Meir Blinken (Russian: Меер Янкелевич Блинкин, romanized: Meyer Yankelevich Blinkin; 1879 – 1915) was an American and Jewish author who published about 50 fiction and nonfiction works in Yiddish between 1904 and 1915.
Meir Blinken | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 1879 |
| Died | 1915 (aged 36 or 37) United States |
| Relatives | Alan Blinken (grandson) Donald M. Blinken (grandson) Antony Blinken (great-grandson) |
Early life
editBlinken was born in 1879 in Pereyaslavl, Russian Empire (now Ukraine), to Yankel Blinkin and Rys (Ruth) Kelman.[1] There he studied at a religious Jewish primary school, followed by a business education in Kyiv.[1]
Career
editAfter starting a family,[1] Blinken moved to the United States at age 25 in 1904.[2] Over the next 10 years, while making a living in jobs that included carpentry and owning a massage business,[1] Blinken published about 50 fiction and nonfiction works.[2]
In 1908, Blinken published the book Weiber, which is one of the earliest Yiddish books to explicitly engage with women's sexuality, and perhaps the first book by a Yiddish writer in America to engage with sexuality at all.[1] Richard Elman commented on these themes in a review of Blinken's work in the 1980s, writing in The New York Times that in the community of Yiddish authors who wrote for the largely female literary audience of Yiddish fiction, Blinken "was one of the few who chose to show with empathy the woman's point of view in the act of love or sin".[3] Ruth Wisse, a scholar of Yiddish literature, wrote that Blinken was highly popular among his own generation of Yiddish-speaking Americans but that his reputation quickly diminished in the years after his death.[2] Emanuel S. Goldsmith characterized Blinken as part of a generation of Yiddish writers in America who developed a new form of Yiddish literature, and both Goldsmith and Elman emphasized that the major legacy of Blinken's work was that it vividly evoked the atmosphere and characters of the very early Jewish diaspora in New York.[4]
Some of Blinken's collected works were published by the State University of New York Press in 1984,[5] and have been included in other compendiums of Yiddish literature in the century after his death.[6]
Personal life
editBlinken died in 1915, at the age of 36[1] or 37.[7] His son, Maurice Blinken, was an early backer of Israel and founded the American Palestine Institute which helped persuade the United States to back the creation of Israel.[8][9][10] Two of Blinken's grandsons, Alan Blinken and Donald Blinken, served as U.S. ambassador to Belgium and Hungary, respectively. Meir Blinken is the great-grandfather of the United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken.[11]
References
edit- ^ a b c d e f Shimon Briman (November 30, 2020). "Yiddish and the Ukrainian–Jewish roots of the new U.S. Secretary of State". Translated by Marta D. Olynyk. Ukrainian Jewish Encounter. Retrieved January 6, 2021.
- ^ a b c Romano, Carlin (January 2021). "The Yiddish Yiches of a New Top Diplomat". Moment Magazine. Retrieved January 6, 2021.
- ^ Elman, Richard (March 18, 1984). "Reviews In Short". The New York Times. Retrieved January 6, 2021.
- ^ Goldsmith, Emanuel S. (March 23, 1984). "Jewish Books in Review" (PDF). The Rhode Island Herald. Rhode Island Jewish Historical Society. Retrieved January 6, 2021.
- ^ Stories by Meir Blinkin. State University of New York Press. Retrieved January 6, 2021.
- ^ "Four Unique Books Published by the Sholem Aleichem Club". Sholem Aleichem Club. Retrieved January 6, 2021.
- ^ Peretz, Martin (November 30, 2020). "Memories and Expectations of Antony Blinken". The algemeiner. Retrieved January 6, 2021.
- ^ "Appointments". State. 375 (March 1994): 10.
- ^ "Donald M. Blinken Papers, 1969–2003". Retrieved November 17, 2020.
- ^ "Maurice Blinken, 86; Early Backer of Israel". The New York Times. July 15, 1986.
- ^ Voice of America—Russian Service (December 3, 2020). "Настоящее время: Америка". GolosAmeriki.com. Voice of America. Retrieved December 3, 2020.