YITSKHOK-TSVI HALEVI HEYLPERIN

YITSKHOK-TSVI HALEVI HEYLPERIN (1826-1901

            He was born in Brisk (Brest), Lithuania, into a poor, Orthodox family.  He attended religious elementary school, synagogue study hall, and various yeshivas.  For a time, he sang in the choir at the great synagogue in Brisk and later became a cantor.  In 1852 he was a cantor in Berdichev, later in Lemberg for a time, and from 1878 until his death he was principal cantor in the Adath Yisrael Synagogue in Kherson.  He published Hebrew and Yiddish poetry on ethnic themes in both Hebrew and Yiddish periodicals under his own name as well as the pseudonym “Itsi″h.”  He authored the poem Dem yidns lebn, zayn gantser shtrebn (A Jew’s life, all his aspirations) (Berdichev, 1885), and later he produced a collection of his published poetry under the title Der lider krants (The poetry garland), a “collection of different poems in the Hebrew language and zhargon [Yiddish]” (Odessa, 1891), 108 pp.  This book was published in the thirteenth year of his cantorship in the synagogue in Kherson and includes “a word to my beloved people” and a dedication to the prophets, as well as a poem for the critics, “Al hamivakrim” (To the critics), in which he wrote: “My brothers, critics, / If you should see my poems / And they do not please you, / I beseech you, do not be too harsh with them. / I wish to gain nothing from these poems, / I shall surely be earning no money…. / For the Jewish people / I have written my poems.”  The main poems, sixteen in all, and two longer poems in Yiddish and Hebrew, were about ethnic themes and motifs of Jewish history and laments for Jewish tragedies in communities devastated by pogroms.  A portion were nature and love poems, also some translations: from Russian, Lermontov’s “Dos vigele” (The cradle [original: Kazach′ia kolybel′naia pecnia (Cossack cradle song)]) and “Di muter baym shterbendn kind” (The mother with dying child); from German, Schiller’s ballad, “Di fisher” (The fisherman [original: Der Fischer]), Goethe’s “Der eril-kenig” (King of the fairies [original: Der Erlkönig]), and Ludwig Uhland’s “Dos frume kind” (The pious child).  Several of the poems draw their motifs from Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes.  In the poem, “Vos nutst der zhargon?” (What use is zhargon?), the author states: “But listen to my question, / what do you say to this worry? / A man catches the fancy / Of zhargon but to what use? / Perhaps you know how to create a new language?”  He died in Kherson.

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 1; Entsiklopediya shel galuyot (Encyclopedia of the Diaspora), entry on Brisk, Lithuania (Jerusalem-Tel Aviv, 1954), p. 294; Brisk delite (Brisk, Lithuania) (Jerusalem-Tel Aviv, 1959), p. 345.

Khayim Leyb Fuks