A playwright, a novelist, a short story writer and journalist, Sholem Asch is one of the most popular Jewish writers in history. Born in Poland in 1880, Asch had a traditional religious Jewish education. When he was 18, he moved to Warsaw and began writing in Yiddish under the influence of I.L. Peretz and soon thereafter published his first Yiddish work, Moyshele, in 1900. In 1907, he introduced his controversial drama about a Jewish brothel owner, God of Vengeance, which was denounced by many as pornographic, and served as the basis for Paula Vogel’s hit Broadway show Indecent. Opening on Broadway in 1923, the portrayal of Jewish pimps and prostitutes, a lesbian relationship and the handling of a Torah in the play angered a group of Reform Jews who successfully lobbied for its closing. The company was arrested and convicted of lewd behavior in a widely publicized trial, a decision that was later overturned. The play had previously been performed in Czarist Russia, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, France, Germany and in Yiddish in New York City without incident. Speaker David Mazower is the Bibliographer and Editorial Director at the Yiddish Book Centerr. He is the author of Yiddish Theatre in London and the great-grandson of Sholem Asch.
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