Abraham Cahan

Abraham Cahan

Abraham Cahan (July 7, 1860 - 1951) was an American labor organizer and author.

He was born in Vilna, Lithuania into a Jewish Orthodox family. He emigrated to the United States in 1881 in order to escape the massive roundup of revolutionaries after the assassination of Alexander II of Russia. He became a leading writer and lecturer for labor movements in New York City and was the founder and editor of the Yiddish paper Forverts. By 1924, Forverts had over a quarter of a million readers, making it the most successful non-English language newspaper in the U.S. and the leading Yiddish paper in the world.

His first novella, Yekl: a Tale of the New York Ghetto was published in 1896. It was released as the film Hester Street Film in 1975. Two years later in 1898, he published The Imported Bridegroom and Other Stories, which was released as the film, The Imported Bridegroom in 1990. His other important work, The Rise of David Levinsky was published in 1917.

He also wrote a 5-volume autobiography "Bleter fun mayn Leben" in Yiddish, the first three volumes of which were translated into English as "the Education of Abraham Cahan".