A Picture Worth (More Than) a Thousand Words

Di Yunge and ‘That’ Photograph

As I continue to recover from absolute blur of December — Chanukah, Christmas (we’re an interfaith family) and Hogmanay (we’re Scottish), here’s a brief consideration by Leivick of a rather famous photograph, as found in his essay marking the first yahrzeit of his friend and colleague, Menachem (Boreysho).

From H.Leivick, ‘A Year Without Menachem Boreysho’:

On my wall, there hangs a a small photograph, which we took in 1915. A photograph of ‘Di Yunge’ then. Menachem sits in the front row, beside Avrom Reyzen, long life to him, and M.L. Halpern, A"H.

Avrom Reyzen sits, the eldest amongst us. He sits at the centre. On both sides, and in the row standing above, most of ‘Di Yunge.’ Not everyone who was, at that time, included in ‘Di Yunge’ was able to be available for the photograph, which was, because of some spontaneous ‘happening,’ (I don’t recall what the event was) taken by the then literary photographer Lifshitz. In the photograph, apart from the mentioned three, are found in the standing row: R. Iceland, A. Raboy, Zishe Landau, A.M. Dillon and the writer of these lines. In order for the photograph to be complete, Lifshitz hung prepared pictures of J. Opatoshu, J. Rolnik, Sholem Asch, Peretz Hirschbein and Y.Y. Schwartz on the backdrop. He had looked for pictures of D. Ignatoff and Mani Leib and did not find them to hand. Of those who posed, for the photograph, five are already missing. They are resting in peace. Menachem was the fifth, who was gathered to Halpern, to Dillon, to Landau, to Raboy. I look at this group and see their faces and also the faces of those who are in the background in frames and also the faces of those who are not the the photograph through the light of thirty-five years; through this light, I see more than their faces— I see all of their poetic figures. I see a beauty across them, and I tremble at that beauty with a warm trembling and with an even warmer sorrow.

At the moment, when I look at the photograph, I look intently indeed at Menachem. He sits with pipe in hand and his appearance is fresh and hopeful. He penetrates me with his own eyes in return. He carries on a conversation with me — the perpetual conversation which went on between us. A conversation which, often, took on the form of a quarrel — of a friendly, but oftentimes very strained, quarrel. It seems to me that I hear him say from the photograph — that he says with a sort of sharpening of the lips, which was characteristic of him at certain moments: — Well, how are you doing with your yearning and with your imagined commandment: ‘Live as you write’? With your yearning which was mine? You see — I have already stilled my yearning, fulfilled your imagined commandment, and you? ———

Then I hear, it seems, as he says something else, something out of profound warmth, out of very last camaraderie: — We were friends. There were conflicts between us, even pain. But that is all past. Now — you see: Truly, we are in the photograph. Five of us are truly all photograph now. I am the fifth. ———

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In 1954, at the time of Leivick’s interview with Yankev Pat (printed in his Conversations with Yiddish Writers), this photograph of Di Yunge is noted as hanging near his desk in his work-room:

A photographic picture of a portion of ‘Di Yunge’ hangs not far from his writing desk: Raboy, Iceland, Landau, Dillon, Moyshe-Leyb Halpern, Reisen, Menachem.

— Out of everyone, H. Leivick says to me, only two are still alive — Iceland and me.

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By the end of the following year, 1955, Iceland — as well as Rolnik and Opatoshu, present in the pictures in the background — would be gone, as well. Leivick was the last of those who had posed on the day. Y.Y. Schwartz was the last of those whose image appears in the background, dying in 1971.

Part of the persona that Leivick (and his fellow poets) created and presented to the public was one of the image — built through visual art as much as through their writing. There’s nothing accidental about it, these rather smart suits and hats, but something carefully managed and constructed.

Moyshe Leyb Halpern is the clearest example in this particular gathering, in his rather distinct, almost-Wildean, nearly-aesthetic dress compared to the others, and in his own illustration work.

But Leivick, too, at least at one point, painted (and seemingly almost went to art school in Odessa), partly supporting himself by painting portraits in Siberia. And his interest in the visual art of others is evident in the descriptions of the art hanging in his workroom in that interview with Yankev Pat. Further art inspired by Leivick’s work is to be found in the 1967 Gopa volume of his work. There’s even a couple of painted portaits of him out there, like this one from the Magnes Collection of Jewish Art:

On a personal note, it’s a very different portrait of Leivick that I have long felt so utterly compelling as to be something of a driving force in whatever the hell I’m doing here. Perhaps I’ll write about that sometime later.