Born in Kapulye, in the province of Minsk, White Russia, Mendele, as he was affectionately called by his readers, was dubbed by Sholem Aleykhem the "grandfather" (zeyde) of modern Yiddish literature.

As a boy, he had the traditional, exclusively religious Jeiwsh eduaction of the time, and a difficult, but interesting youth that provided him with much material for his later masterpieces.

As a young man he was tutored in the wordly subjects (mathematics, literature, and languages) by one of the learned daugthers of Avrom Ber-Gotlober, a leading Hebrew/Yiddish writer of the nineteenth-century haskole (Jewish Englightenment).

Early in his literary career, Abramovitsh wrote in Hebrew, but his strong desire to be "of use to his people" made him turn to Yiddish, the language of the Jewish masses of Eastern Europe. Although heavily influenced by the haskole, he transcended its didacticism to create a style and a modern literary language from both Yiddish and Hebrew sufficient to earn him the title as founder of the modern literatures in both these languages.

The publication in 1864 of his first Yiddish novel, Dos Kleyne Mentshele (The Little Man) marks the beginning of the modern period in Yiddish Literature. Some other famous works by Mendele include the following: Fishke the Lame
The Mare
The Travels of Benjamin III
Shem and Japheth on the Train
Of Bygone Days
-Background information source: Zuckerman, Marvin. Ed. The Three Great Classic Writers of Modern Yiddish Literature: Selected Works of Mendele Moykher-Sforim. California: Joseph Simon Pangloss Press, 1991. vii-viii.

The expression Sholem-Aleykhem in Yiddish is simply a way of saying "hello." It's as if he had dubbed himself "Howdy-Doody." The name Sholem-Aleykhem stuck; he became one of the most popular and beloved Jewish writers. If Mendele was the first of the three great Yiddish classicists, the founding "grandfather," so to speak, of modern Yiddish literature, the "eynikl," or grandchild, Sholem Aleykhem was by far the most read and best loved.

Sholom Aleykhem is famous for many works such as the Tevye stories-on which Fiddler on the Roof was Based-a novel Stempenyu about a Jewish klezmer.

Peretz was adored in his own lifetime. New, young writers from all over the Russian empire flocked to his home in Warsaw for advice and encouragement.

Such stories as "Bontshe Shvayg," "If Not Still Higher," and "The Three Gifts" mad him famous and beloved by millions of Yiddish readers in Poland, Russia, and all over the world. When he died in 1915, over 100,000 Jews dropped their work to follow his coffin through the streets of Warsaw to its final resting place.

In addition to his play The Golden Chain, Peretz was famous for his memoirs, letters, and speeches.

-Background information source: Zuckerman, Marvin. Ed. The Three Great Classic Writers of Modern Yiddish Literature: Selected Works of I. L. Peretz. California: Joseph Simon Pangloss Press, 1991. vii-viii.