Born into a
Hasidic family,
Sholem Asch received a
traditional Jewish education. Considered the designated scholar of his siblings, his parents dreamed of him becoming a
Rabbi and sent him to the town's best
cheder. There, Asch spent most of his childhood studying the
Talmud, and would later study the
Bible and the
Haggadah on his own time. Asch grew up in a majority
Jewish town, so he grew up believing
Jews were the majority in the rest of the world as well. In
Kutno,
Jews and
gentiles mostly got along, barring some tension around
religious holidays. In his adolescence, after moving from the
cheder to the
beth midrash, Asch became aware of major social changes in popular Jewish thinking. New ideas and the
Enlightenment were asserting themselves in the
Jewish world. At his friend's house, Asch would explore these new ideas by secretly reading many
secular books, which led him to believe himself too worldly to become a
Rabbi. At age 17, his parents found out about this "
profane" literature and sent him to live with relatives in a nearby village, where he became a
Hebrew teacher. After a few months there, he received a more
liberal education at
Włocławek, where he supported himself as a letter writer for the illiterate townspeople. It is in
Włocławek where he became enamored with the work of prominent
Yiddish writer
I. L. Peretz. It is also where he began writing. He attempted to master the short story and wrote in
Hebrew. What he wrote there would later be revised, translated into
Yiddish, and ultimately, launch his career. == Critical reception ==