Friday, September 7, 1945

DETROIT JEWISH CHRONICLE and The Legal Chronicle

Yiddish Literatur e in America

By N. B. MINKOFF

Page Seven

A NOMELAND FOR THE LIBERATED THROUGH U. P. A. I

'Keep, ancient lands, your atonic d
pomp!' cries she
Yiddish has been spoken in the With silent lips. 'Give me your
tired, your poor,
United States since the first
group of Polish, Hungarian and Your huddled masses yearnings
to breathe free,
German Jews arrived in this
country. It is generally believed The wretched refuse of you r
that Jews from Central and East-
teeming shore.
ern Europe first set foot upon the Send these, the homeless, tempest
tost to me,
shores of the United States soon
after the fall of Napoleon in I lift my lamp beside the goldei
door!' "
1815. i The general reaction
against Jews in Germany and Po-
Adah Isaac Menken, too, wa S
land led many to abandon the aroused by the persecutions o f
countries where they were look- Jews and expresed her senti
ed upon as second-class citizens. meats in touching words.
The truth, however, is that Po-
Among the other women-poet
lish, Hungarian and German Jews were Rebekah Hyneman, Con
were seen in their specific garb Wilburn, Miriam del Banco an d
in the streets of New York as Helen K. Weil.
early as the beginning of the 18th
Not withstanding the fact tha
the 20th century saw the adven t
century.
The Gentile Rev. John Sharp of Jews in every branch of Amer
of New York mentions, in a let- ican letters, the most unique an d
ter dated 1712—that there is in vivid presentation of the Jewis h
New York a Jewish synagogue spirit and life was reflected i n
and a number of cultured Jews American-Yiddish literature.
from Poland, Hungary and Get SOCIAL CONTENT
But Yiddish literature, whic h
many, The Christian scholar, Ezra
Stiles, the famous president of began in the United States i n
Yale University. records in his 1870, in theme and content, wa s
diary of 1772-1773 that he ssw quite different from Yiddish lit
in Newport, R. I., many visiting erature in Eastern Europe. In
The Jewish survivors of Nazi persecution
rabbis, among them two rabbis fact, Yiddish literature in the
have been liberated by Allied victory in Eu.
from Poland. Hayyim Solomon, United States was by no means a
rope—but they are homeless and torn by fear
one of the financers of the Amer- continuation of the European
ican revolution, and the Polish current, but a unique growth re-
of continued persecution. With adequate – re-
Jews in the legion of General sulting from specific American
sources provided through the United Palestine
conditions.
Kazimierz Pulaski, spoke Yiddish.
Appeal, the Jewish homeland in Palestine can
Whereas Yiddish literature in
immediately receive the remnants of European
PIONEER LETTER
Europe primarily fought medieval-
Jewry and give them a new life as in the case
The most striking Yiddish docu- ism in Jewish life, Yiddish litera-
of the refugee children pictured above. At right
ment that comes to us from the ture in the United States was
are Jewish women and children, some at the
time of the Revolutionary War is brought to life by the new in-
point of death, crowded into one of the filthy
a business letter written in Yid- dustrial proletariat, The Ameri-
huts at the Belsen Concentration Canip in
dish by Jonas Philips to a mer- can-Jewish proletariat consisted
chant in Holland. The merchant of immigrants who had run away
Germany, where British troops found 60,000
evidently was also a Polish Jew. from the Czar's pogroms in 1881
dead, dying and starving people. They are typi-
Jonas Philips, whose original and from the Czarist depotism
cal of hundreds of thousands of victims of Nazi
name was Feiwel of the city of that followed the pogroms.
concentration camps who cry out for settlement
It is true that the first Yiddish
Busik, was himself in the Revo-
in
the Jewish National Home. The agencies of
newspaper
appeared
in
this
coun-
lutionary army. He is the grand-
the United Palestine Appeal require $35,300,-
father of the famous Jewish try eleven years earlier, in 1870.
000 this year to make possible the large•scale
American statesman and writer, But this first decade was devoted
Major Mordecai E. Noah. who almost exclusively to journalism
immigration program that is vital to the re-
wanted to establish a Jewish state and not to literature. Verse and
construction of the Jewish people in the poet•
stories were written almost from
on Grand Island near Buffalo.
war world.
the very start. But among the
Yiddish, however, first came twenty Yiddish writers in the
into use as a literary medium in 'seventies only one may be singled
1870 when the Yiddish press was out as a writer of literary merit:
self another 100,000 of the books
founded.
Yankel Zvi Sobel, who published 1,000,000 Hebrew
were
found in the "Institute for Non-Jews Aid
There were, of course, Jewish his first long poem in 1876. He and Jewish Books
Research
into the Jewish Ques- Jewish Children
writers in America before the ad- Yiddish poet in the United States.
tion,"
which
was headed by Al-
Found
in
Germany
might
justly
be
called
the
first
vent of Yiddish literature. Those
The saga of the rescue of Jew-
fred Rosenberg.
Jewish writers did not know though Yiddish verse had been
Nearly a million books of He-
' ish children from all countries of
written
here
even
before
his
time.
Cpl. Abraham Aaroni of New Europe by non-Jewish sympathi-
Yiddish. They came from Span-
brew and Jewish interest have
But a truly progressiv e Yid-
ish-Portuguese Jewish circles, and
York, a Semitic . • scholar, was zers may some day be told at
been
found
in
the
small
town
of
dish culture and literature was
their medium was English.
called in to identify the books. length when all the reports, remi-
brought into being by Jewish Hungen, near Frakfurt, Germany,
Some sixty years before Na- forces that preached the gospel Among them are priceless vol-
niscences, and records are in.
than Mayer wrote his novel of of social justice; that stood up
umes,
containing
illuminated
man-
the Civil War, Differences (1867), against exploitation in the sweat-
uscripts and examples of the
which depicts Jews fighting on
the side of the Confederacy, the shops, that wept with the suf- earliest printing in Europe. The
Le Show) Tovo Tikosevti— A Happy New Year to All
ferers
and
the
ever
growing
Jew-
first Jewish dramatist in America,
treasure was found by Lieut.
Isaac Harby (1788-1822), wrote ish labor movement. Thus the Julius Buchman of New York
PEACE AND GOOD WILL
propagandists of social jus-
his five-act tragedy Alexander first
who discovered the books which
tice
and
the
first
singers
of
la-
Severus (1805).
bor laid the foundation for Yid- had been taken from Jewish rab-
•
Mordecai M. Noah, orator, edi- dish literature in the United binical libraries in Vilna, Paris
States.
tor, U. S. counsel, sheriff, wrote
and Amsterdam. In Frankfurt it-
The Fortress of Sorrento in 1808.
Quite a contribution to American
drama were the plays of Samuel
B. H. Judah (1788-1876) and
of Jonas Philips (1808-1869).
At the same time several Jew-
7201 W. FORT ST,
ish women enriched American
poetry. Penina Moise, the blind
7
poetess of Charleston, was re-
ferred to as "the sweet voice of
Israel." Her "Fancy's Sketch
Book" (1833) and "Hymns writ-
• J. RESSLER
ten for the use of Hebrew Con-
gregations" (1856), represent her
• H. H. LEVETT
collected works. An extremely
NEW YEAR
pious Jewess, nurtured on the
best of French and English litera-
ture, she excelled in her devo-
GREETINGS
tional poetry, written in the
Radios
classic manner and metres.

DETROIT FRUIT
AUCTION CO.

Rosh Hashonah
GREETINGS

SERLIN'S

EMMA LAZARUS

The poetry of the well-known
poetess Emma Lazarus possessed
passion, genuine emotion and
lyricism of a pure quality. The
persecution of the Jews in Rus-
sia stirred that noble singer to
lift her voice in behalf of her
down-trodden and oppressed
brethren. Full of sympathy for
the persecuted she rose to attack
the dark forces of Persecution.
To her pen belong the glowing
words of The New Colossus in-
scribed on the base of the Statue
of Liberty:

"Not like the brazen giant of
Greek fame.
ith conquering limbs astride
from land to land;
Ili re at our sea-washed, sunset
gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch.
whose flame
lq
the
imprisoned lightning, and
her n ame
Mother of Exiles. From her bea-
con-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her
mild eves command
The air-bridged harbor that twin
cities frame.

Jewelry

1401 BROADWAY

6314 W. McNICHOLS

MONROE WASTE PAPER CO.

WISHES THEIR FRIENDS A VERY HAPPY
AND VICTORIOUS NEW YEAR

MR. AND MRS SAM LEIBERMAN
AND FAMILY
MR. AND MRS. MORRIS SWEET
AND FAMILY
MR. AND MRS. I. GREER
AND FAMILY
MR. AND MRS. HY SWEET
AND FAMILY
MR. AND MRS. HARRY GREER
AND FAMILY
MR. JACK LIEBERMAN

At this time of the year we desire to
express our sincerest wishes to the
entire Jewish community.

It is our earnest hope that the
New Year may bring peace and
good will to all mankind.

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