Although he spoke other languages perfectly[citation needed] (Hebrew, Russian, Polish, German, possibly Ukrainian), he chose to write in Yiddish.
He spent the first period of his life among the Hasidim, being himself a disciple of R. Nahman Bratzlaver (from Bratslav, a town in Ukraine, in Yiddish: בראָסלעוו) and the companion of Nathan Bratzlaver (Nathan of Breslov), the editor and publisher of Nahman's works.
He derived the themes of his works from contemporary Jewish life, describing with the pen of an artist the conditions, manners, and customs of the ghetto in the Russian Empire at the beginning of the eventful reign of Czar Nicholas I.
The most important of his dramatic works is the play in verse, Der erschter jiddischer Rekrut in Russland (1861),[1] a tragedy which presents a remarkably vivid picture of the terrible commotion in the Russian ghetto when, in 1827, the ukase compelling the Jews to do military service was enforced for the first time (see Cantonist).
His novel, Dos Sterntichl (1861) describes the seamy side of Ḥasidism, its intolerance, bigotry, and hypocrisy, and contrasts it with the fair-mindedness and honesty of progressive Judaism.