YITSKHOK KATSENELSON (ITZHAK KATZENELSON)

YITSKHOK KATSENELSON (ITZHAK KATZENELSON) (July 1, 1885-May 3, 1944)

            He was born in Karelits (Kareličy), Byelorussia.  His father Yankev-Benyomen was a Hebrew writer who wrote partially in Yiddish.  In 1894 his family moved to Zgersh (Zgierz), where Katsenelson studied in his father’s “cheder metukan” (improved religious elementary school).  In 1896 they settled in Lodz.  He early on began working, while at the same time studying on his own.  Around 1910 he visited Geneva, Berne, and Berlin.  After returning home, he opened a private Hebrew school in Lodz and remained its director until the beginning of WWII.  In 1921 he visited the United States, and in 1925 and 1931 he visited the land of Israel.  On September 8, 1939, after the German occupation of Lodz, Katsenelson departed for Cracow with his family, and in January 1940 moved on to Warsaw.  In the Warsaw Ghetto he was aligned with the underground Zionist-socialist youth organization “Dror” (Freedom), and he contributed to its illegal publications.  His wife and two of his sons died in the Warsaw Ghetto.  Inasmuch as he had a foreign permit from Honduras, he and his remaining son were sent on May 3 to the camp in Vittel, France.  In April 1944 they were both deported to Auschwitz and murdered there.  Although Katsenelson had taken up Hebrew pedagogy, writing Hebrew textbooks and composing Hebrew poetry, at the same time he was writing in Yiddish.  His literary debut in Yiddish came in 1904 with poems in Mortkhe Spektor’s Yudishe folks-tsaytung (Jewish people’s newspaper).  That same year he published poems in Perets’s Yudishe biblyotek (Yiddish library).  He often contributed to a variety of Yiddish publications in Lodz, and he co-edited Heftn (Notebooks) in 1919.  He also wrote for Unzer togblat (Our daily newspaper) in Lodz.  In addition to poetry, he also wrote dramas in Yiddish.  His Yiddish poems were light, playful, sentimental, and frequently sadly ironic.  He was influenced by Heinrich Heine, whose poems he translated into Hebrew.  In the Warsaw Ghetto, Katsenelson wrote a great deal of poetry, primarily in Yiddish: “Der tog fun mayn groysn umglik” (The day of my great tragedy) (1942); “Vey dir” (Woe unto you); “Dos lid vegn shloyme zhelikhovskin” (The poem about Shloyme Zhelikhovski); “Dos lid vegn radziner” (The poem about the Radzhin [rebbe])—written November 1942-January 7, 1943); “Der bal” (The ball) (May 1941); Iev (Job), a drama; “Folks motiv fun yor 1940” (Popular motif in January 1940); “Ven der tayvl iz gerekht” (When the devil is right); “Di khronik vegn hersheles toyt” (The chronicle of Hershele’s death); “Yizker” (Remembrance); “Al nahares bovl” (By the rivers of Babylon); Mikh tsit in gas (I’m drawn to the street), a children’s drama in the ghetto; “Fun likht un mentshn” (From light and man); “Der yid hot gelakht” (The Jew laughed); “Lider fun kelt” (Songs of cold); “Lider fun hunger” (Songs of hunger); “Shfoykh khamoskho” (Verses recited on Passover invoking divine anger at enemies of the Jews).  He also translated a number of chapters from Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Hosea, and he wrote articles about Mendele, Perets, and Bialik; he translated Bialik’s poem “Al hasheḥita” (On the slaughter) into Yiddish at this time.  He began writing his own poem “Dos lid fun oysgehargetn yidishn folk” (The song of the murdered Jewish people) in Vittel in early October 1943 and finished it on January 18, 1944.  There he also wrote the Hebrew-language dramas Ḥanibaal (Hannibal) and Bamitsbaa harashit (At the military headquarters), as well as Pinkas vitel (Records of Vittel).  In his ghetto writings, Katsenelson depicted the tragic events in an artistic manner.  From a writer who until that point in time wrote playful poetry, he was transformed into a poet who was demonstrating the murder of his people.  The lamentations of “Dos lid fun oysgehargetn yidishn folk” were not simply descriptions of a people’s tragedy, but they also had elements of artistry of a high caliber of writing.  Katsenelson’s Yiddish writings before the war include: Dos vayse leben (The white life), stories and images (Warsaw, 1909), 112 pp.; Karikaturen, drama in dray akten (Caricatures, a drama in three acts) (Warsaw, 1909), 125 pp.; Dekadent, komedye (Decadent, a comedy) (Warsaw, 1909), 30 pp.; Bokherim, komedye [in] eyn akt (Fellows, a comedy in one act) (Warsaw, 1908/1909), 27 pp.; Fatima, dramatishe poema in dray akten (Fatima, a dramatic poem in three acts) (Lodz, 1919/1920), 95 pp.; Gezang un shpiel, di ershte shpiel un lider-zamlung far yudishe kinder (Song and play, the first play and song collection for Jewish children), music by Yisroel Goldshteyn (Warsaw, 1920), 132 pp.—“The majority of these songs are originals, written by Y. Katsenelson and M. Broderson”; Unzere noente bakante, lirishe drame in dray teyl (Our close acquaintances, a lyrical drama in three parts) (Warsaw, 1922), 141 pp.; Mayn idish bukh, ilustrirter idisher alefbeys far kinder fun ershtn halbn shul-yor (My Yiddish book, illustrated Yiddish ABCs for children in the first half school year) (New York, 1923), 60 pp.  Katsenelson’s dramatic works that were published in periodicals: Dos oreme kreml (The poor shop) in Kinder zhurnal (Children’s magazine) in New York (October 1920); and Bashefenishn (Creatures), in Kinder zhurnal (January 1921).  Portions of his Karikaturen, Fatima, and other works appeared in Dos shtetel (The town), adapted by B. Tomashevsky (New York, 1920).  Remaining in manuscript: Isthara (Isthara), a comedy in three acts (1912); the poem “Di velt on vunder” (The world without wonder); Tarshish (Tarshish), a drama in three acts, published in Hebrew as Miklat (Refuge); “Ikh for keyn amerike” (I’m going to the United States), a poem.  The fate of his manuscripts remains unknown.  His works published after the war include: Dos lid fun oysgehargetn yidishn folk (Paris, 1945), 80 pp., new edition (New York, 1948); published with “Dos lid vegn radziner” (Tel Aviv, 1964), 101 pp.; Al nahares bovl, biblishe tragedye in fir aktn (By the rivers of Babylon, a biblical tragedy in four acts) (Tel Aviv, 1967), 135 pp.; Ketavim aḥaronim (Final writings) (Tel Aviv, 1956), 470 pp.—a large part of his Yiddish writings were presented only in their Hebrew translation here; Sipurim umasot (Stories and essays), vol. 1 (Tel Aviv: Bet loḥame hagetaot and Hakibuts hameuḥad, 1982); Maḥazot (Dramas) (Tel Aviv: Bet loḥame hagetaot and Hakibuts hameuḥad, 1982), 304 pp.; Yidishe geto-ksovim, varshe, 1940-1943 (Yiddish ghetto writings, Warsaw, 1940-1943), with introduction and explanation by Yekhiel Sheyntukh (Tel Aviv: Bet loḥame hagetaot and Hakibuts hameuḥad, 1984), X + 770 pp.; Mayanot, 1903-1937, mivḥar shirim (Springs, 1903-1937, selections of poems) (Tel Aviv: Bet loḥame hagetaot and Hakibuts hameuḥad, 1984), 189 pp.

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 3; Zalmen Zilbertsvayg, Leksikon fun yidishn teater (Handbook of the Yiddish theater), vol. 5 (Mexico City, 1966); Avrom Reyzen, Epizodn fun mayn lebn (Episodes from my life), vol. 2 (Vilna, 1929), pp. 202-3; Shmuel Niger, Kidesh hashem (Sanctification of the name) (New York, 1947), see index; Tsipoyre Katsenelson-Nokhumov, Yitskhok katsenelson, zayn lebn un shafn (Yitskhok Katsenelson, his life and work) (Buenos Aires, 1948); Y. Y. Trunk, Poyln (Poland), vol. 6 (New York, 1951); B. Mark, Umgekumene shrayber fun di getos un lagern (Murdered writers from the ghettos and camps) (Warsaw, 1954), pp. 90-107; Dapim leḥeker hashoa vehamered (April 1961), Katsenelson’s ghetto poems, a list of his manuscripts, and articles by N. Blumental and Dov Sadan; N. Ek, in Tsukunft (New York) (April 1961); Nakhmen Mayzil, Tsurikblikn un perspektivn (Retrospectives and perspectives) (Tel Aviv: Perets Publ., 1962), see index; Sh. L. Shnayderman, in Forverts (New York) (April 13, 1967; May 4, 1976); Khayim Leyb Fuks, Lodzh shel mayle, dos yidishe gaystiḳe un derhoybene lodzh, 100 yor yidishe un oykh hebreishe literatur un kultur in lodzh un in di arumiḳe shtet un shtetlekh (Lodz on high, the Jewish spiritual and elevated Lodz, 100 years of Yiddish and also Hebrew literature and culture in Lodz and in the surrounding cities and towns) (Tel Aviv: Perets Publ., 1972), see index; Tsvia Lubetkin, In umkum un oyfshtand (In destruction and uprising [original: Biyeme kilayon vemered (In the days of destruction and revolt)]) (Tel Aviv: Ghetto Fighters’ House, 1980), see index; Sh. Even-Shoshan, Yitzḥak katsenelson, mekonen hashoa (Yitskhok Katsenelson, mourner of the Holocaust) (Tel Aviv, 1984), 44 pp.

Elye (Elias) Shulman

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 477.]