National Poetry Month
On a Poem by Leyb Kvitko
by J.D. Arden, M.L.I.S. candidate, Reference Services Research Intern, Center for Jewish History
Inscrutable Cat
by Leyb Kvitko (c.1890-1952),
translated from Yiddish by A. Mandelbaum & H. Rabinowitz
This poem is taken from The Penguin Book of Modern Yiddish Verse, published in 1987, and is one of many such books available in the Lillian Goldman…
National Poetry Month
On a Poem by Yehudah Amichai
by J.D. Arden, M.L.I.S. candidate, Reference Services Research Intern, Center for Jewish History
The poem “First Resurrection” (תחייה ראשונה) is from the poem cycle “Four Resurrections in the Valley of the Ghosts” by Yehudah Amichai (יהודה עמיחי 1924-2000), read in Hebrew above by writer Leon Wieseltier as part of the “CultureBuzz” Amichai poetry series on…
Alice Davis Menken was “born to privilege in 1870 and [she] married into wealth in 1893,” as Michael D. Feldberg explains in Blessings of Freedom: Chapters in American Jewish History. Menken “dedicated her life to helping Jewish women less fortunate than herself" (p. 106).
We can guess from Alice Davis Menken’s personal papers—which live here at the Center for Jewish History in…
Herbst
by Joseph Roth
(Click on the images for enlarged views.)
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The Leo Baeck Institute Archives contains a folder of poetry written by Joseph Roth in the First World War (probably 1917). Today remembered as a writer of fiction, Roth wrote numerous poems as well, especially when he was younger. This is his poem “Herbst” (“Autumn”), which was published. You can see both…
Not a Children’s Song
by Mascha Kaléko
(Click on the above images for enlarged views.)
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Mascha Kaléko was born in Western Galicia, but eventually settled in Berlin during her teenage years. She became involved in the Berlin literary scene and was a regular at the Romanisches Café, a known hangout for artists in Berlin. In 1933, as the environment for Kaléko…