We’re reaching the yortzayt of Sholem Aleichem (May 13, 1916); and I thought I’d show how translation became a sort of legacy in my family. 

Below is a letter my grandfather received and passed down. I have the original. 

Geneve, (Suisse) Rue Dancet, 1

1 July, 1907

Dear Friend Cassel,

If the mountain doesn’t come to Mohammed, Mohammed goes to the mountain. If you don’t want to write to me, I will write to you. Let me see if you won’t answer me now! Right to business. Any day now, I will be finishing a story, a kind of political creation called “The First Jewish Republic.” This is something which God himself said to Moses on Mt Sinai: “Speak to the children of Israel and say to them: THIS REPUBLIC SHOULD BE TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH!” The satire consists of 8 separate stories, 8 comical sketches in the “Yiddishe Tageblat.” That’s where you’ll find them. By the time you make an effort to find a translator, they’ll all be published. They are not long. And if they’re not published, I will have to send you the last few stories in manuscript. I am enclosing excerpts from all 8 stories, so that you will be able to give it to a translator and show the publisher. My idea is that, first of all, you should see Mr. Richard (I believe that you have already met him) and give him the first two stories of “The Republic” in “Tageblat,” so that he might translate them together with my excerpt and then both of you should go to Mr. Harper, or do as you think best. If Mr. Richard wants to translate the whole thing then take the whole thing to Mr. Harper right away. Then I will send you all of the 8  satirical pieces in manuscript form and you’ll take them to a publisher or to an English magazine. My conditions, which will make the accounting easier, are 50% to you and 50% to me; that is, you and the translator will share however you decide between you. If you have to give the translator more than 25%, what can be done? The first time you will earn less by a few thousand dollars—nevermind!  I must have 50% in the form of a good check from the publisher for a “credit line” in Geneva. My wife and Numa send regards. He misses a little your little ice creams [“ayzkrimlakh”], but in Switzerland we’ll be all right.

Answer right away,

Sholem Aleichem

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And here’s a recording of a yortzayt reading for him that I helped organize in 2006.