Asch, Sholem, 1880-1957

Sholem Asch (November 1, 1880 – July 10, 1957) was a Polish-Jewish novelist, dramatist, and essayist in the Yiddish language. Born in Kutno, Poland to a Hasidic family, Asch received a formal Jewish education. He moved to Warsaw in 1899 and met and was mentored by prominent Yiddish writer I.L. Peretz. His first book of stories, In a Shlekhter Tsayt (In a Bad Time), was published in 1902 and he rose to prominence. He relocated to the United States in 1914. Asch became increasingly active in public life and played a prominent role in the American Jewry's relief efforts in Europe for Jewish war victims. He was a founding member of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. He also lived in France and Poland during the 1920s and 1930s. In the 1950s due to being investigated as a communist by the House Committee on Un-American Activities and negative press about a book about Christianity, Asche moved to London.