Letters to Sholem Aleichem

In these Hebrew-language letters from Peretz to Sholem Aleichem, Peretz uses the term zhargon to refer to Yiddish. This usage was common, and although it sometimes was meant pejoratively, here it is meant neutrally; as readers will see, Peretz is in fact arguing for the need to expand and deepen the literary uses of Yiddish beyond what he associates with Sholem Aleichem (i.e., Sholem Rabinovitsh, whom he may actually have mistaken for the then-better-known Sholem Abramovitsh, the Hebrew-Yiddish Haskalah writer Mendele Mokher Sforim).