2
Friday, May 30, 1986
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
PURELY COMMENTARY
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Century's Salute To Two Great Ladies: Liberty And Emma Lazarus
Freedom lovers everywhere, those
needing and craving justice and liberty,
will join the millions of Americans in the
salute to liberty on the occasion of the
restoration of the Statue of Liberty.
The great symbol of the American
dedication to freedom will be saluted,
starting with the eve of the forthcoming
Fourth of July, as the symbol of hospital-.
ity to the oppressed in mankind, as the
welcoming lady past whom tens of mil-
lions have passed to acquire human
treatment and the haven of refuge that
has made America great in protecting
those escaping persecutions and indig-
nities.
When Captain (later President)
Harry S. Truman returned from France
after World War I, he wrote to Bess Wal-
lace, who was soon to become Mrs. Tru-
man: "I've never seen anything that
looked so good as the Liberty Lady in
New York Harbor. You know the men
have seen so much and been in so many
hard places that it takes something real
to give them a thrill, but when the band
on that boat played 'Home Sweet Home'
there were not very many dry eyes."
That is why a great American lady
whose poem is a firm part of the StatuE ,
of Liberty — the poet Emma Lazarus —
defined the "mighty woman" as "the
Mother of Exiles."
That is why, as this nation marks
the 100th anniversary of the Statue of
Liberty, now that it is restored for the
centenary celebration, the poetic words
of Emma Lazarus, "give me your tired,
your poor, your huddled masses yearning
to breathe free," has become both a sa-
lute to America and an opening of the
door to freedom to the oppressed, so mov-
ingly expressed by Emma Lazarus in
"The New Colossus" that shines forth on
the Statue of Liberty.
Additionally timely in the Emma
Lazarus portion of the American Salute
to Freedom is the concern for the fate of
Russian Jewry that moved Emma
Lazarus to write many of her poems.
There is an echo of that concern for Rus-
sian Jewry currently in the Emma
Lazarus message and the American cele-
bration of the centenary of the Statue of
Liberty.
In the approaching celebration, in
which every aspect of American life and
activity, on land and on sea, will have a
share, with millions saluting the Great
Lady from the shores of New York, tens
of millions celebrating in their homes, on
the beaches, everywhere, will include an
acclamation for the gift to American
freedom by Emma Lazarus.
Emma Lazarus is a name indelibly
recorded in American-Jewish history.
"The New Colossus" which has given her
world fame as a champion of rights for
homeless is engraved for all generations
on the Statue of Liberty on Bedloe Island
in New York Harbor. The basic facts are
recorded and frequently repeated as a
reminder of the eminent poet's role as an
interpreter of Jewish ideals.
She was born in New York City,
July 22, 1849, wrote her first poem when
she was 14, and in 1871 her first book of
verse came off the press. Her writings
were commended by Ralph Waldo Emer-
son and other noted American writers.
Fifteen years later, in 1886, she was
to become world famous for her poem
"The New Colossus" which was engraved
on the Statue of Liberty to be read by
millions to this day.
In 1971, this nation observed the
100th year of the appearance on the
American scene of the eminent lady
whose verses grace the plaque of the im-
perishable statue that was the creation
of Frederic August Bartholdi and was
the gift of France to the United States.
This statue is 50 feet higher than
the Colossus of Rhodes to which Emma
Lazarus referred in the first line of her
famous poem:
Not like the brazen giant of Greek
fame,
With conquering limbs astride from
land to land,
Here at our sea-washed, sunset
gates shall stand,
A mighty woman, with a torch,
whose flame
Is the imprisoned lighting, and her
name Mother of Exiles .. .
When her poem "The New Colossus"
was chosen for the Bartholdi monument,
it was a bright occasion for the noted
poet who died in her 38th year — Nov.
19, 1887 — only one year after the poem
was immortalized on the national
monument, the Statue of Liberty
Enlightening the World.
It was on Oct. 28, 1886, that
,
President Grover Cleveland formally
dedicated the Statue of Liberty.
Emma Lazarus, one of the unforgot-
ten geniuses of American Jewry, was the
daughter of Moses and Esther Lazarus,
Orthodox Jews of aristocratic Portuguese
lineage. Raised in wealthy and sheltered
surroundings, she was educated by pri-
vate tutors and spent her youth among
the well-to-do:
She reached the peak of her great-
ness as the result of the awakening
within her of the Hebraic spirit. It was
always latent but was not broken to the
surface until she was shaken out of her
reticence and literary naivete by the
pogroms in Russia and Romania from
1879 to 1882. The tragedy of these
events stirred her so deeply that she
turned her poetic genius to the defense
of her people.
Fully a decade before Dr.
Theodor Herzl convened the First
World Zionist Congress in Basle,
in 1897, Emma Lazarus' imagina-
tion was fired by the Palestine
idea and she wrote a series of
"Epistles to the Hebrews" in
which she outlined a plan for the
repatriation of the Jews in their
ancient homeland.
In prose and in verse she pleaded for
justice to the Jew. The vigor of her writ-
ings and the sincerity of her pleas gave
notice that a giant advocate had arisen
to defend the rights of the Jews. In poem
after poem, she counseled a Zion rebuilt,
depicted the tragedy of a harassed Israel
and created word pictures which, for
prophetic and beautiful expression of the
age-long cry of the Jews, have seldom
been equalled.
The writing of "The New Colossus"
was a direct outgrowth of Emma
Lazarus' belated but passionate concern
for the safety of her fellow Jews. Despite
her delicate health, she spent many days
visiting the haggard and ragged Jewish
immigrants from Russia and Romania
who crowded the immigration station in
War Island in 1881 and 1882.
Those were the years when Ameri-
cans were asked to contribute to the
$300,000 fund to build the pedestal on
which the Statue of Liberty was to
stand. Money was slow in coming. Many
devices were used to raise the fund.
Constance Gary Harrison
was one of the group of public
spirited women who arranged
rummage sales and sold
souvenirs to secure the necessary
funds for that purpose. She was
collecting poems, drawings and
stories for publication in a
souvenir book to be sold for the
benefit of the pedestal fund.
Emma Lazarus was not keen to
write for souvenir books and at
first declined Mrs. Harrison's re-
quest for a poem. But when Mrs.
Harrison reminded Miss Lazarus
"of the Goddess standing on 'the
pedestal down yonder in the bay
and holding her torch to those
Russian refugees of yours whom
you are so fond of visiting," the
Jewish poet was galvanized into
action. The New Colossus" was
her contribution to Mrs. Harri-
son's souvenir book and it soon
became the poem to be fastened
to the inside of the base of the
Statue of Liberty.
What a contrast in the current
achievements for the preservation of the
Statue of Liberty! It took more than 30
months of labor, it will cost more than
$300 million to complete the restoration
of the statue into the beautiful lady who
will continue to welcome millions to this
country. On the eve of July 4 some 4,000
carpenters, stage hands and engineers
will have completed the task, on Lower
Manhattan, of providing 400 booths and
services for the celebration the next
morning. School children throughout the
nation had a share in gathering funds
for the great and historic task. A new
era commences for Lady Liberty, and
simultaneously for the Liberty bard,
Emma Lazarus.
It is one of the ironies of fate that
the life of the brilliant Jewess Emma
Lazarus should have been cut short at
the age of 38.
"The New Colossus" has only 14
lines, but in them are expressed with
prophetic instinct all of the indestructi-
ble and noble ideals symbolized by the
State of Liberty. These lines remain the
credo of Americanism and a striking
memorial to their author, now being
honored again.
The New Colossus
By Emma Lit:wrzis
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land,
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates Shall stand, •
A mighty woman, with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
'Keep, ancient lands-, your storied pOrnp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your per-
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free:
The wretched refuse of your teeming :,.hore---
Send them, the homeless. tempest-
tossed, to itie ---
I lift my lamp beside the
golden door!"
-
Emma Lazarus, Poet of Freedom
July 22, 1849-Nov. 19, 1887