ARN TSAYTLIN (AHARON, AARON ZEITLIN) (May 22, 1898[1]-September
28, 1973)
He was
born in Uvarovitsh (Uvaravičy), Byelorussia. He was a Hebrew and Yiddish poet, playwright,
literary critic, and journalist, the son of Hillel Tsaytlin. He spent his youth in Gomel (Homel) and
Vilna. From 1907 he was living in
Warsaw. He studied with his father and
in a “cheder metukan” (improved religious elementary school). He graduated from a Polish Hebrew high school
and went on to audit university courses.
In 1939 he emigrated to New York where he was professor of Hebrew
literature at the Jewish Theological Seminary.
Already in 1911, he had written for the Hebrew children’s magazines Peraḥim (Flowers) and Hashaḥar (The dawn). He debuted in print in Yiddish with a fictional
piece entitled “Di matronise” (The matron) in Di yudishe velt (The Jewish world) in Vilna 4 (1914). From the early 1920s he contributed to a
variety of Yiddish and Hebrew publications with poems, plays, reviews,
articles, and essays of a literary-philosophical character in: Bikher-velt (Book world) in Vilna
(1923-1924); Literarishe bleter
(Literary leaves), Blits (Flash), Teater-taytung (Theater newspaper), Varshever almanakh (Warsaw almanac), Varshever shriftn (Warsaw writings), and
Globus (Globe)—in Warsaw; Hashelaḥ (The weapon), Hatekufa
(The epoch), Hadoar (The mail), and Davar (Word), among others. From the autumn of 1926, he was one of the
principal contributors and editors of the literary division of the daily
newspaper Unzer (earlier: Varshever) ekspres (Our [Warsaw] express).
Among other items, he published a series of lyrical-philosophical essays
entitled “Azoy hot gezogt der rebe r’ bunem” (So spoke the rebbe, R. Bunem)
(1927). He was a regular contributor to Morgn-zhurnal (Morning journal) and Tog-morgn-zhurnal (Day-morning journal),
and he also placed work in: Forverts
(Forward), Tsukunft (Future), Inzikh (Introspective), Opatoshu and
Leivick’s Zamlbikher (Anthologies), Idisher kemfer (Jewish fighter), Svive (Environs), and Kinder-zhurnal (Children’s magazine)—in
New York; Di goldene keyt (The golden
chain), Letste nayes (Latest news),
and Folk un tsien (People and
Zion)—in Tel Aviv; and elsewhere. His Yiddish-language
books include: Metatron ([Archangel]
Metatron) (Warsaw: Alt-yung, 1922), 64 pp.; Shotns
afn shney, lider (Shadows on the snow, poems) (Warsaw:
Beletristn-fareynikung bay fareyn fun yidishe literatn un zhurnalistn, 1923),
135 pp.; Yankev frank, drame in zeks
bilder (Jacob Frank, a drama in six scenes) (Vilna: B. Kletskin, 1929), 108
pp.; Brener, dramatishe dikhtung in dray
aktn (Brenner, dramatic poetry in three acts) (Warsaw, 1929), 143 pp.; Brenendike erd, roman (Burning earth, a
novel) (Warsaw: Idishe universal-bilyotek, 1937), 335 pp.; In kamf far a idisher melukhe (In the struggle for a Jewish state)
(New York, 1943), 31 pp.; Gezamlte lider
(Collected poems) (New York: Matones, 1947, 1957), 3 volumes; Ale lider un poemes (Collected poetry)
(New York: Bergen-Belzen, 1970), 528 pp.; Gezamlte
drames (Collected plays) (Tel Aviv: Perets Publ., 1974), 372 pp.; Literarishe un filosofishe eseyen
(Literary and philosophical essays) (New York: World Jewish Culture Congress,
1980), 390 pp. He also edited, together
with Y. Trunk, Antologye fun der yidisher
proze in poyln tsvishn beyde velt milkhomes (1914-1939) (Anthology of
Yiddish prose in Poland between the two world wars, 1914-1939) (New York,
1946), 637 pp. His Hebrew-language books
would include: Shirim ufoemot
(Poetry) (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1949), 306 pp.; Ben haesh vehayesha, poema dramatit
(Between fire and salvation, dramatic poem) (Tel Aviv: Yavne, 1957), 391 pp.; Min haadam vamala, shete poemot dramatiyot
(From man and above, two dramatic poems) (Tel Aviv: Yavne, 1964), 229 pp.; Medina vaḥazon medina (State and the
vision of a state) (Tel Aviv: Yavne, 1965), 227 pp.; Al yaḥase hagomlin ben hamedina lagola (On reciprocal relations
between the state and the diaspora) (Tel Aviv: World Union of Labor Zionism,
1966), 14 pp.; Hamestiut haaḥeret,
haparapsikhologiya vehatofaot haparapsikhyot (The other reality,
parapsychology and parapsychological phenomena) (Tel Aviv: Yavne, 1967), 440
pp.; Ruaḥ
mimetsula, shirim upoemot (A spirit from the depths, poetry) (Tel Aviv: Yavne,
1975), 480 pp.; and Ben emuna leomanut
(Between faith and art) (Tel Aviv: Yavne, 1980), 2 volumes. He translated into Hebrew: Sholem Asch’s Amerike (America) as Amerika (Tel Aviv: Shtibel, 1928), 144
pp.; and the Yiddish poetry of Ḥ.
N., Bialik. Tsaytlin’s published Yiddish
plays appearing in periodicals include: “Dzheykob dzheykobson oder
mayse-breyshes, grotesk-shpil in fir akts” (Jacob Jacobson or the creation of
the world, a grotesque play in four acts), Amol
in a yoyvl (Once in a blue moon) (Warsaw) 2 (1931), pp. 1-86; Esterke un kazimir der groyser, a
yidish-poylishe misterye in fir aktn (Esterke and Kazimierz the Great, a Polish Jewish
mystery in four acts), Globus 5
(1932), pp. 5-38, 6 (1932), pp. 12-46; Di
yidishe melukhe oder vaytsman der tsvayter (The Jewish state or Weitzman
II), Globus 21-22 (1934), pp. 3-53; In keynems land, dramatishe zeung in 14
bilder (In no one’s land, a dramatic vision in fourteen scenes), Zamlbikher 4 (1939), pp. 229-382. Of his unpublished dramas: Yidn-shtot (City of Jews) was staged in
Poland; Khelemer khakhomim (Wise men
of Chełm) in Maurice Schwartz’s Yiddish Art Theater (1937); his translation Shulamit Bat-Dori’s Der mishpet (The trial [original: Hamishpat]) in Argentina (1940); and Shakespeare’s Shturem (The Tempest) in Warsaw (1938). He left in manuscript the play: Der veber fun balut oder got fun pariz (The weaver of Balut or God of Paris). He
died in New York.
“Of Tsaytlin’s longer
fictional works,” noted Zalmen Reyzen, “special note need be mentioned of his
apocalyptical poem Metatron, in which he tried to unite modern artistic forms
and motifs with the world of ideas of Jewish mysticism, searching in Kabbala
for the path to a Jewish art which would simultaneously be both universal and
specifically Jewish.”
“Tsaytlin the essayist,”
wrote Isaac Bashevis [Singer], “stands not a hair’s breadth beneath Tsaytlin the blessed poet. Tsaytlin demonstrated that one could
be profound and clear—as is his poetry and his essays…. He discovered writers and thinkers…. His poems remains
as original as them
all. He possessed his own sources, and
he was often greater than those he studied.”
As Meylekh Ravitsh put it, Tsaytlin
was “one of most authentic and profound of our poets. There is in his poetry experience, heart, and
blood—although, yes although, his best poems are his
lead-off poems. It may sound very
paradoxical, but it is very true. He is
utter actuality; read his last book fresh off the press, and in it
he lives somewhere in the Middle Ages by years and Tsfat (Sefad) by geography. He is a believing man, a true believer, a
mystic without pretense.”
“Tsaytlin is perhaps the
only Yiddish poet,” wrote Shmuel Niger, “who attempts to have a complete
[religious-philosophical] world view.
His striving for it plays out in his creative work, and not only behind
it. It is the stimulus, the theme, the
objective of his writing, and it is profoundly Jewish,…absorbed in Jewish
mysticism, with Kabbala…. In keynems
land is the most uniform, clearest, and most ingenious of all Arn Tsaytlin’s
poems…. [It is] a summing up of all of his
previous creations…. [It] has within it
the veiled romanticism of Metatron, the naked naturalism of a number of scenes
in Brener, as well as the illustrious tragedy of the apocalyptic poems, and the
deeply sorrowful humor of Khelemer khakhomim and Af a shif (Aboard ship)…. We have here fuller, clearer, and sharper
that anywhere his basic aim, the motif of—a not eternal—struggle between good
and evil, God and Satan, light and darkness—the motif of the coming, ultimate victory
of good over evil, God over the devil….
The battle between light and darkness, good and evil, belief and despair
is a foundational motif in a major
portion of the
poems that Tsaytlin had written in the first ten years of his writing for
adults…. ‘Der tumes heyzerike hint’ (The
hoarse dogs of sinfulness) on one side, and on the other his cherubs and
saintliness—these are the Sammael and
the Gabriel who accompany our poet…. Aside from Y. L. Perets,
one of his rebbes among the old-timers, and Der Nister, among the young Yiddish
poets, no other poet comes to my mind who, like Arn Tsaytlin, has so aspired
since his youth to a harmonious fusion of the Jewish
ideals and imagery of past generations and the world of his own
generation’s ideals, images, and forms….
The Jewish tradition deeply penetrated Arn Tsaytlin’s world sensibilities;
it breathes deeply in his religious-cosmic [consciousness], not
only—as in the case of A. Lyesin—in his ethical consciousness…. After Der Nister, he is the poet of
hiddenness [nister] in Yiddish literature.”
“It has been said,”
noted Shloyme Bikl, “that Arn Tsaytlin is a cerebral poet. This is true, but it is, as far as I am
concerned, a bit off. Conversely,
without thinking there is often no greatness.
Not a single time does the thought first open the broad horizons for the
poetic emotions…. However, every change in the metaphorically formulated power position between the intellect
and the poetic vision may damage the poem….
Even a poet of the stature of Arn Tsaytlin may not in such an instance
be completely exempt. Tsaytlin was not
only knowledgeable of Kabbala, but also a man who thought with the concepts of
Jewish mysticism and saw through its imagery.
And, indeed, as he is a man of thoughts and images, so too there was in
his home a table prepared with ideas—demonstrating on occasion the damage
suffered by Tsaytlin’s poems from intellectual superior strength. The harm consists in the intellect cooling
off the temperament, and in its cooler temperament it is difficult for the
reader to differentiate between a thought that germinates from an organic
vision and the image that is an illustration of thought. However, also when this comes to pass, and
every other time and always, one cannot but be enthused by Tsaytlin’s dialectic
of thought, by his ingenious definitions, by the virtuosity of his language, by
the variations of his verse, and by the abundance of original rhymes.”
Tsaytlin himself offers several characteristic features
of his own work—in a conversation with A. Tabatshnik: “I believe that without
divine inspiration there is nothing—and no poetic creation, of course. If, however, a poem should actually be a
poem, it must be the result of inspiration….
[As for] my writing in two languages, I do not know how this fares with
other poets [of this sort]. As far as I
am concerned, there is no split or fracture….
When I write in Yiddish, I feel in no way that I am writing in Yiddish;
when I write in Hebrew, I in no way feel that I am writing Hebrew. In other words, if this is a duality, it is a
two that is actually but one…. This is a
purely biased process. The bilingual
languages of sanctity in my poetry is throughout a subjective position,…a personal
psychological fact, an individual [fact]…that, I believe, has nothing to do
with my writing in general, but in particular with my writing of poetry…. When I contemplate where my bilingual
languages of sanctity comes to me from, it appears at times that it originates
atavistically from the spiritual strength I draw from the world of Chabad. I descend from generations of
Chabadniks…. In this regard, I am
alone. I did not grow up in their
company, and I never sang in the choir.
I would not be able to sing in the choir of ‘religious’ poets…. I often have sung against the current…. I do not believe in the concept of a
‘literary family’ in the sense of a collectivity, of collective creativity of a
generation. The collective, also the
historical, the ethno-national—all of this must be in the individual
alone. To put it another way: time,
people, the generations are—must be—in the individual writer, to the extent
that he is a writer. Also, ethnic and
collective motifs in poetry are individual motifs. If the ethnic or collective moment is not at
the same time subjective, it is a declamation.”
Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 3; Zalmen Zilbertsvayg, Leksikon fun yidishn teater (Handbook
of the Yiddish theater), vol. 4 (New York, 1963), with a lengthy
bibliography; Getzel Kressel, Leksikon
hasifrut haivrit (Handbook of Hebrew literature), vol. 2 (Merḥavya, 1967); Meylekh
Ravitsh, Mayn leksikon (My lexicon),
vol. 1 (Montreal, 1945); Shloyme Bikl, Shrayber
fun mayn dor (Writers of my generation), vol. 1 (New York, 1958), pp.
121-31; A. Tabatshnik, in Di goldene keyt
(Tel Aviv) 65 (1969); Y. Yanasovitsh, Penemer
un nemen (Faces and names) (Buenos Aires, 1971), pp. 294-305; Shmuel Niger,
Yidishe shrayber fun tsvantsikstn
yorhundert (Yiddish writers of the twentieth century) (New York, 1972), pp.
370-404; Y. Bashevis-Zinger, foreword to Tsaytlin’s Literarishe un filosofishe eseyen (Literary and philosophical essays) (New York: World Jewish
Culture Congress, 1980).
Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon
fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York,
1986), cols. 460-65.
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