GORELIK, SHEMARYA

GORELIK, SHEMARYA (1877–1943), Yiddish, German, and Hebrew journalist and essayist. Born in Lokhvitsa, Ukraine, he came to Vilna in 1890 and engaged in literary activities in the Russian press. For several years he sympathized with the *Bund, but in 1905 he joined the Zionist movement, and in 1906 he started publishing articles and essays in the Yiddish Zionist weekly Dos Yudishe Folk. In 1908 he joined S. *Niger and A. Veiter in founding and editing Literarishe Monatshriften, a Vilna literary monthly which attracted writers of diverse ideologies, and in the following years contributed numerous feuilletons and essays about modern literature to various Yiddish publications in Poland and the U.S. During World War i, Gorelik lived in Switzerland, participated in pacifist publications, and was sentenced to prison for six months. He later described his experiences during these years in Fünf Jahre im Lande Neutralien (1919). After the war, he lived in Germany, except for one year spent in New York, and contributed to German Jewish periodicals, until forced to leave in 1933. He then settled in Palestine and wrote for the Hebrew press. His literary sketches first appeared in book form in 1912. His Yiddish essays which offered interesting insights into the work of most prominent European writers were collected in four further volumes. A posthumous selection, with an introduction by his brother, M. Horelik, appeared in Los Angeles in 1947. A Hebrew translation of Gorelik's essays by A. *Shlonsky, was published in Tel Aviv (Massot, 1937).

bibliography:

Rejzen, Leksikon, 1 (1926), 539–42; lnyl, 2 (1958), 163–5; J. Glatstein, In Tokh Genumen (1956), 98–102; S. Liptzin, in: Maturing of Yiddish Literature (1970), 75–7.