"What's true of all the evils in the world is true of the plague as well. It helps men to rise above themselves”. (Albert Camus, ‘The Plague’, June 1947).
A white tower’d gallery
by a river near the sea
frames women, three.
Sweet waters run softly till they end their song.
Slipped tight behind
mud-fogged glass,
time honours all
who’ve In these ancient
waters passed.
Why do they yet mourn
by God’s slim river, now
we’ve regained Zion?
Full fathoms five,
neither blind to the magic,
nor deaf to the melody,
see the needle-pointed
pearls that are their eyes,
those knitted brows.
Hark that silenced chargrilled
voice; a patterned arm.
Look how that behatted,
urchin charm plays on.
This falling house never
fell; no girl bathed
upon its bridal roof;
no royal watcher
gloated on the
embroidered truth.
Sweet waters run softly till they end their song.
© Natalie Wood (12 April 2019)Cry me a river!
Don’t laugh at
my belief in man;
at my belief in you,
little river.
Cry on, tho’ your
waters meet the
sea and herein ends
this song.
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Four modern Hebrew poets whose work has had such a profound impact on Israeli life and culture that their verses are sung in kindergartens while one has given a name to a recent war.
What’s more, observed Dr Eli Ben Joseph addressing the English speakers group at the Emet Veshalom Progressive Synagogue in Nahariya, northern Israel, it is thrilling to note that Rachel Bluwstein – known universally as ‘the poet Rachel’ – was the first woman to write in Hebrew since the biblical judge, Deborah.
Dr Ben Joseph, a US-born Israeli of 44 years standing, who taught English as a foreign language at the Western Galilee College near Acco, also examined the work of Leah Goldberg, Yehuda Amichai and Chaim Nachman Bialik, who is regarded as Israel’s national poet.
As present-day Israel is still the home of the ‘People of the Book’, it is difficult to exaggerate what has been described as the ‘mythological ‘status’ of personalities like these four:
There are signposts to the cemetery near Lake Kinneret in Tiberias where Rachel lies. Bialik’s Tel Aviv house, converted into a museum, is a major tourist attraction while streets, a moshav and a suburb of Haifa are named after him. Goldberg, like Rachel, is among four poets featured on Israeli banknotes while it is said that Amichai is the most translated Hebrew language poet since King David!
But here I would like to examine an aspect of Bialik’s life not touched upon either by Dr Ben Joseph or former UK MP and broadcaster Michael Portillo, who featured the poet in his BBC documentary, Rail Journey in the Land of Israel, and that was screened last night for an ESRA Karmiel crowd.
It is something I thought about in relation both to the ‘Kaddish’ prayer protest in London last month and historic rows in world Jewry from biblical times onward.
The poet was born into a traditional Orthodox Jewish Russian family and studied at Talmudic academies in Russia and Lithuania. But as a young adult he drifted away from the life for which he had been prepared and it appears that there were those in ultra-strict circles who viewed his later activities as behaviour somewhere between gross disrespect and brazen treachery.
So they burned his books!
Bialik wrote in Yiddish as well as Hebrew, so it is not clear from what I have read what caused so much animus among the ultra-religious. I would welcome input from anyone who reads this feature.
Meanwhile, in view of the innumerable anti-Jewish book burnings that have occurred in history, it is hard to over-dramatise the malice that may inspire one set of Jews to thus destroy another Jew’s work on a matter of so-called religious principle.
But it is clear that Bialik’s stature and legacy prove he had already won the argument almost without breaking into a sweat. He continues to be regarded as Israel’s best known, most loved literary giant while his enemies lie as dust and ashes, their work forgotten – except in relation to him.
