HADASE (HADASA) RUBIN

HADASE (HADASA) RUBIN (1912-2003)

            She was a poetess, born in in Yampol (Yampil), Ukraine.  She graduated from a Polish middle school.  She joined the Communist movement in her youth and spent time in the Kremenits prison.  During WWII she fled to the Soviet Union.  After the war she moved to Poland and in 1960 to Israel.  Rubin’s first written poetry was out of luck—from fear of the police, her aunt burned the poems she was hiding, and while running from the Germans another packet of poems was lost.  Her first Yiddish poems were published in 1931 in Kremenitser shtime (Voice of Kremenits).  She later published in, among other serials: Der tog (The day), Yung vilne (Young Vilna), and Der fraynd (The friend) in Vilna; Literarishe bleter (Literary leaves) in Warsaw; Sovetish (Soviet) in 1940; Yidishe shriftn (Yiddish writings) in Lodz-Warsaw, of which she was also co-editor; and Letste nayes (Latest news), Di goldene keyt (The golden chain), Yisroel shtime (Voice of Israel), and Yerusholaimer alkmanakh (Jerusalem almanac) in Israel.  Her work appeared in: Arie Shamri, Vortslen (Roots) (Tel Aviv, 1966); Shmuel Rozhanski, ed., Ven a folk dervakht, medines yisroel, 1948-1968, antologye (When a people awakens, the state of Israel, 1948-1968, anthology) (Buenos Aires, 1968); Moyshe Knaphays, ed., Antologye, vidershtand un oyfshtand, lider, proze, drame, muzik tsu 2 lider (Anthology, resistance and uprising, poems, prose, drama, music to two poems) (Buenos Aires, 1970); and Hubert Witt, Der Fiedler vom Getto: Jiddische Dichtung aus Polen (The fiddler of the ghetto, Yiddish poetry from Poland) (Leipzig, 1966, 1978).  Her books of poems: Mayn gas iz in fener (My street is in flags) (Warsaw: Yidish-bukh, 1953), 53 pp.; Veytik un freyd (Distant and joyous) (Warsaw: Yidish-bukh, 1955), 69 pp.; Trit in der nakht (Steps in the night) (Warsaw:Yidish-bukh, 1957), 117 pp.; Fun mentsh tsu mentsh (From person to person) (Tel Aviv: Perets Publ., 1964), 119 pp.; In tsugvint, lider (In a draft of wind, poetry) (Tel Aviv: Yisroel-bukh, 1981), 126 pp.; Rays nisht op di blum (Don’t tear up the flowers) (Tel Aviv: Perets Publ., 1995), 84 pp.  “Hadase Rubin,” noted yanlkev Glatshteyn, “manifests herself as a poetess with numerous female virtues in his poems.  Her tone is womanly and the words she selects are those of a woman who sings like a woman.”  “Hadase Rubin possesses her own figurative quality,” commented Froym Oyerbakh, “which is a mixture of abstraction and concreteness….  She enables you to hear that she is sitting behind bars, but she conceals her poems, muddles them.  If she rises to offer clear lines, this poem of hers is refined sorrow.”

Rubin’s father, DOVID RUBIN (b. 1881 in Kremenits; d. July 19, 1968 in Kfar Hasidim), lived from 1956 in Israel until his death.  He published articles on the Holocaust, memoirs, and folklore in: Folks-shtime (Voice of the people) in Warsaw; Yidishe tsaytung (Jewish newspaper) in Tel Aviv; Undzer shrift (Our writing) in Haifa; and Yeda am (Folklore) in Tel Aviv; among other serials.

Sources: Shloyme Lastik, in Di fraye yugnt (Warsaw) (May-June 1947); Dovid Dfard, Shtudyes un skitsn (Studies and sketches) (Warsaw: Yidish bukh, 1955), pp. 101-5; Yoysef Okrutni, in Idishe tsaytung (Buenos Aires) (August 1, 1958); Avrom Sutzkever, in Di goldene keyt (Tel Aviv) 38 (1960), p. 35; Kadia Molodowsky, in Svive (New York) 19 (1966); Yankev Glatshteyn, Af greyte temes (On ready themes) (New York: CYCO, 1967), pp. 306-10; Dov Sadan, Avne miftan, masot al sofre yidish, vol. 2 (Tel Aviv: Perets Publ., 1970); Gitl Mayzl, Eseyen (Essays) (Tel Aviv, 1974), pp. 214-21; Froym Oyerbakh, Af der vogshol, esey (In the balance, essay), vol. 1 (Tel Aviv: Perets Publ., 1975), pp. 318-21.

Ruvn Goldberg

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 505.]