n December 14, 1967, the poet Yehiel Perlmuter (1904 – 92), better known by his adopted Hebrew name Avot Yeshurun, gave an address titled “Ha-sifrut ha-ivrit ta’aroch et ha-tfila” (“Hebrew Literature Will Recite the Prayer”) on the occasion of receiving the Brenner Prize. In his speech, he said the following about his relations with Yiddish:
That Yiddish has begun to come to you when you dream and when you are awake, because it became known to her that you are determined not to speak it, not to think in it and not to dream it — in times of sleep or in times of awareness.
I would like to thank Chana Kronfeld, Hana Wirth-Nesher, Matan Hermoni, Benni Mer, and the editors of Poetics Today for their helpful suggestions and comments.
Poetics …show more content…
(Yeshurun 1995: 281)1
One can easily detect in Yeshurun’s words a strong remorse that derives from the repression of Yiddish combined with his guilt over leaving his family behind in Poland, where they were exterminated in World War II. Yeshu- run’s description of the return of the repressed is poignant and palpable. Yiddish haunts the person who vows not even to dream in it, let alone to speak it or write it. But this repressed Yiddish not only haunts Yeshurun as a poet; it actually “speaks” to him, pleading not to forget “her”:
That Yiddish has spoken to me, ben-aliya [the son of immigration/the chosen one] in a voice of the shekhinata de-galuta [divine presence in exile]: “ Why did you leave me” and with all the language of “for the sin which we have sinned.” .. . This Yiddish, which sold hot doughnuts in Warsaw’s streets in order to provide for a respected, half-paralyzed family member. .. . From very close, this Yiddish has radiated on me, without knowing that this radiation imprints its soul upon me. It became dark for her. You can still see the color of the walls. Now the royal Hebrew should go to sell hot falafel in the city Dizengoff in her [ Yiddish] memory. …show more content…
The efforts to replace Yiddish (as well as Russian, Polish, German, and other languages) with Hebrew during the prestate, “Yishuv” period (roughly 1880 – 1948) was part of a protracted “language war,” resulting in Hebrew as the designated national language of Israel, while Yiddish was labeled as the language of Diaspora, destined to die. In recent decades, this assumption of a monolin- gual Israeli literature has been challenged,5 but the role of Yiddish in Israeli literature has not yet received sufficient attention. In the early years of the state, Yiddish was indeed repressed, marginalized, and associated with exile, destruction, and death. However, I would argue that Yiddish has continued to be not only the mother tongue of large segments of the Israeli population, and of writers such as Avot Yeshurun, but also a language of literary and cultural creativity.6 Further, despite everything, Yiddish exerted a strong, though unacknowledged, influence on Israeli Hebrew language, literature, and
That Yiddish has begun to come to you when you dream and when you are awake, because it became known to her that you are determined not to speak it, not to think in it and not to dream it — in times of sleep or in times of awareness.
I would like to thank Chana Kronfeld, Hana Wirth-Nesher, Matan Hermoni, Benni Mer, and the editors of Poetics Today for their helpful suggestions and comments.
Poetics …show more content…
(Yeshurun 1995: 281)1
One can easily detect in Yeshurun’s words a strong remorse that derives from the repression of Yiddish combined with his guilt over leaving his family behind in Poland, where they were exterminated in World War II. Yeshu- run’s description of the return of the repressed is poignant and palpable. Yiddish haunts the person who vows not even to dream in it, let alone to speak it or write it. But this repressed Yiddish not only haunts Yeshurun as a poet; it actually “speaks” to him, pleading not to forget “her”:
That Yiddish has spoken to me, ben-aliya [the son of immigration/the chosen one] in a voice of the shekhinata de-galuta [divine presence in exile]: “ Why did you leave me” and with all the language of “for the sin which we have sinned.” .. . This Yiddish, which sold hot doughnuts in Warsaw’s streets in order to provide for a respected, half-paralyzed family member. .. . From very close, this Yiddish has radiated on me, without knowing that this radiation imprints its soul upon me. It became dark for her. You can still see the color of the walls. Now the royal Hebrew should go to sell hot falafel in the city Dizengoff in her [ Yiddish] memory. …show more content…
The efforts to replace Yiddish (as well as Russian, Polish, German, and other languages) with Hebrew during the prestate, “Yishuv” period (roughly 1880 – 1948) was part of a protracted “language war,” resulting in Hebrew as the designated national language of Israel, while Yiddish was labeled as the language of Diaspora, destined to die. In recent decades, this assumption of a monolin- gual Israeli literature has been challenged,5 but the role of Yiddish in Israeli literature has not yet received sufficient attention. In the early years of the state, Yiddish was indeed repressed, marginalized, and associated with exile, destruction, and death. However, I would argue that Yiddish has continued to be not only the mother tongue of large segments of the Israeli population, and of writers such as Avot Yeshurun, but also a language of literary and cultural creativity.6 Further, despite everything, Yiddish exerted a strong, though unacknowledged, influence on Israeli Hebrew language, literature, and