Themes and Range of Yiddish Poetry New Year Greetings DETROIT RENDERING CO. BY SAMUEL KREITER (A Seven Arts Feature) First We Render Service 2500-22nd St. TA 6-4500 NEW YEAR GREETINGS FELDBRO QUALITY MEATS 20233 W. 7 Mile Rd. Between Kentfield and Heyden KE 4-7522 Open Sun. 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Daily 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. NEW YEAR GREETINGS JOS. FRENKEL CO. 1221 Twelfth St. Detroit, Mich. 4.00.11■00 %.0.1%.00%.•• ■■••■■■ ••V Yiddish is Dead! Long Live Yid- dish! is a paraphrase of a cry heard over the" years in monarch- ist capitals denoting the passing of a king, ascension of another, and the continuity of the respec- tive royal dynasty. This in a sense would apply to our vexed and plagued mame-loshen which its eager-beaver detractors have in the course of decades repeated- ly laid to rest, but was kept alive by its ardent devotees. In this country, the major cen- ter of Yiddish creativity, Yiddish and Hebrew arrived in the Eight- ies on the crest of Jewish mass imigration. Yiddish expression, particularly poetry, developed in nourishing, meaningful diversity. Much of the subject matter was shtetl-oriented; some writers at- tempted to bridge the old world and the new. A good deal of the writing today is still removed from RACHELLE DRAPERIES Wish to extend greetings for a year of Health, Happiness and Prosperity to all our customers and friends. KE 7 4339 or KE 7 8494 - - Happy New Year RAY ORLEMAN'S ALL-STATE AUTO DRIVE-AWAY Automobiles Delivered Anywhere 8110 Livernois, Detroit 48204 TY 4-5800 New Year Greetings PALOMBO'S RESTAURANT Detroit's Finest Italian-American Cuisine The Environment Leaves Nothing to Be Desired 20401 W. 8 Mile Rd. For Reservations Call — KE 5-3635 New Year Greetings PEERLESS DISTRIBUTING CO. 8720 Livernois TE 4-6400 Best Wishes for a Happy New Year Phillips Shoe Company Northland Center (Two Stores) Eastland Center Westland Center Broadway, corner Gratiot Happy New Year R.E.T.S. ELECTRONIC SCHOOLS 1625 E. Grand Blvd. 925-5600 "Visit Our New Home" the American scene. Obviously, this cre ativ e detachment has nothing to do with the writer's love of his adopted country, and his lingering remoteness from its soc io-cultur al frontiers. There have been notable excep- tions. Over half a century ago Yiddish novelists captured the complexities of the immigrants' foundering between agony and achievement in America's econ- omic jungle. Some, like Boruch Glazman and Aaron Raboy, un- reeled„more idyllic phases of Jew- ish settlement in rural Georgia and the Western plains. In poetry J.J. Schwartz exhilir- ated readers with a book-length significant epic called "Ken- tucky," and Reuben Ludwig pro- duced a remarkable cycle of "In- dian Motifs." A. Glanz-Leyeless hymned our country, and also in- troducdd in translation (and co- gent evaluation) topflight Ameri- can and British verse classics. It was the time of movements, mani- festoes, schools, and blossoming magazines which reflected con- trasting diversions from establish- ed art norms. The "Junge" departed from the sweatshop-blues chanted by the "Alte" versifyers, swayed by the then dominant theory of art as a 'social weapon. In rejecting the drum-beating doctrine of class- struggle they linked up with the more tranquil Impressionist school. At the same time Glanz- Leyeless, the impeccable poet and critic Jacob Glatstein, and the late poet and scholar Nochum B. Min- koff, heralded Introspectivism, and cultivated the soil for the Imag- ists. Second Avenue and Green- wich Village, once citadels of Yiddish and American avant- garde esthetics, locked arms in parallel re-assessment of art as an extension of human experience. A plethora of accomplished poets do honor the Yiddish lyric. They include Ephraim Auerbach, Chaim Grade, Aleph Katz, Jeremiah Hesheles, Melech Ravitch, Abra- ham Tabatchnik, who is also an incisive analyst of literary trends, and Rajzl Zychlinska. In conclusion I submit selected poems in my translation to give non-Yiddish readers a taste of the themes and range touched by our contemporary verse writers. THE CLOUD-JEW By Jacob Glatstein The cloud-Jew, the gray one, arrives with his limpid sorrow. An astonished somnolence falls upon indifferent windows. The cloud-Jew writes Hebrew char- acters in a wildly alien sky. When I start reading, explaining, in- ternreting, they dissolve in tears, threaded tears, before I could divine their meaning. A shin', blind on all three eyes, becomes a suspended heart that darkens without a shudder of a trampled Commandment . . . The empty synagogue melts away over the red Crosses of a church-ridden city, and the cloud-Jew carries it off into the heights. Hatchets and hands rise up but cannot reach it. Only my own lips quiver like a twilight harp when the destined vision shuts my eyes with its hallowed sharpness. • letter in the Hebrew alphabet. RISE AND FALL By A. Lutzky The sun rises at dawn in the glow of decline. Season's Greetings SQUARE DEAL HEATING & COOLING, INC. Heating, Cooling and Wiring Contractors 10163 Gratiot W, 1-2345 IN-SINK-ERATOR Food Waste Disposer Manufacturing Co. I 20013 James Couzens 342-3252 LONG, LONG AGO Meyer Ziml Tkatch Long, long ago, God has seen the tears, heard the cries— but no longer. The tears of the world have long since veiled His eyes. The lamentation dulled His hearing, Now we weep to a Blind One, Cry out to a Deaf One. Friday, September 16, 1966-55 A Happy New Year CHRISALLE HAIR FASHIONS Specialists in Hair Tinting 17190 Livernois 862-2337 — 862-2338 1∎ 040000∎040100 IN MAY Rajzl Zychlinska In the month of May a mad woman wanders in the city squares. She quarrels with the young grass, berates the blue sky, and screeches— nobody knows why, Her battered clothes hang loosely, her shoes are unlaced. The sack she carries bulges with all her possessions: old newspapers, crops of rain, crusts of bread, shards of colored glass. Children run for cover. Birds trail after her. A PRAYER By Meyer Ziml Thatch You punish me, Lord. I do not complain. I accept your blows with love. All I ask you in prayer is to give me strength to endure your punishment . • • Happy New Year to Our Friends and Patrons CONTINENTAL HAIR FASHIONS 19191 Livernois UN 1-9100 Happy New Year to All LOUIS COHEN AND SON KOSHER MEATS 12939 West 7 Mile Rd. Dl 1-1607 MY SONG Pearl Halter (Paris) Why is the Garden of Eden cloaked in mystery, and the sorrow of the earth so starkly naked? The smile of a child planted a seed. I plowed and watered the ground so that a green dream would grow and cradle my anguish. But a storm wind came, swept the dream away, and left a sadness in my song. Holiday Good Cheer COCOANUT GROVE CAFE Specializing in Cantonese Food - Take-Out Service 7638 Woodward TR 5-3191 1 Block from New Center Bldg. New Year's Greetings from REAUME & DODDS, INC. REALTORS 965-4455 APARTMENT AND COMMERCIAL MORTGAGES a C:* a 0 Happy Holiday 01. 4 REFRIGERATION SERVICE, INC. 11111 Grand River TE 4-5540 a [0 IM10.001M,001110.0.10 ■ 041 •1•H34•1Th0111 0•00=1.00=0.0011M0 Holiday Greetings ROMA CAFE Detroit's Oldest Restaurant — Air-Conditioned Open Weekdays till 10:30 p.m., Sot., 2 a.m. Closed Sundays 3401 Riopelle, corner Erskine TE 1-5940 7 ■00.041•01.0.1 •111■ C 01000 ■04 omo i0.1■43 0■0 111■00 0•0 41■0 ■0 ■ =0 ,11•0 ■ 0■ 000- ■ 011111110i.0.0001.0 4■ 0 Happy New Year ROSE-HILL BUILDERS, INC. 14201 W. 8 Mile Road Best Wishes for a Happy New Year To All Our Friends and Patrons SERVICE OFFICE SUPPLY CO., Inc. 3511 West Fort Street - TA 6-6600 The sun sets in the evening in the glaze of morning. A child in thought masks the wisdom of elders. Holiday Good Cheer An old man in repose is blissful as a child. Heat and frost at the highest degree— burn alike. The sun makes trees grew, and fells them in the end. Greetings on the New Year THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS SHAW & SLAVSKY, NC. 13821 Elmira Detroit, Michigan AN EVENING AT HOME Zisha Landau You sit at the window and stare out into the stars. Behind you by the light your wife knits, or sews, or only toys with needle and thread, and ponders the incidents that passed. You wonder why you cannot break the tedium encircling you, the spell of dreams unmaterialized. Your wife looks up, smiles. You catch her eyes— and all becomes clear in a flash. You rise, walk over, place a gentle hand on her shoulder, and with the other you stroke her hair. 4111!0 ■ 040101.0•0111.01110004100 ■0■60■ 00.04100000111.0•0 4 ■ 04.01,01=0.0 ■ 01=1 ■ 01.000 ■ 0 0•11.0.110.04 ■ 0•=100411/ Happy Holiday SOBERMAN & MILGROM {Manufacturer of Mercury Paints 7741 Lyndon Ave. UN 4-7530 0010.0 0•11.041•11.01 ■ 1.0 .0•1•011 ■ 011 ■ 0111100.04111104, 0101.00110.001 ■ 04=0.001 ■ 040111 0 •0 41M0.0 ,1010011••••0000•010110.04010.