Tuesday 13 December 2016

YEHOYESH (YEHOASH)

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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