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WIENER /JEWISH LITERARY ANNIVERSARIES, 1990
187
bassador to the UN as well as to the United States and also as
Israel’s foreign minister. As an accomplished orator and English
stylist, he achieved great renown. His speeches have been collected
in
Voice o f Israel
(1957, 1969).
My People, the Story o f the Jews
(1969)
and
My Country, the Story o f Modern Israel
(1972) are testimony o f
his literary skill. His autobiography,
Abba Eban,
appeared in 1977.
A television mini-series,
Heritage, Civilization and the Jews
(1984)
with its accompanying book was widely acclaimed.
M
o r d e c h a i
E
l i a v
.
70th birthday. Born near Stanislavov, Galicia, Sep
tember 28, 1920. He moved with his family as a child to Cologne,
Germany, and from there to Palestine in 1934. His writings are
devoted to the history o f the Jewish community in Palestine. He
researched the records o f the German consulate in Jerusalem dat
ing from 1842 till 1914, as well as those o f the charitable orga
nization o f the Amsterdam Jewish community for Jews in Palestine
to reconstruct a picture o f Jewish life during the same period.
He also wrote about religious Zionism and the history o f Jewish
education.
S
a m u e l
J
o s e p h
F
u e n n
.
100th anniversary o f death. Born in Vilna, Lith
uania, in 1818, died there, December 22, 1890. A leader o f the
Haskalah in his community, he established a modern Jewish school
there and published the first Hebrew magazine in Eastern Europe.
He wrote studies on Jewish history in Russia for various period
icals, as well as a biographical lexicon o f famous Jews, and began
to assemble what became the first Hebrew dictionary, which was
completed by others after his death. He also wrote a history o f
the Second Temple period and a study on the Jews in Vilna. When
the Hibbat Zion movement was organized he headed its Vilna
branch and also served on its national board.
A
b r a h a m
G
o l d f a d e n
.
150th anniversary o f birth. Born in Staro
Konstantinov, Ukraine, July 12, 1840, died in New York in 1908.
He is considered the pioneer o f the Yiddish theater. First writing
songs and poems in Hebrew and Yiddish, he edited a Yiddish
humor magazine. By 1876 he started the first Yiddish theater in
Jassy, Romania. The Yiddish stage soon became popular through
out Eastern Europe until the Russian government banned it in
1883. Thus it was forced to migrate to Western Europe and the
United States. Goldfaden was active in Western Europe until his
arrival in New York in 1903. Although not considered o f great
literary merit, his plays popularized certain stock characters o f the
Yiddish stage, thus securing him an enduring influence.
A
b r a h a m
G
r a n o t t
.
100th anniversary o f birth. Born in Folesti,
Bessarabia, June 19, 1890, died in Jerusalem in 1962. He settled
in Jerusalem in 1922 when he became head o f the Jewish National