YEHOYESH (YEHOASH) (September 16,
1872[1]-June
10, 1927).
The pseudonym of
Yehoyesh-Shloyme Blumgartn (Solomon Bloomgarten), he was born in Verzhbalove
(later, Virbaln [Virbalis], Suwalki region [Lithuania], at the former border
between Russia and Germany. His father,
Rabbi Keylev, a learned scholar and a God-fearing Jew, also read some works of
the Jewish Enlightenment and was one of the first “Lovers of Zion” (early
Zionists) in his town. His mother,
Dobre, fed the family from a small hardware store and early on showed herself
to be a leader in associations providing such things as clothing for the needy
and shelters for the destitute. At age
four, he began going to religious
primary school and afterward studying Gemara, Bible, and Hebrew with his
father and with private teachers. At a
very young age, he began reading the works of Perets Smolenskin [1842-1885],
Avrom Ber Gotlober [1811-1899], and other figures in the Jewish Enlightenment. At age thirteen, his father sent him to the
Volozhin Yeshiva, but Yehoyesh did not stay there long before returning
home. There, under the influence of his
elder sister, Sheyne (she died young and he dedicated to her one of his first
poems, “Der beys-sheni” [The Second Temple]), he began to study foreign
languages and their literatures, and by himself he began writing poetry in
Hebrew. For a time he worked as a
private Hebrew instructor in wealthy homes, but he saw no purpose in this for
himself and decided to immigrate to the United States. In 1889 Yehoyesh traveled to Warsaw and
brought his first poems to Y. L. Perets [1852-1915] who befriended him and
predicted a great literary future for him.
About the [first] impression that Yehoyesh made on Pereta, Dovid Pinski
[1872-1952] relates Perets’s own words: “Still a very young man, in his early
twenties, but filled with both Jewish and worldly learning, knowledgeable of
languages and with a great memory.”[2] Yehoyesh arrived in the United States in 1890
and became a Hebrew teacher, but the Hebrew poems that he wrote in those years
did not gain success. Disappointed both
materially and spiritually, he abandoned these writings and took part in
various physical labors, for a time running a tailor shop (in partnership with
Yankev [Jacob] Marinov [1869-1964]), working as a lace salesman or as a
bookkeeper in a glass factory, but writing little. By chance, however, he became acquainted with
Dr. Yisroel Davidzon, a young Hebrew writer, and under the latter’s influence
tried his hand once more at writing, and he even prepared for publication a
booklet of Hebrew poems which was not published because of Yehoyesh’s suddenly
taking ill with tuberculosis (the majority of the poems in this booklet remain
till now in manuscript in the Yehoyesh Archive).[3] Yehoyesh then left for Denver, Colorado, to
enter a sanatorium for tuberculosis where, while he was being cured, he
returned to his writing. In 1908
Yehoyesh made a “campaign” trip starting in Denver across the United States on
behalf of the “Jewish Consumptive Society,” and this afforded him the
opportunity to familiarize himself with the American landscape and its natural
beauty, as well as with various individuals and peoples along the way. From the summer of 1909 through January 1914,
he lived in New York and devoted his time exclusively to writing, although at
the same time he was taking part in Jewish cultural and social life (in the Jewish
national labor association and the Labor Zionists). In January 1914 Yehoyesh went with his wife
and child to the Land of Israel where they lived for a time in the colony of Rehovot. There he studied Classical Arabic and the
Koran in the original, as well as post-Koranic literature. For several months he lived in Relvan at the
edge of the Egyptian desert not far from Cairo.
In the summer of 1915, he returned with his family to New York where he
resided until the end of his life.
While still in
yeshiva, Yehoyesh commenced his literary activities with Hebrew poems that he
never published, and therefore he later switched to writing in Yiddish. Encouraged by his brother-in-law, the Hebrew
writer Ben-Avigdor [Abraham Leib Shalkovich, 1867-1921], he sent several of his
poems to Y. L. Perets who published them in Collections 1 and 2 of his Yudishe
bibliotek (Yiddish library) (Warsaw, 1891).
These were the poems: “Khibes tsien” (Love of Zion), a translation of a
Hebrew poem by K. Shapiro rendered as “In di felder fun bes-lekhem” (In the
fields of Bethlehem), “Fantazye” (Imagination), “Der beys-sheni,” the legends
of “Der kilay” (The miser), and “Rabi matye” (Rabbi Matthew), “Der gilgl” (The
metamorphosis), “Veg-bilder” (Scenes from the road), “Der khaper fun rekrutn”
(The [army] recruiter), “Mizmer shir leyom hashabes” (Psalm for the Sabbath
day), “Di gazel” (The gazelle) by Lord Byron [1788-1824] (translated from
English), and a Yiddish translation of chapter 18 of Psalms—the first piece of
Yehoyesh’s work in the translation of Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible). In the United States, Yehoyesh began to
publish his work in Folks-advokat (People’s advocate) (New York) on
October 9, 1891, the Talmudic legend of “Dos blut fun novi” (The blood of the
prophet) and all through the years thereafter, 1891-1912, both when this
newspaper came out daily and when it was a supplement to Di varhayt (Truth), and in Di yudishe gazetn
(The Jewish gazette) (1892-1910) he published, aside from poetic works,
publicist tracts (unsigned) and popular historical tales, such as the series
“Napoleon der ershter” (Napoleon I, January-February 1893). For a time (1893-1910) he was also involved
with Yidishes tageblat (Jewish daily newspaper) (New York) in which,
aside from human-interest stories and travelogues, he published his dramatic
fragment “Shoyel” (Saul) which appeared in the January 25 jubilee issue. Several of his poems also appeared in M.
Spektor’s Hoyz-fraynd (House friend) in Warsaw (1894). From September 16, 1900 until September 23,
1905, he contributed every week to the Forverts (Forward) and to Forverts-almanakhn
(Forward almanacs) in New York, and after that to Di varhayt in which,
from December 24, 1905 through April 1916, he published—in addition to songs,
fables, and poems—a translation of Pirkei avot (Ethics of the fathers) under
the title “Di lehren fun di foters” (The teachings of the fathers), the
dramatic poem “Der folks-onbot” (The public offering), “Piramidn un kanonen”
(Pyramids and canons) which was a travel account, and a great number of
translations, such as: “Di shprukhn fun hitapadesha” (The tales of Hitopadesha,
from the Arabic), and “Khinezishe un yaponishe legenden” (Chinese and Japanese
legends) and a part of the “Erinerungen” (Reminiscences) both of Lafcadio Hearn
[1850-1904] (from English). In January
1902, he began working with the journal Tsukunft (Future) in New York
and there, until the end of his life, he continually turned out poems, legends,
fables, folk themes on Jewish national and social topics, translations from
Byron entitled “Biblishe motivn” (Biblical themes), of Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow’s [1809-1882] “Hiawatha,” of Omar Khayyam’s [1048-1122] “Rubaiyat,”
and Dmitri Merezhkovsky’s [1865-1941] “Shakyamuni,” a series of articles
entitled “Natur shilderungen in der yidisher literatur” (Nature descriptions in
Jewish literature), and the dramatic biblical pageant “Shunamis” (Shunamit), as
well as his last poems, written in 1926, and his very last one (January 1927)
entitled “A shoymer fun leydike riter” (The guard duty of a lazy knight). Yehoyesh was also a regular collaborator with
Minikes yontef-bleter (Minikes’s holiday sheets) and his Ilustrirte
monat-bleter (Illustrated monthly leaves) (1900-1916), where, among other
things, he published his “Legendes and halb-legendes” (Legends and
half-legends)—“Odems sheynhayt” (Adam’s beauty), “Dos yerushe-hemdl” (The coat
of inheritance), “Avrom avinus dimantshteyn” (Abraham our father’s diamond),
“Medresh-motivn” (Midrash themes), “Bay di taykhn fun bovl” (By the rivers of
Babylonia), and “Kavyokhl’s trern” (God’s tears), among others. From November 16, 1916, he was a permanent
contributor to Der tog (The day) in New York where, among other items,
he published weekly reportage (which appeared later in his three-volume Fun
nyu-york biz rekhoves un tsurik [From New York to Rehovot and back]) and
the majority of his Bible translation.
From 1909 to 1919 he published regularly in Kundes (Prankster) in
New York (the humorous poem “A rayze arum der velt in 80 teg” [A trip around
the world in eighty days] of 1909, among other works). In Dr. Chaim Zhitlovsky’s [1886-1943] Dos
naye lebn (The new life) in New York (1908-1915), he published, in addition
to poems, a translation of Jean Richepin’s [1849-1926] “Tsedaka” and of Edmond
Rostand’s [1868-1918] “Chantecler.” In addition to these, Yehoyesh played an
enormous role in the Yiddish press and periodicals that published in his time
in the United States, Canada, Russia, Poland, Austria, Argentina, the Land of
Israel, and elsewhere. These included: Der
yid (The Jew) (Warsaw-Cracow, 1901); Yudishe folkstaytung (Jewish
people’s newspaper) (Warsaw, 1903); Der fraynt (The friend) and Der
bezim (The lilacs) (St. Petersburg, 1905-1907); Di yudishe velt (The
Jewish world) (1913-1914), Literatur un lebn (Literature and life) (1914),
and others in Vilna; Di idishe velt (The Jewish world) (1903), Der
tsayt-gayst (The spirit of the times) (1905-1906), Der idisher kemfer
(The Jewish fighter) (1907-1910), Teater-velt (Theater world) (1908), Der
kibitser (The kibitzer)
(1909), Dos naye land (The new land) (1911), Dos idishe folk (The
Jewish people) (1909-1912), Di folksshitme (The voice of the people) (1911),
Literarishe velt (Literary world) (1912), Shriftn (Writings) (1920),
In zikh (Introspective) (1920-1023), and others in New York; Idishe
kuryer (Jewish courier) (1906-1919) and others in Chicago; Idishe velt
(Jewish world) in Cleveland; Yidishe prese (Jewish press) in Los
Angeles; Keneder odler (Canadian eagle) in Montreal; Yidisher zhurnal
(Jewish journal) in Toronto; Idishe tsaytung (Jewish newspaper) and Di
prese (The press) in Argentina—and many others. Yehoyesh also put together a collection
entitled Bar-mitsve-redes (Bar Mitzvah speeches) in Yiddish and English
(New York, 1908). He published poetry
and articles in The Sanatorium (Denver) of which was an editor (1906-1909). Yehoyesh’s poems were translated into
English, Polish, Russian, French, and German.
Into Hebrew his poems were translated by Yankev Fikhman (Jacob Fichman,
1881-1958), Reuven Breynin (Reuben Brainin, 1862-1939), Sh. Ben-Tsien (Sh.
Ben-Zion, 1870-1932), Tsiporah Ben-Avigdor, Asher Barash (1889-1952), Dov Sadan
(1909-1989), Shmuel Leyb [Samuel Leib] Gordon (1865-1933), and others; and they
were published in such periodicals as Davar (Word), Hapoel-hatsair (The young laborer), Haarets (The land), Ketuvim (Writings), Hitakhadut (Unity), and Olam hayeladim (The Jewish world)—in Israel; Hadoar (The mail), Hauma (The nation), Haivri (The Jew), Hatoran (The duty officer), Hatsofe (The spectator), and Hatsfira (The siren)—in New York; Hayom (Today), Hasifriya (The library), Hatsfira, and Baderekh (On the road)—in Warsaw. Yehoyesh’s poems appeared in numerous Yiddish
and Hebrew textbooks and readers and were studied in Yiddish and Hebrew
schools. They appeared as well in Yankev
Fikhman’s Di yidishe muze (The Yiddish muse) (Warsaw, 1911) and in
virtually every anthology of Yiddish writings.
Many Jewish composers wrote music to Yehoyesh’s poems which are sung to
this day throughout the Yiddish world.
When the first part of his Gezamelte lider (Collected poems) (New
York, 1907, 388 pages; second edition, 1910) was published, Y. L. Perets in a
speech (carried in the Warsaw periodical, Hazemir [The nightingale], July 1908) said the following about
Yehoyesh: “Yehoyesh is the beginning of the new Yiddish poetry. What those who preceded him took to be easy,
he loved. He comes from the people and
thus feels and sees more acutely. Back
when Mendele portrayed the community, Yankev [Jacob] Dinezon [1852-1919] the
home, Spektor photographs the city and the town, and Sholem-Aleykhem painted
the Jew who had begun to wander, all of this Yehoyesh observed as a man younger
than them. He sees in the people a force
that is crushed among the entire people as a whole, and he is putting this
crushed and scattered entity back together so that it may be a force” (as cited
in Di varhayt, New York, August 8, 1908).
In 1907 Yehoyesh
proceeded to begin realizing his “lifelong dream”: a translation of Tanakh into Yiddish—the initial impulse to
translate the Bible had already come to him in 1904—and by the end of 1909 he
had already completed a portion of Isaiah and the five scrolls [Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther] (Yidishes tageblat, December 9, 1909). Early in
1910 he published the first edition of the Book of Isaiah (214+7 pp.),
with a forward by the translator and a “listing of the proper names which
appear in Isaiah with precise pointing, and the translation
of Job, Song of Songs, Ruth, and Ecclesiastes (New York,
1910, 214 pp.). At the same time,
Yehoyesh worked intensively on his translations of American poetry. He
published in 1910 his translation of Longfellow’s Song of Hiawatha (“Dos lid
fun hayavatha”) with an essay entitled “Vegn dem vert fun iberzetsungen” (On
the value of translation) by Dr. Chaim Zhitlovsky (New York, 272+33 pp.). There simultaneously appeared a collection of
his own original writings: Di naye
shriftn (New writings), vol. 1,
“Poetry” (New York, 1910); vol. 2, “Poetry and prose” (New York, 1912). In 1911 there appeared in book form the
difficult, years-in-the-making work with Dr. Chaim (Charles D.) Spivak
[1861-1927]: Idishe verterbukh (Yiddish dictionary), “containing all the
Hebrew and Chaldaic words, expressions, and proper names needed in the Yiddish
language, with their pronunciation and accent and illustrated with proverbs and
idiomatic sayings in which they occur”, together with an “introduction to the
necessary rules and observations” and a supplement of Hebrew personal names,
family names, and names of unions, societies, schools, cemeteries, and the like
(New York, 1911), 340+32 pp.; second edition (New York, 1926). In 1912 he published Di lehren fun di
foters (Pirkei avot), 113+11 pp.; a new edition with an
English translation by Dr. Ben-Zion Halper (New York, 1921). Also in 1912, Yehoyesh’s book Fabeln
(Fables) (New York), 218 pp. was published and in it, in addition to original
tales, were adaptations from such sources as the Talmud and Midrash, Aesop and
Jean de La Fontaine (1621-1695). In 1913
he published In zun un nebel (In sun and fog) (New York), 243 pp., with
poems, prose writings, and the Biblical one-act play, Shunamis (staged
by Jacob P. Adler in a special evening performance on the occasion of
Yehoyesh’s departure for the Land of Israel on December 20, 1913); Fun der
velt un yener (Of this world and the other; “short stories, fairy tales,
articles, and humorous sketches” (New York), 307 pp.; the special luxury
edition of Zibn bender shriftn (Seven volumes of writings), “collected
poetry,” “new writings alef and beys,” “Hiawatha,” “In sun and fog,” “Of this
world and the other”); the collection Yehoyesh-absheyd abend (Evening of
Yehoyesh’s departure), a selection of poems and prose, pocketbook format, 63 pp. In 1916 he published the ballad Shloymes
ring (Solomon’s ring) with illustrations by Saul Raskin (New York), 50 pp.,
luxury edition. In this same year, he
began to published in Der tog his descriptions of the Israel, Greece,
and Italy, which later appeared in the three-volume work, Fun nyu-york biz
rekhoves un tsurik (vol. 1, 1917, 214 pp.; vol. 2, 1917, 204 pp.; vol. 3,
1918, 230 pp., second printing 1920); a portion of this work was reprinted in the
daily Dos yidishe folk (The Jewish people) in Warsaw (1918-1919), and
was translated into Hebrew by Shmuel Leyb Zitron [1860-1930] in Hatsfira (Warsaw, 1919) and into English by Isaac Goldberg
[1887-1938] ([as The Feet of the Messenger] (Philadelphia, 1923), 296 pp.. In 1919 the first volume of his collection In
geveb (In the web), containing his songs and poems from 1913-1919 appeared;
in 1921 the second volume appeared (song and poems from 1919-1921). The years 1920-1921 witnessed the publication
of a new edition of Yehoyesh’s writings in ten volumes—and Yehoyesh was
recognized as one of the greatest Yiddish poets of modern times. He “deepened Yiddish poetry,” wrote Zalmen
Reyzen [1878-1941], “bringing into it new motifs, ideas, images, and
forms…. Yehoyesh is the great idea-poet
in our literature…. He is also a poet of
colors and tones and—the master of rhythm….
A fine landscape painter,… he gave us cycles of nature descriptions,
which lacked, by their artistic expression and vividness, any [previous] likeness
within Yiddish literature…. The
pantheism of his lyric poetry is one of his most characteristic
qualities…. The poet’s personal
experiences…dissolved into the following period of his writing in his great
universal sensibility.” In his poetic
creations from his final period, Yehoyesh served as a forerunner of the
introspective “In-zikh” movement in Yiddish poetry. He created altogether new forms, expressions,
and visions for his lyric poetry and thereby fully identified with this
original group of poets. In the
manifesto which accompanied the entry of the “Introspectivists” (Inzikhistn)
into Yiddish literature, they wrote of Yehoyesh that he was “the most significant
figure in all Yiddish poetry nowadays, a poet who keeps on searching, who has
the courage and the capacity—we don’t know which is more important—to the very
acme of his craft to fulfill and write in new forms and other ways. We consider him to be one of those closest to
us” (from the introduction to the anthology, In zikh, New York,
1920). Yehoyesh confirmed this as well
with his poems in “In-zikh” publications and with the cycles of poems which he
wrote in the last months of his life and which first appeared in Di goldene
keyt (The golden chain) (Tel Aviv) 4 (1949), pp. 5-10; 27 (1957), pp. 61-66.
In the last ten
years of his life, Yehoyesh devoted himself almost entirely to his immense
lifework of creating a new, Yiddish translation of the entire Tanakh[4]—a
rigorous translation, faithful to the text, that by the same token had to
reproduce in Yiddish the original’s tempo and rhythm, as well as the complexion
of the Bible. For many years, he studied
all the old and new translations of the Bible into various languages and
especially all the variants present in the Septuagint and the Vulgate, as well
as the Targumim of Onkelos and Yonatan (Ben Uziel), and the Bible commentators
and grammarians such as Ibn Ezra, Ramban (Naḥmanides), and Malbim, and in so
doing brought out hundreds of clarifications of words and sentences, without
which the text is often incomprehensible.
He was thus successful in creating in his translation a style, which, on
the one hand, took in the full popularity and archaic quality of the old
religious texts and Ivre-taytsh [the archaic Yiddish used much earlier
to translate Tanakh], as well as the more scholarly interpretation, and on the
other hand, he was precise, exact, and clear.
His translation of the Tanakh is both a treasure of the Yiddish language
and a distinct masterwork all its own.
Yehoyesh worked on his translation from 1909 until his untimely
death. During the period 1922-1927,
hundreds of letters by scholars and ordinary Jews appeared in Der tog
and just as many answers and commentaries in connection with these
letters. Yehoyesh later became extremely
critical of his early Tanakh translations of 1909-1910, and he even “tore up
and destroyed the sheets of an entire printing which was going to be published,
because he did not like it, while he discerned that he had not fully liberated
it from Germanisms,” noted Arn [Aaron] Glanz-Leyeles [1889-1966] in his Velt
un vort, literarishe un andere eseyen (World and word, literary and other
essays) (New York: CYCO, 1958), p. 31.
The later amended translation was comprised of translations of Khumesh
(Pentateuch, 1926), Neviim rishoynim (Early prophets, 1927), Neviim
akhroynim (Later prophets, 1929), and Ksovim (Writings, 1936), with
new editions in 1933 and 1938 (excluding the special printings put out by Der
tog in 1936 and 1941, and by Forverts in two volumes in 1939). There were also special printings of: Shir
hashirim (Song of songs) (New York: YIVO, 1932), Megiles ester
(Scroll of Esther) (New York, 1936), in the form of a scroll and with the
ornate lettering of Evelyn Yehoyesh-Dvorkin [his daughter], and Khumesh far
kinder (The Pentateuch for children) (Philadelphia, 1940). Yehoyesh’s translation of the Pentateuch was
also used in Dr. Shloyme Saymon’s [Solomon Simon, 1895-1970] Khumesh far
kinder (New York, 1944), 270 pp., with a forward by Ben Dvorkin and Khave
Dvorkin-Yehoyesh and by Khayim Shoys [1884-1953] in his work, Fun undzer
oytser (From our treasures) (New York, 1945), 317+62 pp., in which all the
Yiddish texts are taken from Yehoyesh.
Of special value were Yehoyesh’s Heores tsum tanakh (Notes on the
Tanakh), with a lexicon of commentators and explanations, edited by Dr. Mortkhe
[Mordechai] Kosover [1908-1969], and a list of “references” to Yehoyesh’s
notes, revised by Rabbi Khayim-Mortkhe Brecher, a preface by Dr. M. Kosover
(New York, 1949), 317+62 pp., with split pages.
Aside from the translations of Yehoyesh’s original works into Hebrew and
other languages, which were published in collections and newspapers, there were
as well special translations: into Hebrew with the poetry collection Bamaarag
(In the web), translations by Shlomo Shenhod, A. Pressman, Benjamin
Hrushovski, Dov Sadan, Ch. Robinzon, Sh. Ben-Tsien, Shmuel Leyb Gordon, and
Yankev Fikhman, with a biographical-literary appreciation by Dov Sadan
(Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1957), 181 pp.; and into English with Poems of
Yehoash, translated by Isidore Goldstick, with a biographical essay by
Evelyn Yehoyesh-Dvorkin (London, Ont.: Canadian Yehoash Committee, 1952), 111 p. Yehoyesh’s work can also be found in
anthologies of Yiddish poetry: Joseph Leftwich [1892-1983], The Golden
Peacock: An Anthology of Yiddish Poetry Translated into English Verse
(Cambridge, Mass.: Sci-art Publishers, 1939), pp. 116-40; in the 1961 edition,
pp. 96-100; and in Nathan [1898-1986] and Maryann Ausubel, A Treasury of
Jewish Poetry (New York: Crown Publishers, 1957), fourteen poems by Yehoyesh
translated by various authors.
Practically an
entire literature has been written about Yehoyesh. “Over Yehoyesh’s translation of the Bible
rests the spirit of the prophet,” wrote Shmuel Niger (1883-1955). “… It
is the greatest creation in Yiddish,… the principal value of the language for
future generations, which will even be used as an auxiliary text in studies of
the Hebrew original.” “Even in our own
generation we can say with surety that Yehoyesh succeeded in his explanation of
Tanakh,” wrote Yankev Glatsheyn.
“Yehoyesh created the greatest safeguard against the decline of our
Yiddish language. He rescued thousands
of Yiddish words from oblivion and gave them to us as an eternal gift in the
cool shadow of the eternal Tanakh.” A
number of literary critics (such as Bal-Makhshoves [Yisroel Elyashev, 1873-1924]
and A. Tabatshnik [Aba Shtoltsenberg, 1901-1970]) have, indeed, wished to argue
against the poetic value of Yehoyesh’s work, especially from his early period
when he had as yet not freed himself from foreign influences, and they begin
Yehoyesh’s actual creative period from his two-volume In geveb. Yehoyesh’s works from his last years have not
been published in book form to this day.
The same is true for his numerous letters to other Yiddish writers (Y.
L. Perets, Morris Winchevsky [1856-1932], Shmuel Niger, Zalmen Reyzen, Dovid
Pinski, Yoysef Opatoshu [1886-1954], Kalman Marmor [1876-1956], A. Leyeles,
Leon Kobrin [1873-1946], and Dovid Ignatov [1885-1954], among others), who
surely possess a meaningful, literary value for Yehoyesh’s era. Equally important aspects of Yehoyesh’s
translation of Tanakh, scattered in various periodicals, have yet to be
compiled in book form (as Yehoyesh himself worried in a letter to Shmuel Niger;
see Yorbukh fun amerikaner opteyl [Annual from the American section (of
YIVO)], vol. 1 (New York, 1938), pp. 323-37.
Yehoyesh also published under the following pseudonyms: Ḥavatselet
(“lily”), S. B. (and “S. B.” in Latin letters), Abu Said, Pocahontas, L’homme
qui rit, etc. He passed away in New
York. Until the last moments of his
life, he was hard work on a Syriac grammar to enable better understanding of
the Tanakh. His untimely death was
mourned by the Jewish people throughout the world. Schools, social institutions, and reading
groups were named after him in various countries. Even in the worst years of the Holocaust in
Poland (1939-1945), people arranged Yehoyesh evenings in the ghettos of Vilna,
Warsaw, and Lodz on the anniversary of his death. In the Vilna ghetto in January 1942 a youth
club staged a production of his play Dovid un shloyme (David and
Solomon), and in 1943 the Jewish literary union in the ghetto opened a Yehoyesh
exhibition. The literary circle around
Miriam Ulinover [1888-1944] in the Lodz ghetto did the same thing in 1942-1944. On the thirty-day memorial following his
death on February 10, 1927, a special Ondenk-zamlung (Remembrance
collection) was issued with a number of his poems and the most important dates
in his life and work (New York, 16 pp.).
In March 1935, the Yidisher kultur-gezelshaft (Yiddish culture society)
organized in New York a large Yehoyesh exhibition with numerous materials concerning
his life and work and with a large number of his unpublished writings. The Katalog fun der oysshtelung
(Catalog of the exhibition) (New York, 1935), 16 pp. enumerated over fifty
translators of Yehoyesh’s poetry into ten languages in all the Jewish communities
throughout the world. The Yehoyesh: a
bibliografye fun zayne shriftn (Yehoyesh, a bibliography of his
works) of B. Vitkevitz is a model for all bibliographic work in Yiddish
literature.
Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 1 (with a bibliography);
Zalmen Zilbertsvayg, Leksikon fun yidishn
teater (Handbook of the Yiddish theater), vol. 2; Bertshi Vitkevits
(Witkewitz), Yehoyesh, a biblyografye fun
zayne shriftn (Yehoyesh, a bibliography of his writings) (Cleveland, 1944),
407 pp., including 254 items through 1937; Evelyn Yehoyesh-Dvorkin, in Tog (New York) (May 15, 1938);
Yehoyesh-Dvorkin, in Jewish Book Annual
(New York, 1953); Shmuel Niger, in Tsukunft
(New York) (April 1938); Niger, in Keneder
odler yoyvl-bukh (Canadian eagle jubilee volume) (Montreal, 1938); Niger,
in Yorbukh fun amopteyl (Annual from
the American branch [of YIVO]), vol. 1 (New York, 1938), pp. 323-37; Niger, in Tog (May 5, 1956); D. Tsharni (Daniel
Charney), in Literarishe bleter
(Warsaw) (September 16, 1938); Maurice Samuel, in B’nai B’rith Messenger (New York) (November 27, 1938); Dr. A.
Koralnik, in Shriftn (New York) 1
(1938), pp. 143-53; M. Ribalow, Sefer
hamasot (Books of essays) (New York, 1938); Dr. A. A. Robak, The Story of Yiddish Literature (New York,
1940), pp. 201-8; Mortkhe Yofe, in Fraye
arbeter-shtime (New York) (January 26, 1940); Yofe, in Letste nayes (Tel Aviv) (December 4, 1953); Yofe, in Lebens-fragn (Tel Aviv) (October 24,
1957); Khayim Liberman, In kamf far
yidisher dertsiung (In the struggle for Jewish education) (New York, 1941),
pp. 72-73; Y. Y. Trunk, in Di feder
(New York) (1942), pp. 38-44; Trunk, in Di
goldene keyt (Tel Aviv) 29 (1957); Elye Shulman, Geshikhte fun der
yidisher literatur in amerike (History of Yiddish literature in America)
(New York, 1943), pp. 235-36; Kh. Sh. Kazdan, in Yidishe shprakh (New York) (March-April 1945; June 1945; 3-6
[1946]); N. Gros, in Unzer veg (New
York) (January 15, 1945); S. Kahan, Yidish-meksikanish
(Jewish Mexican) (Mexico City, 1945); N. Mayzil, Forgeyer un mittsaytler
(Forerunner and contemporary) (New York, 1946), see index; Mayzil, Y. l. erets un zayn dor shrayber (Y. L. Perets and his generation of writers) (New York,
1951), pp. 360-68; Shloyme Birnboym, in Yivo-bleter
(New York) 28 (1946); Y. Rapaport, in Oyfboy
(Melbourne) (February 1947); P. Hirshbeyn, in Yidishe kultur (New York) (May 1947); A. Sh. Zaks, in Fraye arbeter-shtime (New York) (March
28, 1947); A. Tabatshnik, in Tsukunft
(June-July 1947; November 1947); Sh. Pyetrushko, in Keneder odler (Montreal) (February 4, 1948); Dr. M. Dvorzhetski
(Mark Dvorzetsky), Yerusholaim delite in
kamf un umkum (The Jerusalem of Lithuania in struggle and death) (Paris,
1948), pp. 235, 249; Dr. Y. Rozental, in Yivo-bleter
34 (1950); Moyshe Shtarkman, in Tsukunft
(February 1951); N. B. Minkov, in Kultur
un dertsiung (New York) (February 1952); Meylekh Ravitsh, in Keneder odler (August 24, 1953); Ravitsh,
in Di prese (Buenos Aires) (January
22, 1954); A. Leyeles, in Tsukunft
(February 1952); Leyeles, in Tog (New
York) (March 12, 1957); Leyeles, Velt un
vort (World and word) (New York, 1958); Bertshi Vitkevits (Witkewitz), in Tsukunft (February 1952); Vitkevits, in Yidisher kultur (New York) (March 1959);
Yankev Glatshteyn, in Di prese (June
23, 1952); Glatshteyn, in Idisher kemfer
(New York) (August 7, 1953); Glatshteyn, In
tokh genumen (In essence) (New York, 1956); D. Flinker, in Tog-morgn-zhurnal (New York) (November
15, 1953); Dr. Margoshes, in Tog-morgn-zhurnal
(September 12, 1954); Yankev Fikhman, Regnboygn (Rainbow) (Buenos Aires, 1953), pp. 235-36;
Y. H. Levi, in Gezamlte shriftn (Collected writings), vol. 2 (London,
1955); B. Y. Byalostotski, Kholem un
vor, eseyen (Dream and reality, essays) (New York, 1956), pp. 42ff, 76ff; Dr. A. Mukdoni, in Di
goldene keyt 27 (1957); Z. Vaynper, Shrayber
un kinstler (Writers and artists) (New York, 1958); B. Rivkin, Yidishe dikhter in amerike (Yiddish
poets in America) (New York, 1959), pp. 9-71; A. Lis, Heym un doyer (Home and duration) (Tel
Aviv, 1960), pp. 21-30; Sh. Meltser, ed., Kol
kitve y. l. perets (Collected writings of Y. L. Perets) (Tel Aviv,
1959-1960), pp. 256-62; Kh. Kruk, Tog-bukh
fun vilner geto (Diary from the Vilna ghetto) (New York, 1961), pp. 455,
456, 458; L. Shpizman, in Geshikhte fun
der tsienistisher arbeter-bavegung fun tsofn-amerike (History of the
Zionist labor movement in North America), vols. 1 and 2 (New York, 1955), see
index.
Khayim Leyb Fuks
[1] According to Zalmen Reyzen,
Leksikon fun der yidisher literatur, prese un filologye (Biographical
dictionary of Yiddish literature, press, and philology) (Vilna: Farlag B.
Kletzkin, 1926-1930): Nisan, 1871.
[2] Der yidisher arbeter
(June 21, 1927).
[3] Dr. Yitsḥak Rivkind, in Hadoar
(May 24, 1929).
[4] In a conversation with his
sister several months before his death, Yehoyesh said: “Rendering a single
verse just as I would like it brings me more joy (nakhes) than writing
ten poems of my own” (Khave Shalkovitsh, Literarishe bleter [Literary
leaves], February 10, 1938).
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