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YIDDISH LITERATURE IN AMERICA: 1870-2000

KTAV Publishing House, Inc.

Chapter One

* * *

Dovid Edelshtat

In Battle They hate us and drive us all 'round the earth, they plague us, oppress us, and more, because we can value the true worth of people who suffer and are poor. They shoot us and hang us, where'er we be- they hound us from birth to our graves. But truth for all workers we will see, and freedom for all the wretched slaves. And they cannot frighten us any more- we fear neither prison nor death. We're ready to fight in the last war- we'll fight to our final struggling breath. Though they forge us fetters of strongest steel and tear off ourlimbs from the whole, it's only our bodies they can steal, but never our holy human soul. O tyrants, the flow'rs wake from coma now- immortal they bloom near and far. The petals' exciting aroma, is spreading to everywhere you are. They bloom in each man's thoughtful, open mind who loves justice, truth, and the light. The blessings of Nature urge mankind to battle, to struggle for the right, to free from their pain all the tyrants hate, to free them from hunger and cold - for mankind a Heaven we'll create, a world free and beautiful and bold, a world where there'll be no more shedding tears, nor innocent blood more will flow, where man's hope will shine through the ages, and love there forevermore will glow. You tyrants-you think you can kill us all, but new fighters soon will be born. we'll fight and we'll stand straighter, taller, and freedom will have a bright new morn. Wake Up! How long, O how long, will you keep being slaves and wearing the shameful steel chains? How long will you heap all the glorious riches on those who have robbed you of your bread? How long will you stand with your heads bowing down, abased, with no home, full of pain? The day has now dawned, just wake up - you will be then aware of your mighty, steely strength! Achieve all your freedom, on barricades fight. Declare war on tyrants and kings! Your courage, decisions, my brave fighting comrades, will bring you the victory you crave. Your chains and their thrones both will soon disappear beneath blows from brave workers' swords. With sweet-smelling flowers and sun's golden radiance, our freedom will beautify the earth. The world then will live, love, and blossom again, and glow in a bright golden May. My brothers, enough of your bowing to tyrants, now swear that you all will soon be free! The chime of our freedom is ringing out now- assemble the long-suff'ring slaves. Inspired, fight the battle, my fearless dear brothers- redeem all your holy human rights. My Will O dearest friend, when I have left this world, bring to my grave our flag of red- the freedom flag, the flag unfurled, besplotched with blood of workers dead. And there beneath the banners hanging, sing me my song, my freedom song- my song that rings with fetters clanging, the song of slaves, of human wrong. I'll hear it even though I'm in my tomb, my freedom song, my song so true. I'll shed hot tears from earth's cool womb for all the slaves, Christian and Jew. But when I hear the clanging swords so brave in final battle for the right, I'll sing to all from out the grave to give them courage for the fight.

Chapter Two

* * * Elyokum Tsunzer

Return to Zion (fragment)

Lift up thine eyes round about and behold: All these gather themselves together and come to thee (Isaiah 49:18)

What do I see through the windowpanes? They're flying toward me like doves- my Joseph and my Benjamin are knocking on my door! O Heaven, God, the wonder! For I am seeing my children, the most beloved, the most faithful, coming back to me! You've been gone so many years that I thought I was lost, a desolate widow whose table was deserted. How have things gone with you since they captured you? How are Judah and Ephraim? Tell me about them! Come back, years of long ago! I've become young, I discard my sorrow- come here, my silk dress! My house becomes full again, my heart and limbs grow lighter- many of my children are coming back with joy! Tears of joy are flowing- let me hug you, kiss you. rest your bones with me, beloved guests- You'll receive every pleasure from me. You'll know no strange tables, only your mother's hospitality! These young people will be blessed by the world. They've abandoned houses, possessions, glitter, happiness, and influence. Educated persons, highly civilized, they want to be sacrifices for the entire people! They've decided, despite all their regrets, to remove all the stones that block their way- to bear difficulties like those in Moses' time. And their names shall remain, with Ezra's, till the final days.

Chapter Three

* * *

Yoysef Bovshover

A Song to the People Raise your eyes, O people so lonely and poor - raise your eyes to the East, West, North, and South, and see the gathered treasure, the fruits of your labors, and the left-over riches from previous generations. Raise your eyes and see on the ocean the golden ships, and see in the forests the smoke from locomotives, and see how they soar and come quickly from a distant region and bring to our land products and merchandise to trade. Raise your eyes and see the great walled factories where workers saw and plane and weave and sew and knit, and forge and file and turn and carve and smooth and polish, and make the merchandise and make the riches for human use. And see the dumb robots, the giant iron slaves, that spare human strength and help create the riches. And see how the wild, mighty force of Nature is subdued, for deep is human intelligence and full of secrets. And to the distant, blooming, merry fields raise your eyes and see the golden stalks standing there, bowed down with their weight, and see the beautiful gardens and the trees hung with fruits, where birds fill the branches, fill the air with song. And see how the juicy wine grapes are trodden in the cold, how wine is poured into casks to get older and tastier so it can later fizz in goblets to gladden the human heart, awakening hope and love, chasing pain and woe. And see how all of Nature is ready to sweeten your life and fulfill demands in your breast and strivings in your heart. Courageously, in gigantic multitudes, stretch out your skinny hands. Enough of being robbed! Enough of being deceived! Raise your eyes, O people - come out of your dark tombs. Raise your eyes to the East, West, North, and South and take the inherited riches and the fruits of your labor, and while creating-live, and while enjoying-create in the freer generations!

Chapter Four

* * *

Avrom Mikhl Sharkanski

Old Nekhama What's bothering old Nekhama? What does she lack, the aged mama'? She's with her children now! From Lithuania, her rich children brought her here and truly appreciate her. She traveled joyously - she'd yearned for many years to see her sons and grandchildren! So what can be lacking to a mother who is together with her children? What terrible thing has occurred? How can mama be satisfied?! Her sons are no longer Jews - not a Yiddish word is heard! They don't live with Jews, so how can Nekhama like it - how can she stay there? They never open a prayerbook, they sing only Gentile songs and speak only the Gentile tongue. The grandchildren don't know the Hebrew alphabet - that cuts her heart like a knife! Oh!-How can she ignore that?! Her clever grandchildren think she is crazy and silently mock her. Of what use is the old grandma who thinks only of the next world? What is her craziness to them? And she, our aged Nekhama, the faithful, gentle mama, often sits and silently weeps. She yearns for years gone by, regrets that she came, and wants only to die.

Chapter Five

* * * Ab Kahan

I Go to Visit the Belzer Rebbe (From the book Pages From My Life)

The path to the rebbe's 'court' was very muddy. It had probably rained a lot in Belz earlier, and the little streets were full of ruts. We had to proceed very carefully because there were puddles there. Poor people ran after me on all sides. I had prepared myself with pockets filled with various coins, copper and silver, but no paper money. I came to a large shul that was filled with khasidim. It was very messy inside and the air was stale. A few of the Jews were walking around talking quietly to themselves, others were silent, and still others were conversing with one another. Two of the khasidim are engraved in my memory because of the nervous restlessness of their movements. They were walking around together, saying or singing something with a quiet melody. They walked slowly but their bodies and faces expressed haste, strain, and impatience. It seemed to me that they were on fire with religious fervor, burning with it but trying at the same time to suppress it so it wouldn't look as if they were showing off the intensity of their ardor.

* * *

To see the rebbe, naturally, one first had to go to his chief administrator. I found him there in the shul. From everything I had heard about the administrators, who play the role of 'prime ministers' to the khasidic rebbes, I had put together the following portrait: a man who understands affairs, a man of character with a self-satisfied expression on his face and a wily look in his eyes. On my way to the administrator, I was thinking that everything usually comes out just the opposite of what you expect, so he too would probably not be exactly what I had pictured in my mind. My expectation, however, was not fulfilled - the administrator was exactly as I had imagined him: a strapping, well-fed man who wore a fur hat and had red cheeks and a commonsensical expression on his face.

He was standing and conversing with someone. I introduced myself to him. I told him my real name but not the real place I came from. I had been told that they were not very gracious towards Yiddish newspapers in the Belzer 'court' (probably a Yiddish newspaper had attacked him) and I therefore believed that to introduce myself as the editor of the Forverts would not be a good idea. On the other hand, to introduce myself as a businessman wouldn't be a good idea, either - according to what I had heard from my fellow-traveler, the man from Hungary, they knew a lot more about business in the 'court' than I did, so if I were to try to pass myself off as a merchant I would make a bad impression. In brief, I felt that it would be more comfortable to come as a journalist, and if it didn't pay in Belz to be a Yiddish newspaperman, I would declare myself to be a correspondent for English newspapers.

I don't remember how it came out - I introduced myself to the administrator as a Jew who lived in England and was connected with English newspapers in New York as their London correspondent. The administrator looked me over with his wise eyes and cross-examined me strenuously. The story I told him went smoothly - I played my role convincingly and it worked. The administrator had respect for a Jew who was a correspondent for English newspapers published in America. He began to speak to me with a friendly tone. Other khasidim came in, all of them wearing tall fur hats, and they all started asking me questions:

"From London?"

"A correspondent?"

"For American newspapers, but not Yiddish ones?"

"From London, not from America? But they speak English in America don't they?"

One man asked whether I knew Yankev Gordin, who had visited Belz a few years earlier. I told him that he had been dead for three years already.

"Blessed be your true words," he said, with pious surprise. "He was a nice man, but what sort of business is that for a Jew, writing stories for the theater! Feh!"

The administrator grimaced, as if to say 'You talk too much!' I offered him an American five-dollar bill, but he wouldn't take it. "That's not necessary," he said, waving the bill away with his hand.

* * *

I don't remember the details, but they took me into the rebbe's house and immediately closed the door behind me, explaining that if they left it open all sorts of people would rush in, some looking for advice, some for a cure, and some for a prayer.

On the opposite wall there was another door. I couldn't see the chief administrator any longer. I found myself in a large room that at first gave me the impression of an anteroom, but it contained two beds that were partly curtained off. As was later explained to me, this was the bedroom of the rebbe and his wife. I had to wait, so meanwhile I looked everything over. There was a half-open wardrobe in which the rebbe's clothes were hanging, his best frock-coats as I later learned. I was astonished by them, so old and poor did they look, and an odor of mildew came from the closet as if it had never been aired out.

Finally, the second door I mentioned opened, and three men came in with a fourth man. It immediately became clear that the fourth man was the rebbe. He was a man of about sixty, with one bad eye. He was dressed as a poor burgher, or, more accurately, a poor congregant. He was wearing an old satin frock-coat and a high fur cap on his head. The three men, the administrators, looked even poorer than he did. They sat down. Since they didn't ask me to sit down, I took a chair myself and started to sit down, but two of them immediately rushed over to me and held me back by both arms so I wouldn't sit down yet. I was holding an umbrella in my hand, and one of the men took it from me and set it down in a corner.

The rebbe wiped his hand on a towel and said a blessing. When he finished, he greeted me and asked me to be seated.

One of the three administrators had a bad ear. It was stuffed with a piece of cotton and was running. The piece of cotton was flecked with fresh yellow spots and was filthy. The rebbe turned to me with questions, and the administrators kept mixing into the conversation. The rebbe's speech was slightly distorted - he didn't actually stammer, but his words came out haltingly as if he did. By his manner and the style of his remarks, he made a good impression on me, and as far as I could judge in the half-hour I spent with him, he seemed to be a straightforward, orderly person and really experienced. But this was all quite preliminary and based on little knowledge.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from YIDDISH LITERATURE IN AMERICA: 1870-2000 Copyright © 2009 by Barnett Zumoff. Excerpted by permission.
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