Solomon Naumovich Rabinovich, better known under his pen name Sholem Aleichem (March 2, 1859 – May 13, 1916), was a leading Yiddish author and playwright from Ukraine.
The musical Fiddler on the Roof, based on his stories about Tevye the Dairyman, was the first commercially successful English-language stage production about Jewish life in Eastern Europe.
Sholem Aleichem’s will contained detailed instructions to family and friends with regard to burial arrangements and marking his yahrtzeit. He told his friends and family to gather, “read my will, and also select one of my stories, one of the very merry ones, and recite it in whatever language is most intelligible to you.” “Let my name be recalled with laughter,” he added, “or not at all.”