The Writer and his Editor: Micha Josef Berdyczewski and Nahum Sokolow / הסופר ועורכו: בין מיכה יוסף ברדיצ'בסקי לנחום סוקולוב

The literary archive of the Hebrew writer Micha Josef Berdyczewski (1865-1921), who lived most of his adult life in Germany and Breslau, was brought to Israel from Berlin by his widow and son on the eve of World War II, becoming, thereby, a uniquely preserved historical source of Jewish cultural life of a particular period. Of special interest is the large collection of Berdyczewski's letters, which cast light on his links with the literary figures and institutions of his time. Berdyczewski used intensive correspondence as a substitute for personal encounters, as he was geographically distant from the Jewish literary centers of Eastern Europe. In this way he developed close relationships with writers, for example Shalom Aleichem, whom he never met personally, or, to take another example, Joseph Hayim Brenner, whom he met only once, briefly. One section of the archive contains Berdyczewski's correspondence with some 80 Jewish periodicals with which he had contact either as a contributor or a potential contributor during the 35 years of his literary activity. There was virtually no Hebrew or Yiddish newspaper or literary journal during this period with which he was not in contact, for he viewed the Jewish press as a key vehicle for ensuring the existence of Jewish public and cultural life. One such prolonged correspondence was with Nahum Sokolow, the "father of modern Jewish journalism" and Berdyczewski's first editor, who gave him the needed encouragement as well as constructive criticism to take his first steps in the world of Hebrew literature. Their relationship spanned some 25 years, embracing a series of journalistic and literary publications that Sokolow headed, namely Ha-Asif, Ha-Zfira, Sefer Ha-Shana and Ha-Olam. Sokolow's name was known to Berdyczewski in his youth, when he was a yeshiva student in Russia, the descendant of a long line of Hasidic rabbis. In fact, Berdyczewski's fascination with Sokolow's work and with Haskala literature generally brought his first marriage to an end when his devout father-in-law ejected him from his home because of it. Thereafter, while a yeshiva student in Volozhin, Lithuania, Berdyczewski submitted his first work in Hebrew to Ha-Zfira, which published it in 1886, initiating his relationship with Sokolow, its editor. Sokolow also included Berdyczewski's first article in his annual anthology of Hebrew literature, Ha-Asif, published that same year, and from then on was in ongoing contact with Berdyczewski both on a