Martha Wolfenstein
Martha Wolfenstein was a pioneering Jewish American author, recognized as the first female Jewish writer to create narratives centered on Jewish characters. Born in 1869 in Insterburg, Prussia (now Germany), she immigrated to the United States as a child and was raised in a family with strong Jewish values; her father was a prominent reform rabbi. Although her writings do not directly address the immigrant experience, Wolfenstein emphasized the importance of maintaining a distinct Jewish identity and advocated for religious observance over assimilation into American culture.
She began her writing career out of boredom during an illness, eventually publishing her first story in the late 1890s. Her debut book, *Idyls of the Gass*, was released in 1901 and featured tales set in a fictional town reminiscent of her hometown, exploring the experiences of European Jews before their migration. Wolfenstein's work provides insight into the lives of disenfranchised Jewish individuals in Europe. Sadly, she passed away from tuberculosis in 1906, but her legacy endures, with a home for working women in Cleveland named in her honor.
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Subject Terms
Martha Wolfenstein
Writer
- Born: August 5, 1869
- Birthplace: Insterburg, Prussia (now in Germany)
- Died: March 16, 1906
Biography
Jewish American author Martha Wolfestein is generally considered to be the first female Jewish American to write stories with primarily Jewish characters. Wolfenstein also wrote unapologetically about Jewish values and cultural mores. Although her stories deal only indirectly with the challenges of living as an immigrant in the United States, she was a passionate proponent of maintaining a unique Jewish identity, arguing in favor of strict religious observance—including the notion that Jewishness was a birthright, not a choice—and against Americanization and assimilation.
Wolfenstein was born in Insterburg, Prussia (now in Germany), in 1869, and immigrated to the United States with her parents as a young child. Her father, who had been the first ordained reform Rabbi in Europe, became the leader of Congregation B’nai El in St. Louis, Missouri. While Martha was still a child, the family relocated to Cleveland, Ohio, where her father was in charge of the Cleveland Jewish Orphan Asylum.
Martha Wolfenstein was educated in the Cleveland public schools until her early teens, when her mother became ill with tuberculosis and Martha had to stop her education in order to care for her mother and then to keep house for her father and siblings after her mother’s death. Martha also served as matron of the orphan asylum during late adolescence.
Wolfenstein began writing by translating poetry and stories from German, but her first substantive forays into writing fiction began when she was bored during a long illness. Her first story was published in Lippincott’s Magazine in the late 1890’s, and was so successful that the Jewish Publication Society of America requested writing from her. The manuscript she sent them became her first published book: Idyls of the Gass, published in 1901. Wolfenstein wrote and published several additional short stories about European Jews in the few years following her first book’s release, and in 1905, the Jewish Publication Society collected her stories in a volume known as A Renegade, and Other Tales.
Wolfenstein’s stories are unusual in that they depict the lives of European Jews rather than of Jewish immigrants, exploring the experiences that disenfranchised Jewish Europeans so much so that they would leave their homes and travel overseas. All of her tales, both Idyls of the Gass and the collected stories, are set in the fictional town of Maritz, in an unidentified German-speaking country and likely modeled loosely on the town of her birth. The stories draw heavily on stories she heard from her parents and from the immigrant children in the Cleveland asylum.
Wolfenstein died of tuberculosis in March of 1906. Shortly after her death, the Jewish Review printed a biography of her by her sister, Minnie Kornhauser. Martha House, the home for working women run by the National Council of Jewish Women of Cleveland, is named in her honor.