After arriving in America in 1915, Saul Saphire became one of the most prolific Yiddish-language writers in American history. He is also one of the least recognized Yiddish-language writers in American history. As an author of serialized historical romances, often biblically based, Saphire emerged from a lineage of Yiddish-language romance writers that provided him the publishing means, motive, and voice to succeed in Yiddish-language popular culture. At the same time, his growing success fell in line with a declining Yiddish-language market in the post-immigrant era [after 1923]. This decline is partly why he has never received much scholarly attention. Also, “highbrow” Yiddishist critics of the post-immigrant age relegated him to the literary trash heap. [His romance novels fit a literary style that most critics associated with shund, literally “trash” in Yiddish]. Likewise, critics did not take Saphire seriously because he published many of his serialized novels for female audiences.
My paper will discuss Saphire’s early writings in the 1920s and 1930s, accounting for his novels in a transitioning Yiddish-language market. I will argue that two factors aided Saphire’s rise in Yiddish-language popular culture. First, in terms of the historical romance itself, Saphire adapted his novels to fit Jewish issues in a post-immigrant America. Saphire addressed themes of intermarriage, assimilation, antisemitism, and universalism vs. Jewish particularism. Playing a role in these Jewish discourses was the wider American context, including the prominent place of religion in American life and an American market for biblical epics. Second, Saphire actually benefited from a shrinking Yiddish-language market. Shrinking readership meant that several Yiddish-language publications reinvented themselves, rising anew from a series of mergers and sales. These reinventions provided space for Saphire’s novels. Thus, these factors, economic and literary, enabled Saphire’s novels to succeed in their time, even if they would eventually be forgotten.
About the presenterMatthew Harris Brittingham
Matthew H. Brittingham is a PhD candidate at Emory University in the Graduate Division of Religion. He researches Yiddish-language publishing and its intersections with popular religious discourses. He is also a fellow at Emory University’s Tam Institute for Jewish Studies and holds an MA in Jewish Studies from Indiana University-Bloomington.