56 June 25, 1976

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

Saul Tchernichovsky Noted Modern Hebrew Poet

Next to Chaim Nachman
Bialik, Saul Tchernichovsky
is considered the greatest
modern Hebrew poet.
His life spans_ the period
from the beginnings of Zion-
ist settlements in Palestine
up to the outbreak of World
War II, and his work was of
decisive influence on an en-
tire generation of Jewish
poets and writers.
Born in 1875 in Michae-
iovka, a little village located
between the Ukraine and
the Crimea, Tchernichovsky
spent his early youth
amidst the idylliC surround-
ings of farm and woods.
He did not receive the
traditional Jewish educa-
tion which was so charac-
teristic for his contempo-
raries. His early Jewish
studies were confined to
Bible and modern Hebrew.
Tchernichovsky's youth
fell into an era termed the
"Renaissance" in modern
Hebrew letters, with the
city of Odessa as its cultural
center. He studied medicine
in Germany and Switzer-
land. During the first World
War he was a member of
the Russian medical corps,
and also during the Russian
Revolution he worked as a
physician.

After he left Russia in
1922, he tried to work as a
physician in Palestine, but
his efforts were frustrated
and he spent the next nine
years in Germany. From
1931 he lived again in Pales-
tine, until his death 10 years
later, working as a physi-
cian at the Tel Aviv munici-
pal schools.
Tchernichovsky's early
life is reflected in his
"Idylls" — full-length
poems which are replete
with the sounds and smells
of trees and flowers and ani-
mals. Tchernichovsky was a
Zionist, to be sure, but in his
early period he did not write
what was looked upon as
"Zionist" poetry.
There was in the poet
from his very beginnings a
passion for strength, for
heroism and physical
health, in opposition to the
old ghetto feelings so com-
mon in Hebrew writing.
His early heroes were men
such as Bar Kokhba, the
fighter, and even Moham-
mad, the founder of Islam,
the man of fierce courage,
figured in one of his poems
of that first period.
Closeness to the earth of
the Ukraine, living in the
countryside in the style of
the - unsophisticated farm-
ers, gave Tchernichovsky
the feeling of sharing with
nature, expressed in such
major works as "The Golden
People," a poem on the life
of the bees.
It might appear that the
main motifs of Tchernichov-
sky's poetry had little to do
with Jewish life and the fate
of the Jew in the Diaspora.
Yet, it must be said that he
was indeed a poet of Galut,
for the major part of his
creative life,- even if he did
not show the same attitude
towards Jewish tradition as
some of his contemporaries,
such as Bialik or Ahad
Ha'Am, for whom Galut
was the focus of their writ-
ing.

Tchernichovsky,
the
brother of Nature, the
friend of trees and flowers,
had a boundless love for
Greece and its ancient cul-
ture. In this attitude he was
strongly influenced by
Nietzsche, whose worship of
all that is strong in Man
cast a spell over many writ-
ers of the late 19th and early
20th Century.

At first glance, it would
seem almost paradoxical
for a Jewish poet to pursue
Nietzsche's ideals which,
as is well known, deterio-
rated later on into the
maxims of the Nazi
"master race." But in
Tchernichovsky, we have
a most interesting phe-
nomenon: this Jewish
poet, who fought to make
of ancient Hebrew an in-
strument of modern artis-
tic expression, bows down
before a --statue of the
Greek god Apollo, symbol
of eternal youth and
beauty.
It follows almost logically
from this worship of the god
of youth and beauty,
strength and power, that
Tchernichovsky could never
bear the tradition of Jewish
suffering — without resist-
ance. He could not identify
himself with the pale Tal-
mud student who allowed
himself to be beaten — an
ever recurring figure in He-
brew writing. And so, he
seeks a romantic return to
the times of the early He-
brew settlement in Canaan
with its elements of pagan-
ism and nature worship.
His later attitude towards
halutziut, the modern Zion-
ist upbuilding of Eretz Yis-
rael, is in this sense also a
rejoicing in Jewish strength
and the Jew's power to
bring about his own rebirth,
his liberation from the fet-
ters of bleak Galut-suffer-
ing: the halutz, for Tcherni-
chovsky, is a synthesis of all
that is healthy and strong in

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Laugh, laugh at all the dreams
I the dreamer say to you
Tha: I believe in man
Because I still believe in you.

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They say there is a country
A land that flows with sunli& -
Where is that country?
Where is that sunlight?

The English Translation of these poems is reprinted by permission of the
University of California Press Copyright C) 1966
by the Regents of the University of California

the Jew, with the ideal of
beauty and truth of the an-
cient Greeks.
In his ballads, the poet re-
calls the martyrs of the
European Jewish communi-
ties in the Middle Ages. But
he does not only weep about
their suffering. He sings of
resistance and revenge, and
his outcries have an almost
prophetic nature. They
presage an awareness of
things to come: most of
these ballads were written
on the eve of Hitler's advent
to power, up to the very out-
break of World War II.
In one of them, com-
memorating a medieval
pogrom, he says: "There is
no God — there is only
Satan!" And yet — how
strange again — this same
ballad ends with the tradi-
tional words "Yitgadal
Veyitkadash."
His fierce affirmation of
life, his belief in all-embrac-
ing pantheism and a bright

future for mankind, could
not reconcile itself with
pious, maudlin submission
to anti-Semitic brutality of
any age in history. Tcherni-
chovsky actually glorified
acts of revenge against the
murderers of Jews, such as
in his "Baruch of Mayence,"
and he spares no details of
the cruelty of the massacres
perpetrated against Jewish
communities by the Church
and the princes in medieval
Europe.
A major part of Tcherni-
chovsky's work was devoted
to translations of the
world's great writings into
modern Hebrew: Homer's
Iliad and Odyssey, Sopho-
cles, Horace, Shakespeare,
Moliere, Pushkin, Goethe,
Heine, Byron, and Shelley.
Even the Finnish national
epos "Kalevala," and Long-
fellow's "Hiawatha," and
such ancient epics as "Gil-
gamesh," and the Nordic
"Edda" were among the

1

works which Tchernichov-
sky
sky sought to translate into"
Hebrew, his own romantic,
life-affirming language. -
It was during his last pe-
riod that Tchernichovsky
wrote of some of his more
popular poems, a number of
which were set to music an
became part of the standard
repertory of Zionist youth
songs.
Tchernichovsky marks
the beginning of a new pe-
riod in Hebrew poetry. His
approach strongly influ-
enced younger poets such as
Jacob Cohen and Zalman
Schneur, representatives of--
a new generation that was
no longer tied to Jewish
classics, being even further
removed from rabbinic and: .
medieval Hebrew literature
than Tchernichovsky him-
self.
Special Feature Pre- -
pared by Tarbuth Founda-
tion for the Advancement -
of Hebrew Culture.

A Flawed, Fictional Plot Behind the Crucifixion

By ALAN HITSKY

Re-writing the accepted
version of the life-story of a
deity can get an author into
plenty of trouble, as
Chayym Zeldis may have
found out in his new novel,
"Brothers," published by
Random House.
Time Magazine critic
John Skow recently dis-
missed the book a bit too
harshly as a "gaudy cos-
tume novel" for its "history-
as-it wasn't" ingenuity.
And "Brothers" can cer-
tainly be criticized for the
turn-of-events in its final 60
pages. For zeldis, a polished
writer, does not fully pre-
pare the reader for his devil-
ish main character becom-
ing Christianity's Judas on
shallow idealistic grounds
after a life-time, and 500
pages, of thirsting for power
and selfish control of man-
kind.
Oh, there are lots of hints.
From an early age, this
mythical older, malevolent
brother of Jesus Christ be-
gins training for his destiny.

under the removed but
watchful gaze of his father'.
"He never said another
word. Nor did he take the
step he intended. The
hours and hours of picking
off rats and starlings had
served me well. I raised
the slingshot in a swift,
smooth motion, sighted as
I drew the sling, and let
fly. It was the shot of a
consummate hunter.
"All of my strength
went into drawing back
the sling, all of my skill
into the aim. The rock was
a Sharp one, and it struck
the rabbi in his right tem-
ple with tremendous force.
He fell like a stone. The
sound he uttered was no
more than that of a rat or
a sparrow."
This scene is typical of the
way Zeldis' main character
dispenses with those who
get in his way. For a boy not
yet 11, he exposes a vileness
in his unbringing that
Zeldis often repeats'
throughout the book, but
not with as much detail
after the first 100-150 pages:

as though The reader, after
learning the lesson, does not
need to be reminded of the
source of the action.
However, one can lose
sight of this streak of na-
ture as the boy becomes a
man. Even the cold-blooded
murdering of his innocent
bride just to gain control of
her dead father's posses-
sions can almost be dis-
missed by the benumbed
reader as one more part of
the young man's carefully
planned quest for power.
To be able to dismiss such
a deed is either a tribute to
the author's writing ability
or a criticism. It certainly is
an example of the paradox
of the book. One is reminded
of the Holocaust, and how
countlessly repeated inhu-
manities came to be ac-
cepted by the concentration
camp victims. Zeldis leads
his readers in the same di-
rection, with no commen-
tary or rejection of the
many evils.
Somewhere the novel
fails. The reader is well
aware that he is being led

towards the Crucifixion.
But the way the reader
arrives there is incon-
gruous.
The unnamed central
charter, Jesus' older
brother, carefully charts
and executes his own rise to
power. Step - by - step
through minor and then ma-
jor roles in Herod's court,
through ingratiating him-
-self with, and then dispatch-
ing his enemies, he rises to
the powerful position of
Herod's minister of war.
Only through a series of
carefully written ironies
does Zeldis thwart his main
character's ambitious plans
to unseat Herod as the King
of the Jews.
The powerful Roman no-
bleman homosexual the Ju-
das figure drove to suicide
and his unwitting brother
Jesus play major roles in his
downfall.
Here Zeldis begins Judas'
final, 60-page rush towards
engineering Jesus' crucifix-
ion. The rationale, the moti-
vation, however, do not hold
together.

Zeldis develops a male-
volent, power-hungry,
self-possessed character
who would stop at nothing
to reach his self-centered
airms. In the end the
reader is asked to believe
that this cold, calculating
villian would accept-as the
achievement of these life
goals the control of the
minds of civilization for
thousands of years by
promoting another to de-
ity.
Not himself . . . his
brother. Not material gain
and power over men, but
control over mankind long
after his own death. The
reader is not prepared for
this change in character.
"Brothers" would be of-
fensive to any Christan
reader. Zeldis' Christ is a
weak human being with
many human failings, and
his death is engineered for
someone else's gain.
Strictly from the stand-
point of fiction, Chayym
Zeldis is a creative and
skilled wirter. Despite the
twisted ending and the over-

powering absence of good.
Zeldis writes well and use -
several clever twists to spur
on his story line.
Winner of several writ-
ing awards, including the
Avery Hopwood Award in
poetry while at the Univer-
sity of Michigan, Zeldis' pre ,,
vious novel, "Golgotha," con-
cerns the same pe
1 of
history, again in fi
nal-
ized form. Zeldis is public
relations director for Wom-
en's American ORT.

CHAYYM ZELDIS