By Jacob Dinezon
Yudishe Folks-blat
(Jewish People’s Newspaper)
St. Petersburg: July 31, 1888,
No. 29, Page 2
Translated from the Yiddish by
Miri Koral
Letter to the Editor
Esteemed Mr. Editor,
In the 26th issue of your respected Folksblat, I read an editorial about the Warsaw Jewish Theater by Israel Lipschitz (sp?) ______, Kovno. I don’t want to edit the same editorial and respect its worth by saying what is truthful in it and what is lie, what this particular writer has correct and what incorrect. That is not what I have in mind. I only want to make known that what is stated in the same editorial, that Mr. Goldfaden ran away from Warsaw to America, is certainly a big lie as well as a great injustice to blame our folk-poet for others’ sins from which he himself suffered surely more than anyone else.
In Warsaw and especially up to and including the present, there was no Jewish directing for the theater; the Jewish directing belonged and still belongs at this time to non-Jews, one of them a known director of a Russian actors’ society is this _____ who at that time with Jewish actors like Mr. _____ and _____ did not pay their salaries regularly. _____ (Guessing: Goldfaden in the manner) . . . of a rabbi preferred always to improve the situation of his students rather than improving his own. But when his strength ran out, hoping for a better situation in Warsaw to arrive, he traveled to America, journeying there with a (acronym) passport. He was escorted by many good friends who valued his talent. I myself was one of those who escorted him at that time all the way to Tsebatsinsk (sp?), that is, to the border. And for the sake of the truth, I ask you to please, esteemed Mr. Editor, print this letter as soon as possible so that the truth is seen to be dear to us, and that respect for our best folk-poet is greatly valued and appreciated. And we are obliged out of admiration and respect for him to support him in not being destroyed by someone’s personal enmity. I hope that the truth is also no less dear to you than it is to me and that you will not deny my request.
—Jacob Dinezon