-Dod ba-
Amerikah” (“To Uncle in America,” in B’nai Brith Magazine,
1930); “Yarok” (“The Greenhorn,” in The American Jewish
Chronicle, 1917); “Mi-Merḥakim” (“From Afar”); (4) problems
from the social pressure of a strange world: “Pelitim” (“Refugees”);
“Ruḥot Ra’ot” (“Evil Spirits”). The characters, generally
unable to face up to the crisis, are “anti-heroes” who collapse
under pressure, victims of social and psychological situations
beyond their control. It is not the plot, but the social and
psychological situation expressed through the plot, which is
the main point of Berkowitz’s stories. His characterization is
not introspective (as is the case with J.Ḥ. Brenner and U.N.
Gnessin), but external. The inner world of the protagonists is
revealed through mannerism, habits, and dialogue. In many
cases wider basic situations are implied through the specific
case by the symbolic expansion of landscapes or verbal hints,
extending the significance of the dialogue or characters. The
background of most of Berkowitz’s stories is Russia at the
turn of the century, and the effect of the social and general
crisis of the time on the country’s Jews. Some of the stories
berkowitz, yitzḤak dov
deal with the place of immigrants of the old generation in
the U.S., others with the impact of Ereẓ Israel on new immigrants:
“Amerikah Olah le-Ereẓ Yisrael” (“America Comes to
Ereẓ Israel,” 1946); “Ha-Nehag” (“The Heart of a Chauffeur,”
in Commentary, 1953).
There is a change in direction as regards technique and
theme in Berkowitz’s novels. In the first of these, Menaḥem
Mendel be-Ereẓ Yisrael (“Menahem Mendel in Ereẓ Israel,”
1936) he attempted to transfer one of Shalom Aleichem’s characters
to the new environment of Ereẓ Israel, continuing the
epistolary technique. The correspondence is one-sided; Menahem
Mendel writes to his wife, Sheine Sheindel; she does not
reply. The theme is the ideological struggle between fathers,
who still belong to the Diaspora in their way of thinking and
try to make easy money out of the building boom in the Tel
Aviv of the 1930s, and the sons, who are committed to the ideal
of pioneer labor. The mode is satirical rather than humoristic.
Yemot ha-Mashi’aḥ (“Messianic Days,” 1938) is a description
of the emigration of Dr. Menuḥin, a Zionist intellectual,
from the United States to Ereẓ Israel. At times it reads like a
roman à clef, in which the writer hints at real characters and
at the struggle between the *Revisionist (right-wing Zionist)
and the Labor movement. His hero, Menuḥin, is searching for
a new truth and a new way of life, and he eventually finds a
wife (Yehudit), after overcoming various prejudices, and discovers
the attractions of “labor Palestine.” The ideology of the
labor movement is one of the important aspects of the novel
and events are judged by its light.
Berkowitz also wrote several plays of different types,
some of which appeared in a separate volume in 1928. The
fourth, Mirah, was published in 1934. His play, Ba-Araẓot ha-
Reḥokot (“In the Distant Lands,” 1928), is a comedy on the life
of immigrants to the United States. The appearance of Anton,
a Russian farmer, in the midst of a Jewish family, causes various
romantic complications and errors. Oto ve-Et Beno (“He
and His Son,” 1928), a realistic “somber drama,” is a continuation
of the story “Moshkele Ḥazir” – Moshke, a convert to
Christianity who had a son, Jacob, by a non-Jewish wife, is
nevertheless still tied to his Jewish origins. During a pogrom
in the midst of the Russian Revolution, Moshke hides Jews in
his home and this act brings about a clash between him and
his son, in which Moshke murders Jacob and commits suicide.
The play is written in realistic, Ibsenesque style and is
well made; it was produced by the Habimah Theater in 1934.
Mirah was influenced by Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, and deals with
the status of women in the United States immigrant society,
contrasting the heroine’s moral qualities, despite her sin, with
her husband’s imperfections. In old age, Berkowitz published
reminiscences, both of his childhood in Russia, Pirkei Yaldut
(“Childhood Episodes,” 1966), and of Ereẓ Israel in the 1930s,
Yom Etmol Ki Avar (“Yesterday,” 1966). He also translated Tolstoi’s
Childhood (1912) and Chekhov’s Youth (1922).
Berkowitz was received with enthusiasm by the critics of
his time. Bialik praised him warmly while Brenner regarded
him with mixed feelings, praising his clarity and freshness
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3 441