Leivick in Israel 1957, Part 7
Thorns in the Cultural Garden of Israel
Part 6 can be found here, and the series begins here.
Thorns in the Cultural Garden of Israel
The one Lord of the World as my witness, it is with no great desire that I write about thorns, or nettles, in the beautiful cultural garden in the State of Israel.
How do nettles grow in a garden of flowers and useful vegetables? One doesn’t sow them, but they grow. If it isn’t torn out, it’s in its nature to spread and corrupt the whole garden. It’s stinging and parasitic. As intense as the revulsion to occupy oneself with it may be — it must sometimes be done. Wear gloves on your hands at every attempt to tear it out because, like a nettle, it’s crude and poisonous.
My revulsion, in this case, is because I am compelled to write about the nettles in relation to my recent visit to Israel, in relation to responses regarding the speeches and lectures which I came to give at receptions and farewell evenings.
As I noted in my previous article, I have nothing about which to complain personally. On the contrary, I was deeply touched by the festivity and the warmth that most of the writing world in Israel, of the Hebrew and Yiddish press, displayed towards me. And, of course — by the warmth of the audience.
Therefore, it is extremely annoying that this warmth also caused the awakening of nettle bushes here and there. True, not many. If they had a purely personal connection, only regarding myself, I certainly would pass it by. But personally, the barbs embarrassed me, that they kept themselves from diminishing my honour. To myself, it seems, they are kindly disposed. I myself, it seems, suit, so what then? Yiddish doesn’t suit. I, it seems, deserve honour, but — Yiddish deserves no honour! As Sholem Aleichem says in ‘Draft’: He suits, but not as a soldier…
I ask of these anti-Yiddish sages: If Yiddish earns no honour, why do I, the Yiddish poet, deserve honour? And if they denigrate Yiddish, do they not also denigrate the Yiddish poet? Do they not also denigrate their personal honour? I ask it of them; and I ask it still more of the editors of newspapers and journals who allow printed disrespect regarding Yiddish, even when the disrespect comes from an severed individual. Beyond that, when the editors print it with no comment, and it appears that they agree with the degrading tone.
Here I come to, clearly against my will, the matter of degrading Yiddish which I, in my talk at the theoretical conference, called a neurosis, and now, particularly after rereading the mad talk about Yiddish by Meir Mohar1 and such important weekly sheets as Hapoel Hatzair, I will term more strongly: Paranoia. I said in my talk that regarding myself, I felt myself too proud to demand honour for Yiddish from Jews today. This is indeed the truth. Still more: I am even quite tired of it, I feel a disgust as though toward a regret which moves into you in the very midst of rejoicing. Imagine: In the very middle of a dramatic performance, someone suddenly mounts the stage, bursts through the actors, and sticks out their tongue at everyone.
Naturally, this is an individual, but they do it with the arrogance of one who can force their way through. An unpleasant feeling forms within you: Do the actors on the stage not also take pleasure in it themselves?
Before I come to Meir Mohar in Hapoel Hatzair, I would like to present a couple of other examples of the anti-Yiddish nettle in the beautiful garden of Israel.
Habima went to a theatre festival in Paris this year and distinguished themselves there with the performance of Dybbuk. Not the first time that Habima has distinguished itself at a festival with a work of Yiddish literature. At the festival two years ago, they were a hit with a performance of Golem, more than with the piece from their Hebrew repertoire. Why this is so, this isn’t now the place for me to go into the matter. It can’t be quickly dismissed. It’s a matter which demands a serious and deep consideration. But a writer in Haboker, L. Chazan (August, 1957), did not do so in his article: ‘Why, Precisely, Dybbuk?’ He was intensely dissatisfied why Habima, being an Israeli theatre, which carries out a great and important Israeli cultural mission, and which needs distinguish itself through its mission from all other national theatres of the world — why does Habima come to the wider world precisely with Dybbuk? Well, if Habima performs Medea, he, L. Chazan can have nothing against it. It’s a bit of Ancient Greek. It’s no trifle! Greek culture! Oh ho! If Habima performs Hamlet — it goes without saying they may do that. ‘It belongs to all times and all states.’ But Dybbuk?
After all his arguments in connection with the artistic worth of Dybbuk — arguments both correct and incorrect — Chazan comes to the very crux of his dissatisfaction: ‘The Dybbuk belongs to the Yiddish language; the theme of Dybbuk is an exotic one; the protagonists of Dybbuk are no longer there and we do not want these characters to represent us for the modern world.’ ‘It is very interesting,’ L. Chazan writes further, ‘that a French theatre critic, evaluating the piece Dybbuk, particularly spoke about it as a piece written in Yiddish…never has a theatre critic,’ says Chazan, ‘so missed the target as in this case….it is thoroughly true,’ he says further, ‘Dybbuk is a piece from Yiddish, from the era of Yiddish and Polish exile. And we live in our land now, our language is Hebrew, and we are all Hebrews…’
Very simple and very clear. The protagonists of Dybbuk are no longer there. Poland is no longer there — why does L. Chazan need them on the stage? And with Yiddish, he is also finished. He says a word and the era of Yiddish is done. Over! The protagonists of Dybbuk are no longer there for him, Yiddish is no longer there for him; but the protagonists of Medea — Oh, they, and Greek, live for him! He truly can’t cope without them! His grandfather and his great grandfather, without Medea, without Hamlet, could not set themselves to prayer, not Shacharit and certainly not Musaf, and to Kol Nidre they certainly could not go, without first reading a scene, let us say, from Othello or a verse by Homer!
When the Greek gods strangle one another — this is great art! Greek art! Take the shoes from your feet! But a Yiddish oath-demand of a solemn pact, a punishment for breaking a promise, a cry of conscience— this is ‘exile’ and ‘the Yiddish era’ which belongs to ‘Yiddish protagonists who are no longer there.’ Yes, they are no longer there. Rejoice, Jews, with Medea!
Better still that the editors of Haboker make mention that L. Chazan writes on his own recognisance. The editorship distances itself from it. It is certainly good. But Yediot Aharonot and Hapoel Hatzair print anti-Yiddish nonsense — and the editors don’t make a peep at it. It means that they agree.
In my present visit to Israel, the Union of Yiddish Writers arranged a reception in honour of my coming in the Ohel Hall in Tel Aviv. There was a large crowd. A festive atmosphere. Our beloved Avrom Sutzkever led the evening. Naturally, he spoke in Yiddish. Naturally, the guest spoke in Yiddish. The greeter from the Hebrew Writer’s Union was our beloved Yochanan Twersky.2 Naturally, he greeted and spoke about the guest in Hebrew. Naturally, he would not have sinned if he had spoken in Yiddish. God and His angels would not have assembled to condemn Y. Twersky for this. But Twersky spoke in Hebrew, and what he said and how he said it was very successful.
With a sense of good humour he, beginning his remarks, said that hearing the speaker before him, he was almost tempted to also start speaking in Yiddish, as though the evening took place in a country whose language was Yiddish.
It didn’t much please the writer from Yediot Aharonot, Asher Nahor,3 and he took his pen-sword in hand and went off into a fight for the honour of Hebrew which was — Heavens, open and storm! — profaned at the evening — by whom? — By Yochanan Twersky himself! About the other profaners, out of the question. With what had Twersky profaned, according to Nahor, the honour of Hebrew? In that he had, at the evening, allowed the impression to be made that ‘Yiddish and Hebrew are two equal languages in the State of Israel,’ and in that Sutzkever and the guest also ‘tied together in one bond the Yiddish writer and the Hebrew Writer. Such a thing can only happen in an Eskimo-land. The Yiddish writers should know that Israel is no Eskimo-land. And Twersky was obligated not to allow, as if in an Eskimo-land, speaking about Hebrew and Yiddish in the same breath.’
Asher Nahor cannot bear such a thing. I suppose that he has already surely sent away a form of complaint to the infernal administration of all higher worlds, and he has surely crafted his indictment with the witness testimony of that wise expert who that that with Yiddish, one only goes to the gas chamber and with Hebrew one only goes to Sinai. Both Asher Nahor and that sage deserve a medal. One medal for the both. And Yochanan Twersky needs to be punished at the very least with fifteen years of hard labour. And as in Israel there exists, thank God, no katorga, it is indeed terrible! One must rely on the Lord of Hell.
And now you have the apotheosis of the anti-Yiddish paranoia amongst our own writers:
In Hapoel Hatzair, a weekly spread from Mapai, there were, a week after my departure from Israel, published notes from the mentioned Meir Mohar, and the first of these notes was dedicated to the writers of these lines as a sort of parting word. Some farewell! Gallant and knightly! Our M. Strigler4 has already commented a bit about it in Kemfer, 29 November. He gave a summary of Mohar’s gallant words. I think that it is just to present it without summary. The words of his highness, Mohar, against the ‘handmaiden’ Yiddish should be lit with all illuminations.
Meir Mohar’s note is called ‘In Leivick’s Ears.’ I, called Leivick, should, it seems, head and listen. What should I hear? — This: ‘With all the love and respect that we display toward the poet, it would be a sin on our part if we didn’t allow him to hear clearly, as clearly as can be, these words: Tear from your heart every hope that Yiddish will be built in the State of Israel. There is no place for Yiddish in our country, not because we hate the language. Our Hebrew language will never be removed from our mouths and from the mouths of our children and children’s children. There is no place for partnership! And if a portion of people still, in the meantime, speak Yiddish, it is as if saying that a portion of people still sit in Krakow and Lemberg. But Krakow and Lemberg aren’t ours. Cruel reality showed it to us. It is also so with Yiddish, a language which is thoroughly German and one cannot purify it for the sake of its Hebrew words and Hebrew letters, which it has ‘borrowed’ from our Hebrew language. One cannot purify a language which is foreign to us in every way. And we are not to blame in that many writers and poets have given their strength away to a stranger, and so squandered their precious strength. This was a quiet betrayal on the part of a great number of our people’s children, who follow foreign peoples and turn to foreign gods. And Hebrew Israel, through Hebrew literature, corrects that sin and together with the ugliness of exile, those people will be spit out of us. Di Goldene Keyt,5 (‘Die Goldene Kette’ in German) will not hold here, either, as the whole people will know our language and will return to it with their whole heart and with their whole mouth. Hagar the Egyptian came into the world only for this, in order that Sarah, Abraham’s wife, should be built through her, and not the reverse. There were days when that handmaid despised her mistress and wanted to usurp her and great were the number of those who supported the handmaid. May the Almighty be blessed, who did not remove His grace from those who remained loyal to His language. And what relevance the Egyptian Hagar, she has for herself all of America! Worry about her there, sustain her, and travel about with her there.’
Well, how do you like that, Jews of America? Lord Meir Mohar gives the whole handmaid away to you for you to sustain her. And he, Lord Mohar, no longer needs to have, it seems, the American Jew. He won’t even wink at the handmaid any longer, won’t go sniffing in her kitchen and incite his evil impulse.
Lord Mohar insists that I ought to wrest from my heart every hope that the handmaid will be built in Israel. A long time indeed, incidentally, since I have heard that lovely title of handmaid. A long, long time not heard it. A great thanks to Lord Mohar for mentioning it.
If every hope must be torn from the heart is a great question. It is certainly no a question, nor a doubt, that such a nettle as Mohar must be torn out of the cultural garden in Israel.
And of Hapoel Hatzair itself, I want to ask: Since when is a worker ashamed of a handmaid? Since when is a ‘worker’ a more privileged lord than a handmaid? What does a handmaid do? She cleans houses, she washes laundry, she cooks meals, she peels potatoes. And what does a worker do? — He chops wood, he carries water, he cleans cities, he digs the earth — what makes him greater than the handmaid?…
As for me, I say without irony that it very much suits me to be cavalier to a handmaid.6
H. Leivick, Tog, 21 December, 1957
Onward to Part 8
Stamps from 1980, designed by A. Glaser. Borrowed from here.
Israeli writer and dramatist.
Mordecai Strigler, writer and editor — eventually of the Forverts.
Israel’s major Yiddish literary magazine, founded by the already-mentioned Avrom Sutzkever.
I’ve had a look at this particular quote before, in relation to Leivick’s frequent use of imagery from Don Quixote in connection to Yiddish.