Woman with Shells – La Mer (The Sea) and La Mere (The Mother). Ruth Davidson Abrams. Oil on canvas. 1956. Yeshiva University Museum.

I Am Woman
by Malka Heifetz Tussman
translated from the Yiddish by Marcia Falk 

I am the exalted Rachel
whose love lit the way for Rabbi Akiba.

I am the small, bashful village girl
who grew up among the tall poplars
and blushed at the “Good morning” of her brother’s tutor.

I am the pious girl
who paled as her mother raised her hands to her eyes
for the blessing over the Sabbath candles.

I am the obedient bride
who humbly bent her head beneath the shears
the night before the wedding.

I am the rabbi’s daughter
who offered her chaste body to save a Jewish town
and afterwards set fire to herself.

I am the woman of valor 
who bored and fed children
for a promised bit of paradise.

I am the mother
who, in great hardship,
raised sons to be righteous men.

I am the Hassid’s daughter
infused with her father’s fervor,
who went out defiant, with her hair cropped,
to educate the people.

I am the barrier-breaker
who freed love from the wedding canopy.

I am the pampered girl
who set herself behind a plow
to force the gray desert into green life.

I am the one whose fingers
tightened around the hoe,
on guard for the steps of the enemy.

I am the one who stubbornly 
carries around a strange alphabet
to impart to children’s ears.

I am all these and many more.
And everywhere, always, I am woman.

–

Click here to read more about Malka Heifetz Tussman, and click here to read more about Yiddish literature in the United States.

Submitted by Sarah Ponichtera, Center for Jewish History.