ABSTRACT
What follows is a translation of Isaac Meir Dik’s (1807–1893) introduction to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), which he adapted into Yiddish from German translations for the Jewish masses and published in 1868. Modeled on the voice of an itinerant preacher, Dik often provided introductions to his fictional works. Dik gave a western aesthetic and popular profile to Yiddish literature, and introduced his wide readership to European knowledge which had been accessible only to a small group of inclined male Hebraists. Following a turbulent period in which his activism collided with the rabbinic establishment, Dik begrudgingly began writing Yiddish literature, publishing scores of original storybooks and adaptations that offered readers an indigenous linguistic medium for the dissemination of European ideas.
