Meir Blinken
{{Use mdy dates|date=September 2022}}
{{Short description|American author (1879–1915)}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Meir Blinken
| image = Meir Blinken.jpg
| birth_date = 1879
| birth_place = Pereiaslav, Poltava Governorate, Russian Empire
| death_date = 1915 (aged 36 or 37)
| death_place = United States
| relatives = Alan Blinken (grandson)
Donald M. Blinken (grandson)
Antony Blinken (great-grandson)
}}
Meir Blinken ({{langx|ru|Меер Янкелевич Блинкин|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.
Early life
Blinken was born in 1879 in Pereyaslavl, Russian Empire (now Ukraine), to Yankel Blinkin and Rys (Ruth) Kelman.{{cite web |url=https://ukrainianjewishencounter.org/en/yiddish-and-the-ukrainian-jewish-roots-of-the-new-u-s-secretary-of-state/ |author=Shimon Briman |translator=Marta D. Olynyk |title=Yiddish and the Ukrainian–Jewish roots of the new U.S. Secretary of State |publisher=Ukrainian Jewish Encounter |date=November 30, 2020 |access-date=January 6, 2021}} There he studied at a religious Jewish primary school, followed by a business education in Kiev.
Career
After starting a family, Blinken moved to the United States at age 25 in 1904. Over the next 10 years, while making a living in jobs that included carpentry and owning a massage business, Blinken published about 50 fiction and nonfiction works.
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. 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".{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1984/03/18/books/in-short-042156.html |title=Reviews In Short |work=The New York Times |first=Richard |last=Elman |author-link=Richard Elman (writer) |date=March 18, 1984 |access-date=January 6, 2021}} 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.{{cite news |url=https://momentmag.com/the-yiddish-yiches-of-a-new-top-diplomat/ |title=The Yiddish Yiches of a New Top Diplomat |work=Moment Magazine |first=Carlin |last=Romano |date=January 2021 |access-date=January 6, 2021}} 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.{{cite news |url=https://www.rijha.org/wp-content/uploads/voiceandherald/1984/1984-03-23.pdf |title=Jewish Books in Review |work=The Rhode Island Herald |publisher=Rhode Island Jewish Historical Society |first=Emanuel S. |last=Goldsmith |date=March 23, 1984 |access-date=January 6, 2021}}
Some of Blinken's collected works were published by the State University of New York Press in 1984,{{cite book |url=https://www.sunypress.edu/p-801-stories-by-meir-blinkin.aspx |title=Stories by Meir Blinkin |publisher=State University of New York Press |access-date=January 6, 2021}} and have been included in other compendiums of Yiddish literature in the century after his death.{{cite web |url=https://kleinerwebonline.com/sholomaleichemclub/pubsrec.htm |title=Four Unique Books Published by the Sholem Aleichem Club |publisher=Sholem Aleichem Club |access-date=January 6, 2021}}
Personal life
Blinken died in 1915, at the age of 36 or 37.{{cite news |url=https://www.algemeiner.com/2020/11/30/memories-and-expectations-of-antony-blinken/ |title=Memories and Expectations of Antony Blinken |work=The algemeiner |first=Martin |last=Peretz |date=November 30, 2020 |access-date=January 6, 2021}} 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.{{cite journal |title=Appointments |journal=State |volume=375 |issue=March 1994 |page=10 |url=https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:State_1994-03-_Iss_375_(IA_sim_state-magazine_1994-03_375).pdf&page=12}}{{cite web |title=Donald M. Blinken Papers, 1969–2003 |url=https://archives.albany.edu/description/catalog/apap080 |access-date=2020-11-17}}{{Cite news |title=Maurice Blinken, 86; Early Backer of Israel |newspaper=The New York Times|date= July 15, 1986 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1986/07/15/obituaries/maurice-blinken-86-early-backer-of-israel.html}} Two of Blinken's grandsons, Alan Blinken and Donald Blinken, served as U.S. ambassador to Belgium and Hungary, respectively. Meir Blinken was the great-grandfather of former United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken.{{cite web |url=https://www.golosameriki.com/p/6330.html |title=Настоящее время: Америка|author=Voice of America—Russian Service |date=December 3, 2020 |website=GolosAmeriki.com |publisher=Voice of America |access-date=December 3, 2020}}
References
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Category:American male non-fiction writers
Category:People from Pereiaslav
Category:Jewish writers from the Russian Empire
Category:Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States
Category:American people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent