Monday 14 January 2019

ARN TSAYTLIN (AHARON, AARON ZEITLIN)


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 Peraim (Flowers) and Hashaar (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 haaeret, haparapsikhologiya vehatofaot haparapsikhyot (The other reality, parapsychology and parapsychological phenomena) (Tel Aviv: Yavne, 1967), 440 pp.; Rua 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 . 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 (Meravya, 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.




[1] Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 3, erroneously states: 1899.

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