Sholem Aleichem was the pen name for Solomon Naumovich Rabinovich, who lived from 1859-1916 (57 years). Though he grew up in Russia, he resettled in New York in 1905 after a pogrom (a violent mob attack against Jews) in his home country.
His pen neam is based on the traditional Hebrew greeting - sholem aleichem. which means "peace be upon you." The traditional Hebrew response is Aleichem shalom - which means "upon you be peace."
He became a central figure in Yiddish literature, (Yiddish is a Jewish type of German spoken by many Jews in central and eastern Europe.) He not only extensively wrote in Yiddish - he used his personal fortune to encourage other Yiddish writers.
He became known as the "Jewish Mark Twain." (When Mark Twain heard about this - he said, "Please let him know I am the American Sholem Aleichem.}
Many of his writings revolved around the shtetl (small towns in central and eastern Europe with large Jewish populations) and the many unique characters found there. Since Shalom Aleichem grew up in a shtetl - he was very familiar with those characters. One of the characters he wrote about was Tevye - in a collection of stories found in two books - one called Tevye The Dairyman and another called Tevye's Daughters.These collection of short stories became the foundation for the Broadway musical called "Fiddler On The Roof" (with music by Jerry Bock - lyrics by Sheldon Harnick - and book by Joseph Stein.
His stories were noted for the naturalness of the character's speech as well as the accuracy of the description of shtetl live. Also, many saw the cheerfulness of of the characters as a natural way of coping with adversity - though later - many saw a tragic side to his writings.
When he died - his funeral turned out to be one of the largest one's in New York City history.
