YOYSEF KERLER (April 7, 1918-2000)
He
was a poet, prose writer, and journalist, born in Haysin (Haysyn), Vinitse (Vinnytsa) region, Ukraine. He studied in a Russian public school. In
1930 he moved with his parents to the newly established Jewish settlements in
northern Crimea. He worked on a collective farm and studied in a middle school.
Over the years 1934-1937, he attended the Odessa Jewish machine-building
technical school. This was also the period in which his literary activities
began with his first published poem in 1935 for Odeser arbeter (Odessa worker). From 1937 to 1941, he was a student
in the theater studio of the Moscow Yiddish State Theater. He volunteered
during WWII, fought at the front, and was wounded three times before being
demobilized in 1944. That same year he published his first collection which
consisted primarily of work devoted to the war. He moved to Birobidzhan in 1947
but returned to Moscow the next year, and there in April 1950 he was arrested
and exiled for ten years to the Vorkuta labor camp. Later freed and rehabilitated,
in 1955 he returned to Moscow, working for variety theaters, writing miniatures,
sketches, and one-act plays. In 1957 a Russian translation of his collection Mayn
tatns vayngortn (My father vineyard) was published (Vinogradnik moego
ottsa), and in 1965 of his Ikh vil zayn a guter (I’d like to be a good
one), also in Russian (Khochu byt' dobrym). When the journal Sovetish
heymland (Soviet homeland) started appearing in print in Moscow, Kerler
placed poems and essays in it, and in the very first issue he published: “Vos
iz mayn farmegn, oyb ir vet mikh fregn? Lider dray iz mayn farmegn….” (What do
I own? Should you ask me, it’s three poems….). In one of his autobiographies, he
explained: “Professions possess very little—I’ve been a coal miner, a
journalist, a stoker, an actor, a railway worker, a farmer, and, of course, at
a present I’m forever writing poetry.” Indeed, he was always composing poems,
and everywhere, in the most frightful conditions, he wrote, not enumerating every
favor, every wage, or every immediate publication. “Who says that one pays for
Yiddish poetry? Has he written a single poem? It’s terribly expensive, just
imagine, for a poem that disperses like wine in stages? How much they cost, how
expensive the poems, with ardent persistence strengthened in its own fire, immersed
in its own blood…and reborn and again they fly through pain and lament…. Who
pays for Yiddish poems? Naturally, it’s the poet alone.” He wrote and wrote,
but he was unable to have his work published with Soviet publishers, and so he
commenced a battle to leave for Israel. After a six-year battle with the organs
of authority, he was given permission in 1971, and that year he made aliya and settled
in Jerusalem. This began what was to be the final and the most fruitful years
of his poetic life. That first year of his arrival in Israel, he brought the
book Dos gezang tsvishn tseyn (The
song between [clenched] teeth), and it was followed by many other prose, poetry.
and journalistic works. Together with his son, Dov-Ber Kerler (Boris Karlov), in
1978 he published Shpigl-ksav, getseylte
lider (Words in a mirror, a few poems). Yoysef Kerler was the initiator of
numerous exploits, among them Yerusholaimer
almanakh (Jerusalem almanac) which he edited from 1973 and which was an
important tribune for dozens of writers, poets, literary scholars, and
journalists. His poetry has been translated into many languages.
Over
the course of his career, in addition to the serials mentioned above, he
published poems, notes, and translations in: Emes (Truth), Eynikeyt
(Unity), Heymland (Homeland) in 1943,
Kiev’s Shtern (Star), Folks-shtime (Voice of the people), and Yidishe shriftn (Yiddish writing) in
Warsaw. In Israel, he wrote for: Bay zikh
(On one’s own), Di goldene keyt (The
golden chain), Yidishe tsaytung
(Jewish newspaper), Yisroel shtime
(Voice of Israel), and Folksblat
(People’s newspaper), among others. He co-edited: Atseret-am, folks-akademye (People’s assembly, people’s academy),
commemorating the twentieth anniversary of the murder of the Soviet Yiddish
writers (Tel Aviv, 1971), 29 pp. His work also appeared in: Af naye vegn (Along new paths) (New York:
Yidisher kultur farband, 1949); Tsum zig
(To victory) (Moscow: Emes, 1944); Zinovi Kompanayets’s, Finf lider fun yidishe sovetishe dikhter (Five songs from Soviet
Yiddish poets) (Moscow: Muzyka, 1960), including translations into Russian; Azoy lebn mir, dokumentale noveln,
fartsaykhenungen reportazh (How we live: Documented novellas, jottings,
reportage pieces) (Moscow: Sovetski pisatel, 1964); Horizontn (Horizons) (Moscow: Sovetski pisatel, 1965); Tsuzamen (Together) (Tel Aviv: Perets
Publ., 1974); Khayim Bez, Antologye fun
der yidisher literatur far yugnt (Anthology of Yiddish literature for young
people) (New York: Congress for Jewish Culture, 1976); and in other anthologies
in Russian, English, Dutch, and other languages. He received the Manger Prize
and the Atran Prize.
His books include: Far mayn erd (For my land), poetry (Moscow: Emes, 1944), 45 pp.; Dos gezang tsvishn tseyn (Tel Aviv: Perets Publ., 1971), 167 pp., Hebrew translation by Yaakov Shofet as Hazemer ben hashinayim (Tel Aviv: Ḥalonot, 200), 159 pp.; Zet ir dokh (Despite all odds), poems (Tel Aviv: Perets Publ., 1972), 220 pp.; 12ter oygust 1952 (August 12, 1952) (Jerusalem: Eygns, 1978), 224 pp.; Shpigl-ksav, getseylte lider (Jerusalem, 1978), 80 pp.; Di ershte zibn yor (The first twelve years) (Tel Aviv: Perets Publ., 1979), 138 pp.; Himlshaft, bletlekh, proze, un lider (Heavens above, pages, prose, and poetry) (Jerusalem: Yerusholaimer almanakh, 1985/1986), 120 pp.; Geklibene proze, eseyen, zikhroynes, dertseylungen (Selected prose, essays, memoirs, stories) (Jerusalem: Yerusholaimer almanakh, 1991), 304 pp.; Abi gezunt, lider fun haynt un fun nekhtn (As long as you’re well, poems of today and yesterday) (Jerusalem: Eygns, 1993), 106 pp.; Davke itst—fun di letste un andere lider (Now is the time—new and last poems) (Jerusalem: Yerusholaimer almanakh, 2005), 127 pp. “Kerler revealed himself,” noted Dov Sadan, “with his utter distinctiveness as an individual amidst the many…. The truth is indeed his own, but not only his own; his is a truth among a mass.” “Kerler drew his poetic nourishment…directly,” wrote Yudel Mark, “from the good, old sources, from the immediacy and simplicity of the folk poem, from the elemental forces of the diction of the ‘common’ people.” He died in Jerusalem.[1]
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