07 Leket Mann of Madonnas and Magdalenes A

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Jiddistik heute

ה סעידו ש עשיד יי

Yiddish Studies Today

לק



J i d d i s t i k

E d i t i o n amp F o r s c h u n g

Y i d d i s h

E d i t i o

n s amp R e s e a r c h

ג

שרא

ןא

א

א

ש

דיי

ISBN 978-3-943460-09-4

9 783943 460094

Der vorliegende Sammelband לeroumlffnet eine neue Reihe wissenschaftli-cher Studien zur Jiddistik sowie philolo-

gischer Editionen und Studienausgaben

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in Deutschland ein im Jahre von

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Jiddistik und dessen interdisziplinaumlren

Umfeld ins Leben gerufenes Forum

Die im Band versammelten Essays zur

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Herausgegeben von

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Roland Gruschka und Simon Neuberg


ישע שטודיעס ה ט ד יי לקט

Jiddistik heute



Yidish oysgabes un forshung Jiddistik Edition amp Forschung Yiddish Editions amp Research

Herausgegeben von Marion Aptroot Efrat Gal-EdRoland Gruschka und Simon Neuberg

Band 1

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Leket


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Printed in Germany



The human psyche is an awesome labyrinth Thousands of beingsdwell there The inhabitants are the various facets of the individual rsquo spresent self on the one hand and fragments of his inherited self on

the other1

The inherited selves referred to by the writers of the manifesto aא ן זdocument describing both the general conditions of modernist poetryand the special circumstances of the Jewish poet shaped the writingof lyric poetry and manifested themselves in various and often contra-dictory ways These inherited selves refer to the cultural and historicaltouchstones which inform the poet rsquo s artistic world the notion of frag-ments of course resonates strongly as a modernist trope 8520701048681guring cen-trally in the closing of T S Eliot rsquo s ldquo The Waste Land rdquo ( ldquo these fragmentsI shore against my ruins rdquo ) Yet for the Jewish poet the notion of thefragment seems in this instance at least to a be a constitutional ndash rath-er than only a recuperative ndash act That is the essential gesture is one ofproduction of constituting the self in the present tense out of variouselements of one rsquo s individual and collective past and not an act of re-covery per se of reassembling some lost wholeness The Yiddishist rsquo sawesome labyrinth then more resembles the Freudian notion of theunconscious as an archaealogical site which may be excavated in orderto productively empower the self in the face of the present This essayexamines a speci8520701048681c set of inherited selves in the work of Anna Margo-lin ( 1887 ndash 1952 ) and Leah Goldberg ( 1900 ndash 1970 ) contemporaries andkey 8520701048681gures in modern Yiddish and Hebrew poetry respectively I offfera comparative reading of work from their books ל דער ( Poems 1929 )

and ( Smoke Rings 1935 ) focusing on poems that incorporateטבעות עשןfemale 8520701048681gures connected to Christianity as a mode of poetic self-ex-pression

The 8520701048681gure of Jesus played an essential role for modernist Jewishartists ndash from the more well-known work of Marc Chagall to the ubiq-uitous 8520701048681ctional and poetic renderings of Jesus in both Hebrew and Yiddish writing2 Indeed what has been called ldquo the Jewish reclamation

1 Glatshteyn Leyeles and Minkov 1986 7752 See for example Stahl 2008

Barbara Mann

Of Madonnas and Magdalenes

Reading Mary in Modernist Hebrew and Yiddish Women rsquo s Poetry



50 נט ה סע דוטש עש ד לקט

of Jesus rdquo has surfaced in numerous circumstances3 These modernistsbuilt on the groundwork laid by Moses Mendelsohn rsquo s early invocationof Jesus as connected to Jewish teachings as well as 19th-century dis-tinctions between the historical Jesus who was closely identi8520701048681ed as a Jew and the theological Jesus a Christian invention However in thepoems by Goldberg and Margolin examined here it is not Jesus whoplays a leading role in the poetic rendering of the Christian-Europe-an landscape Rather this position is occupied in polymorphous andevolving fashion by the 8520701048681gures of the Virgin Mary and Mary Magda-lene This variation on the Jesus theme may be understood not onlyas an exemplary instance of the modern Jewish lsquo reclamation rsquo of Jesus

but also within the broader emergent domain of women rsquo s poetry inHebrew and Yiddish4

Looking at the Mary 8520701048681gure in the work of two exemplary womenpoets one of whom wrote in Hebrew and the other in Yiddish offfers anopportunity to explore how women poets negotiated the broader are-na of Jewish literary production It remains a matter of critical debate whether the same kind of ldquo politics of exclusion rdquo operated in the Yid-dish sphere as has been located within Hebrew literary history5 How-ever one may view the use of the 8520701048681gure of Mary as a kind of symbolicintervention denoting the presence of women poets within a male-dominated 8520701048681eld and within the normatively patriarchal parametersof traditional Jewish culture The divergent poetic adoptions of Maryby Goldberg and Margolin may also be understood within modern-ism rsquo s more general recovery of motifs from the classical world and the Judeo-Christian tradition6 Indeed we might compare this relativelyinfrequent turn to Mary to the more numerous references to biblicalmatriarchs such as Sarah or Rachel or even to more ostensibly mar-ginal 8520701048681gures such as Hagar Lot rsquo s wife or Yiftach rsquo s daughter Howeverperhaps for obvious reasons Mary is not as easily absorbed as a poetic

3 Hofffman 2007 14 This essay therefore builds on the work of recent decades regarding the historical sig-ni8520701048681cance of modernist women rsquo s poetry in Hebrew and Yiddish as well as appreciations ofindividual poets and their work See Hellerstein 1988a Gluzman 1991 Miron 1991 Nover-

shtern 1990 and 2008 Sokolofff Lapidus Lerner and Norich 1992 Karton-Blum and Weiss-man 2000 Mann 2002 Zierler 2004 and Brenner 20105 For arguments about women writers and Hebrew literary history see Miron 1991 andGluzman 1991 For related discussions about Yiddish see Hellerstein 1988a and 1992 andNovershtern 20086 Shocham 2000 provides a compelling account of the intertextual use of canonical ormythical women 8520701048681gures in Leah Goldberg rsquo s work arguing that her poems critique the im-age of women in a patriarchal society from within by building on and revising those verytexts which have produced stereotypical images of women as weak or fragile She also trac-es a delicate relation between the paradoxical fragility and strength of these 8520701048681gures andGoldberg rsquo s own life and sense of self



Barbara Mann Of Madonnas and Magdalenes 51

8520701048681gure as these more readily identi8520701048681able Jewish matriarchs Indeed thepoems discussed below play upon the distinction between the histor-ical 8520701048681gure of Mary and her iconic depiction within the Church and itsinstitutions If Hebrew and Yiddish writing about Jesus often drew onthe tropes of sufffering compassion and especially victimhood to char-acterize their visions of Christ what parallel themes might these ( wo-men ) writers have extracted from the life of Mary and to what ends The experience of unrequited love as well as the dilemmas of sexualityand motherhood all appear in these poems couched within a 8520701048681gurecalled Mary and her iconic representation

The images of Mary point to large issues of cultural expression in

both Goldberg rsquo s and Margolin rsquo s work including the creation of a fe-male poetic subject in modern Hebrew and Yiddish writing Broadlyspeaking I will argue that for Margolin the Mary 8520701048681gure seems connect-ed to her idiosyncratic reading of Christianity rsquo s penchant for ldquo the wordas such rdquo to the text as the forging link between the material conditionsof the body and the transcendent claims of the spirit For Goldberg im-ages of Mary refer to the poet rsquo s cultural and psychological roots in theEuropean landscape and also ndash vicariously ndash to a devotional traditionsuggesting a transcendent or sublime view of art Hence in Margolin rsquo s work we 8520701048681nd an imagining of a 9831421048684esh-and-blood 8520701048681gure named ldquo Marie rdquo aMary who speaks7 while in Goldberg rsquo s work we 8520701048681nd iconic renderingsor artistic representations of the Virgin Mary or Mary Magdalene butnot a 9831421048684esh-and-blood Mary herself The work of both poets may also beproductively read within the tradition of the - Yiddish supplicatoתח נותry prayers spoken and even at times written by women and addressedto the biblical matriarchs8 While the connection between תח נות andmodern Yiddish poetic subjectivity has been compellingly drawn byKathryn Hellerstein9 the link between this pre-modern mode of fe-male expression and modern Hebrew poetry remains to be explored Iam not concerned here with the question of in9831421048684uence per se betweenGoldberg and Margolin10 nor do I assume a direct experience by thesepoets of the older literary forms of female self-expression Rather I am

7 These poems have also been translated under the title ldquo Marie rdquo and there is no criticalconsensus as to their engagement with Christian themes I rsquove used ldquo Mary rdquo here to stressthe thematics but would also note the historically interchangeable quality of these namesespecially in the Gospels8 See Weissler 19989 See Hellerstein 1988 b10 That said it doesn rsquo t hurt to know that Margolin rsquo s work was probably known in Tel Avivduring the 1930s she herself had lived in Tel Aviv for a few years during her marriage to the writer Moshe Stavi Stavski We even have Reuven Ayzland rsquo s record of a letter written to herby Ch N Bialik from the early 1930s in response to his receiving her book See discussion inMann 2002




interested in the broader domain of intertextuality within literary his-tory and also what Chana Kronfeld has called ldquo historical intertextualaff8520701048681liations rdquo Kronfeld uses the phrase to describe the aff8520701048681nity of Ka9831421048683a rsquo s work for intertextual models prevalent in early modern Hebrew and Yiddish literature Similarly by employing a more comparative ldquo kalei-doscopic vision rdquo and imagining Goldberg rsquo s and Margolin rsquo s ldquo multipleliterary aff8520701048681liations rdquo we gain a richer and more nuanced understandingof their work and its meaning for literary history11

1 ldquo Being a Beggarwoman rdquo Anna Margolin rsquo s Mary

The case of Anna Margolin is complicated Her poetry was part of theenormous 9831421048684owering of Yiddish verse in New York in the interwar pe-riod12 In recent years she has come to serve for better and for worseas an exemplar of that perpetually productive but often fuzzily drawncategory ldquo woman rsquo s writing rdquo both for her work rsquo s emotional power as well as for the often dramatic details of the life story in which it wasembedded Indeed there is something about the work ndash despite its rel-atively meager size just a single slim volume ndash that demands atten-tion In part there is the audacious opening lyric which may or maynot be a lsquo signature rsquo poem ( see discussion below ) Beyond that how-ever the dazzling range of the book rsquo s stylistic achievements demandsattention ndash is even hungry for it is Margolin the Henry Roth of modern Yiddish poetry What does her subsequent treatment and receptiontell us about the history of Yiddish poetry Of women rsquo s writing Giventhe meager quantity of her work and perhaps also because of what weknow about the conditions of its production we come up against animpasse of sorts that forces us to ask what kind of circumstances leadto an ldquo Anna Margolin rdquo The 8520701048681ctiveness of the name only exacerbatesthe desire to know what historical and social conditions conspired toproduce such work both the poems themselves and their ongoing crit-ical reception13 For our purposes we may note that Margolin was bornin Brisk ( Brest-Litovsk ) and like Goldberg her family passed through

Koumlnigsberg Though not of the same socio-economic class both girls were educated in secular maskilic settings and affforded the opportu-nity to study Russian and eventually Hebrew This cosmopolitan vir-tuosity is at the heart of Margolin rsquo s verse Her poem ב ן געווען א מאל אנגל נג א ( ldquo I once was a youth rdquo ) opens her only published volume ofpoems ( New York 1929 )ל דער

11 Kronfeld 1996 11 f12 For her stylistic aff8520701048681liations with andד ונגע see Novershtern 1990א נז כ סטן13 Novershtern 1991 provides essential archival material connected to Margolin her workand her life




I once was a youthheard Socrates in the porticosmy bosom friend my loverin all Athens had the 8520701048681nest torso 14

The poem contains some of the hallmarks of Margolin rsquo s verse a deli-berate masking of the poetic self in this case within a cross-genderedpersona a focus on the aesthetic domain and the world of man-madeobjects a delight in unexpected rhymes often drawing on Yiddish rsquo spolyphonic resources as a fusion language and an iconoclastic but

enduring relation to the realm of Jewish ritual and experience Thepoem concludes with this multivalent 8520701048681gure reveling in the late Romanempire hearing rumors of Christianity rsquo s impending rise ldquo I heard thenewsof the weakling from Nazareth and wild stories about the Jews rdquoFrom the margins the poetic speaker marks his distance from Westernculture rsquo s historical foundations ( ldquo wild stories about the Jews rdquo ) as wellas the equally preposterous ascension of Christ The Judeo-Christiantradition is held as it were close but at arm rsquo s length the better to bothmarvel over and critique it

Worship is a central theme in Margolin rsquo s work The imagery of private often de8520701048681ant worship in the face of an unresponsive divinity isthreaded throughout her poems and often coded in erotic terms Thesescenes of worship combine elements of traditional Jewish life with amodernist sensitivity to the seductiveness and power of sculpted objects 15 The prose poem - addressing a lover offfers a typically claustroדוphobic scene of love and devotion in a materially rich setting 16

Within the seven poems of the Mary cycle we 8520701048681nd these realms ndash Jew-

ish ritual a modernist embrace of ldquo the thing itself rdquo and dramatic erot-icism ndash embedded within another domain Christianity and the 8520701048681gure

14 Translations are taken from Margolin 2005 unless otherwise indicated ( here Margolin2005 2 f ) Due to the relative accessability of the bilingual Kumove edition I have used it asa reference for the poems15 Avrom Novershtern has written persuasively about the importance of statues andsculptural motifs in Margolin rsquo s work the Mary poems both compliment and counter thisessential trope See Novershtern 1991 and Mann 200216 Margolin 2005 30 f

נגל נג ב ן געווען א מאל א אאטן ר ק אס סא ק ט ר אפ ן א טרעהעג

עס האט מן בוזעם ndash פרנד מן ל בל נגן ע ט א ן א סראט ןטסנעש םעד טאהעג

עמוא ענד ן א טאטש עט ג ז אב ןמ טס ב ןואעג ק ע ו ו א א האב טעמפלען וו סטע ט קע

שטעלט מנע געטער

For you are my conquered city In yoursad and empty temples I placed my gods




of the Virgin Mary Unlike the poems by Goldberg which as we shallsee below unequivocally reference the historical and iconic depictionof the Virgin Mary Margolin rsquo s poems need not be read as directly re-ferencing these themes17 However as a series the Mary cycle seems toextract certain tropes of the historical depiction of Mary ndash her statusas a mother her humility her appropriation by Church ideology ndash andcombine them with a 9831421048684esh-and-blood woman who exists within the so-cial and material realia of the twentieth century

The 8520701048681rst poem speaks directly to a 8520701048681gure called Mary וואס וו לסטו מאר ( ldquo What do you want Mary rdquo ) presents a pair of stereotypical-ly extreme choices in answer to its titular question the presence of a

child marking the only bright spot in an otherwise loveless domesticlife or a dramatic ecstatic union with the earth Unlike the Goldbergpoems below this series does not seem to describe or evoke a speci8520701048681cgeographical or social setting rather the constant trope is the 8520701048681gure ofMary who appears in almost Zelig-like fashion in a variety of scenes alone in the desert welcoming guests at a country wedding and 8520701048681nal-ly approaching her death וו ל זן א בעטלער ן מאר ( ldquo Mary wants to be abeggarwoman rdquo ) describes scenes of deliberate destitution and squan-dering of one rsquo s riches both material and emotional I will focus hereon two short poems ndash לה ת מאר ס ( ldquo Mary rsquo s prayer rdquo ) and דער און מאר פר סטער ( ldquo Mary and the priest rdquo ) ndash that offfer a dense rendering of po-tential couplings between Mary and a divine 8520701048681gure and Mary and apriest18

God meek and silent are the waysThrough the 9831421048684ames of sin and tears All roads lead to You

I built You a nest of loveand from silence a temple

I am Your guardian servant and lover yet I have never seen Your face

17 We should critically consider the reluctance to reading Margolin rsquo s Mary in this wayPerhaps Margolin herself resisted a more overt rendering of these themes Given her loveof ldquo mash-up rdquo rhymes that motivate assonant chunks to denote cultural hybridity may wealso read the M983137983154y poems as referring to some abbreviated ldquo essential rdquo version of M983137983154go-lin On the meaning of Margolin rsquo s rhyme see Mann 200218 Margolin 2005 188 f

וועגן ן ד ע נ ז םוטש ןוא ק דהעננכה טאגון טרערן ון ז נד און ער דורכן

רן צו ד ר אלע וועגן

ון ל בע געבו ט ד ר א נעסט האב און שט לק ט א טעמפל און

ב ן דן ה טער ן ד נסט און געל בטע א ק ן מאל נ ט געזען און דן פנ ם האב א




The poem opens with a direct address to God and describes possible ap-proaches to him ndash mute and silent through sin and tears The poem rsquo smiddle two couplets depict a more familiar relation between God andMary detailing what she has done to deserve his attention the inti-macy of the nest complimenting the rapt silence of the temple Sacredspace is often a supremely private afffair in Margolin rsquo s work where de-

votion takes place within a congregation of two The speaker rsquo s relationto God is both normative ndash she is his servant ndash and unusual ndash she hasprotected him and been his lover In none of these roles has she seenhis face an allusion to the biblical Moses which further elevates thespeaker rsquo s status this is no ordinary woman and her relation to her Godis commensurately privileged

The sudden shift in perspective in the poem rsquo s 8520701048681nal stanza ndash fromthe near-intimacy of the frustrated gaze to some distant spot at the world rsquo s edge ndash is an attempt to describe a relation to a distant Godrepresenting the Law and the Text within a normatively patriarchaltradition where the female form is often 8520701048681gured as a passive recepta-cle19 In an article on the feminist politics of translation Kathryn Hell-erstein reads the poem rsquo s conclusion as an attempt to imagine Mary rsquo spsychological and emotional state as she encounters the divine ForHellerstein ldquo [ t ]he last stanza [ hellip ] describes the moment of divine con-ception ndash a moment thoroughly foreign to a Jewish sensibility yet pre-sented in these Yiddish lines in the most intimate of terms rdquo 20 Heller-stein rsquo s reading hinges on the term ( translated here as lsquo servant rsquo )ה טער ןa term she links with Yiddish liturgical practice Indeed the liturgicalmodel standing in some fashion behind all Yiddish poetry by womenespecially a poem framed as a prayer is the - or prayer of supplicaתח נהtion a 8520701048681rst-person singular petition of the biblical matriarchs for theirblessing or aid with some instance of personal diff8520701048681culty The model of

prayer suggests a speci8520701048681c subject-object relation between God and thespeaker where the agency of the latter is predicated on the presence ofthe former Margolin rsquo s poems put pressure on this relationship re-en-

19 The poem rsquo s closing spatial image calls to mind the idea of ldquo circumference rdquo an import-ant term for Emily Dickinson also used to signal a woman poet rsquo s encounter with the divineand its limits within Western tradition20 See Hellerstein 2000

ון דער וועלט או ן ראנד ל ג און און טו ט שעה ד מ ר וו נסטער דור ג סט און דו

א בר טע בל צנד קע שווערד ג סט וו

I lie at the edge of the world while You pass through me darkly like the hour of death You pass like a broad 9831421048684ashing sword




visioning it to suggest a kind of divine power for the poet who creates within the charged yet ultimately secular domain of the lyric

In the following poem in the series פר סטער דער און Mary isמאר8520701048681gured as the object through which the devotional act transpires 21

Here the priest and Mary-the-goblet are lovers whose mutual devo-tion potentially leads to Mary rsquo s annihilation just as the divine unionaugured the ldquo hour of death rdquo of לה ת In a typically Margolianמאר ס rifff the poem stresses the overlap of ostensibly competing religious tra-ditions through its juxtaposition of Hebraic terms such as מזבח withthe Germanic An even more ancient tradition is referencedפר סטערin the poem rsquo s concluding allusion to ldquo forgotten gods rdquo The vitality ofthese געטער רגעסענע א endures even as the Judeo-Christian ethic isforged In both poems the liturgical setting offfers an opportunity to ex-plore the freedom of the creative act which is itself potentially self-de-structive

The 8520701048681gure of the sword in לה ת both phallic and pen-likeמאר ס appears in two other places in Margolin rsquo s work A brief discussion ofthese other references will shed light on the complex subject-object re-lations of the Mary series The sequence דן שווערד דן רו און א א ( ldquo I your rest and I your sword rdquo ) details an often-stormy erotic relationshipThe speaker looks down upon her sleeping lover and offfers an incan-tation 22

Drowse on my beloved drowse onhellipI your peace and I your swordnow watch over heaven and earthEvery star in amazement hears what I whisper in your sleep

21 Margolin 2005 190 f I have modi8520701048681ed the 8520701048681rst line of the translation22 Ibid 35 f

ר ב סט א בעכער מ ט אפערוון מאררונד קטער בעכער מ ט וון א א צארט

ן מזבח ט ס ו ו ר א או ף אא פר סטער

אמע הענט ז ג נ אל ע ק נ אלש ט מעם בעכער נ ע ל אטש רק םעד ה בט או ף הו

א ן זנע או גן א ן זנע הענטאון עס צ טערט דן לעבן און ברענטן און שווערן ש ט אטסקע ק לג ן א ל וו ןוא

צעשמעטערט ווערן

Mary you are a goblet of the wine offferinga delicately rounded goblet of wineon a sacri8520701048681cial altar A priest with delicate cautious handsraises the crystal goblet high

Your life trembles and burnsin his eyes his handsand wants to be crushedin profound ecstatic joy

דר מל אן געל בטער דר מל דן שווערד דן רו און א א

א צט א בער ערד און ה מל וואעדער שטערן שטו נט און הערט

ל סטער א ן דן דר מל וואס א




The speaker becomes the sword itself poised from a heavenly per-spective the poem rsquo s rhythm swelling like a powerful chant whisperedby the speaker who is both guard and lover Signi8520701048681cantly the speakeris God-like and sword-like no longer the passive object of another rsquo sactions The connection between this 8520701048681gure of the sword and poetryis made more explicit in ל ד א ן בלו ז ( ldquo Just one poem rdquo ) in which theprogressive shaping and slicing of rhyme in the poem lead to the pro-duction of ldquo just one poemrdquo whose violent force resembles that of thedivine impregnating spirit at the end of לה ת ס ראמ 23

I have but one poem ndash

of despair and prideIt darkens and glowsin bronze and steelhellip

I shape the word with my last breath

Again and again with heavy memoriesI go through the poemslike a sword

Both of these short poems reverse the foundational subject-object re-lations of לה ת instead of being the object of the sword rsquo s ( orמאר ס God rsquo s ) actions it is the poet herself who moves like a sword throughher poems Artistic creation and procreation are fused in these po-ems with the poet assuming near-divine control poetry is the spacein which this trans8520701048681guration of spirit and body is possible ndash where the word shaped by the breath becomes an object where the crude chord( the poem ) becomes the sword wielded by the poet

2 ldquo Madonnas at the Crossroads rdquo Leah Goldberg rsquo s Native

Landscape

The elevation of ldquo forgotten gods rdquo points to Margolin rsquo s general engage-ment with multiple cultural aff8520701048681liations spanning the European conti-nent and the historical development of its cultural underpinnings Withthis 8520701048681gure of cultural complexity in mind we may begin to approach

23 Margolin 2005 174 f

mdash א ן ל ד האב בלו ז א

אוש און שטאלץ ון עס טונקלט און גל ט

ז און שטאל ד נ ארב ן א

ורעם דאס ווארט אם ע ט א ןטצעל ןמ ט מ

מ ט זכרונות שווערוו דער און וו דער

א שווערד וו א ג ל דער ד דור




the poems from Leah Goldberg rsquo s 8520701048681rst book עשן ( Smoke Rings )טבעות published in Tel Aviv in 1935 the same year the poet immigrated toPalestine Goldberg was a leading 8520701048681gure of the moderns the 8520701048681rst waveof Hebrew modernist poetry in Palestine and also a proli8520701048681c translatorfrom Russian German French and Italian in addition to nine volumesof poetry she published several novels a number of plays volumes ofliterary scholarship journalistic essays and a series of classic books forchildren

The poems considered here largely depict the impoverished Li-thuanian landscape of Eastern European Orthodoxy24 Throughout thepoems draw on diverse bits of the New Testament related to female

8520701048681gures and we may track the evolution of these references to Maryand Mary Magdalene to wooden madonnas and 8520701048681nally to nuns and a version of the poet herself in a sacri8520701048681cial setting The speaker in thesepoems is both drawn to and repelled by these 8520701048681gures using them todistinguish herself as a kind of local stranger an ambivalence capturedin Goldberg rsquo s description of Lithuania as ldquo that abandoned homeland which does not mourn for me rdquo25 The poems represent an attempt toinhabit the world of the other and to appropriate it for aesthetic pur-poses in this case a twenty-something Jewish woman poet whose8520701048681rst languages were Russian then German then Lithuanian choosesto write in Hebrew from the relative center of European culture andadopts Christianity ndash as funneled through its iconic female 8520701048681gures ndash inorder to become a poet

The 8520701048681rst poem ldquo Pietagrave rdquo draws on two familiar cultural motifs thePietagrave an artistic depiction often in sculptural form of the Virgin Marycradling Christ rsquo s dead body and the idea of autumn as a season of tran-sition and paradox marked by both abundance ( the harvest ) and decay( the approach of winter )26

Once again pathshellip the autumn rsquo s bloodOn the earth rsquo s wounds A boney pine branch [ hand ] stretchesToward the blind sky

Once again the weeping sadness of heavenover the corpse of the autumn earthLike a Madonna kneelingOver the body of the cruci8520701048681ed

24 See Hirshfeld 2000 and Ticotsky 200625 Goldberg 2007 1226 Goldberg 1986 ( 983145 ) 38

שוב ד כ ם 984531ם שלכת האדמה על פ ע

ומה נמשכת ר ג ןל א דמא ו ס ה קחשה לא

ם דומעת ו ר מ תגות בושת אדמת הסתו על גו

רעת ו כ ה הנ ו ד מכעל גופו של הנלב




The measured trochaic rhythms and regular repeating rhyme scheme

locate the poem within a European tradition of autumnal verse ad-dressing the paradoxical beauty of a vibrant yet decaying landscapeGoldberg rsquo s poem presents Mary in doubly-8520701048681gurative fashion on onelevel Mary is depicted in the Pietagrave an iconic rendering of her care forChrist on a second level the Pietagrave itself serves as an image for the au-tumn landscape The substance of seasonal change is rendered in mar-tyrological terms the fall foliage rsquo s sacri8520701048681ce is mourned by the heavens whose ldquo weeping rdquo suggests the movement of rain and wind The forestand the autumn collude in the poem rsquo s brief enigmatic dialogue in the8520701048681rst two lines of stanza 3 pre8520701048681guring a silence ndash děmāmāh ndash that isitself a condition for opening the gates of the ldquo Father rsquo s kingdom rdquo Wemay understand this proactive meeting between silence ( here ren-dered as ldquoděmāmāh rdquo grammatically gendered feminine in Hebrew andalso approximate to ldquo stillness rdquo ) and the masculine domain in semioticterms a female rendering of voice countering the masculine realm ofthe written Word the Law As in Margolin rsquo s work this valorization ofmuteness (děmāmāh in Hebrew or shtumkayt in Yiddish ) evokes a spe-cial form of agency and a poetics that connects their verse to the cre-ation of a neo-romantic voice For both Goldberg and Margolin I wouldargue the idea of silence as a potentially empowering state poses anessential question what kind of voice can a woman poet create with-in a patriarchal tradition especially within the fraught and genderedrealm of Hebrew and Yiddish writing 27 In the 8520701048681nal stanza against the

Pietagrave rsquo s traditional silence there emerges the voice of a Jewish presencein the land ndash Judah weeping for his sin ndash a presence both meteorolog-ical and metaphorical ndash ldquo wandering rdquo like a wind seeking redemptionand forgiveness

The main formal device indicating an intimate connection betweenthe season of both life and death and the Christian narrative of resur-

27 See Mann 2002 517

ער - לוחש ה Pietagrave- עונה הסתו Pietagraveו1050067ממה פותחת שער

ת מ כות האב ש לא

- פח ח מת ו ר ה קר הוה בוכה על חטא

ה 984552ע מנשק רגללבקש סל חת המת

Pietagrave ndash whispers the forestPietagrave ndash answers the autumn And silence opens a gateTo the calm of the Father rsquo s Kingdom

Only the wind howls ndash Judas weeping for his sinKissing the feet of his friend Asking forgiveness from the dead




rection is the repeated rhyme of sětāv and ẓělāv ( autumn and cross ) inthis poem and in the poem immediately following ldquo Madonnas at theCrossroads rdquo (ם כרד פרשת על ות נ ו ד מ) Whereas in ldquo Pietagrave rdquo Mary is ima-gined at a remove ndash both in the iconic image of the Pietagrave and as a me-taphor for the landscape ndash this distance is diminished in ldquo Madonnas atthe Crossroads rdquo 28 as the 8520701048681rst-person speaker expressly compares her-self forsaken in love to a group of wooden icons at a frozen crossroad

The poem rsquo s lonely congregation waits in vain one for her beloved theothers for the resurrection Their distance from redemption ndash they willneither kiss the blood on Christ rsquo s feet nor hear his laughter ndash is ab-solute and their devotion is further undercut at the end of the thirdstanza by the fact that he spoke the name of another woman šěmāh

šel hā-aḥeret This line seems to draw on diverse accounts from theNew Testament the naming of ldquohā-aḥeret rdquo could refer to the report ofChrist speaking the name of Mary Magdalene after his resurrection anact that surprised his disciples According to the diverse accounts ofthe Gospels Mary Magdalene was the 8520701048681rst witness to Christ rsquo s resurrec-tion Luke also mentions ldquo the other Mary rdquo who was present with Mary

28 Goldberg 1986 ( 983145 ) 39

ת לשוא ו כ ח הסכנת אנמ ם מבכ ם זכר ן ו ג בוות עץ על פ שת ד כ ם נ ו ד מ

ב 984551רח אור הסתו נ ו מ כ תוו ש

ת ו מ מ ו ד ו תו ל ב ץע תו נ ו ד מה תח ום עוד ק א ו1050067עות הוא

ה מ ו ד ב העמד ת ו ח מל או ב א הואת ו מ מוש 1050087פואות על אם דרכ ם

ו גר ם ו ד ה קשנ הן לא תזכ נהלד מנצרת ק ה ו ח צ תא ועמש ןהה

ו על הצ ב ה ו א ר םא םג המו1050088או את שמה של האחרת על שפת ו

מ ם מבכ ם ות ר כוז ןה 984538 א- ת השוא צפ ומסכ נות

על פ שת ד כ ם הן אנ ו מ ככה שו1050087טה ב 984551ח אור הסתו ה

I became accustomed to waiting in vain And to remembering without agony blessed days

Wooden madonnas at the crossroads Are calm like me in the ice of autumn light

Worn and silent wooden madonnasKnow he will not rise and come to lifeHe won rsquo t come to wipe away a tear in silenceat the frozen wasted crossroads

They won rsquo t get to kiss the blood on his feetDid they hear the laughter of the boy from Nazareth And what if they saw him on the cross

And on his lips they read another woman rsquo s name

But they remember blessed days And are accustomed to vain expectation ndashSo too am I at the crossroadsCold and so quiet in the ice of autumn light




Magdalene at the resurrection a reference to one of Lazarus rsquo s sistersalso called Mary In the Gospel of John this Mary is referred to by theGreek ldquo Mariam rdquo which is a translation used in the Septuagint of theHebrew Miriam Moses rsquo s sister some scholars have noted the prophet-ic or visionary qualities shared by these two 8520701048681gures 29 Goldberg seemsless interested in the potential overlap between Judaic and Christiansources and more drawn to the mutability of Mary herself her ability tobe both passive and active both silent and voiced The working throughof the multiple Marys engenders both empathy and an awareness ofdiffference

ldquo Peasant Woman Praying rdquo (תללפתמ ( אכר ת 30 also offfers a pastoral

scene involving a woman praying to a divine female presence

Mary rsquo s 8520701048681gurative nature is complicated by actual speech a peasant woman makes an offfering to an icon of Mary Magdalene thus trans-forming the name of the אחרת ndash ldquo the other woman rdquo ndash into a statueMagdalene rsquo s reputation as a penitent sinner makes her a logical site

for the women rsquo s confession In the 8520701048681nal line the cold heavens merelylaugh in response to her plea the eff8520701048681cacy of prayer the whole idea offaith is mocked even upended Yet there is something solid and invi-

29 There is thus some tension in Goldberg rsquo s poems between the relatively proactive stanceaccorded to both Miriam in the Hebrew Bible and Mary Magdalene in the New Testament ndash who are characterized by their ldquo going out rdquo ndash and the prolonged and passive waiting of bothspeaker and icons in this poem See Meyers 200530 Goldberg 1986 ( 983145 ) 40

נ ן על מ ח מ 853479מר ו ע בצ תחפטמ1050088חבה כפה תאחז בטנא דב 1050087ה שפת ם ו עמק ומר

מבט משפל מול פסל מגלנה

מר מול פסל עץ בלה ומ1050087ה כב ה עקשת תפלה

ם כפר הפע rdquo אם עונה של 1050087 984538דושה ומדשתldquo mdash mdash כ

ת ו פ ח ת רג ם שב 984538 אמה לה ו ק ת ן אש אטחה תומ מת ן ו ח טב

ת ו פ ח ןה עשפמ ןבומ הכות פ ו ש חה ת ו מ קה ולאכ

mdash ששחק ר צוחק להן מלמעלה

Colorful kerchief on wrinkled foreheadBroad hand palm grasping a basket A deep bitter line at lips rsquo edgeDowncast gaze facing a statue of Mary Magdalene

Facing a worn and stained wooden statue A brief heavy stubborn prayer ldquo If my sin is forgiven this timethis will be yours blessed and blessing one rdquo

But in the barefoot calma certainty of the sin rsquo s naivete which cannot be redeemed And so very clear they are innocent of sinLike the grain exposedTo cold heaven rsquo s laughter from above




ting about the landscape of peasant observance a process tied to theseasons and to a familiar landmark that has witnessed time rsquo s passageMoreover though the poem concludes by dismissing the devotionalact the woman herself seems transformed and comforted The ldquo bitter rdquoset of her lips her downcast face and mumbled words of prayer arelightened by the poem rsquo s end she may be barefoot but she is also ldquo atpeace rdquo While the speaker distances herself from what is perceived asa blind or ignorant act of faith there is also a grudging recognition ofthe ease with which the woman seems relieved of the burden of her sinThe cruelty of the poem rsquo s 8520701048681nal line recalls the impenetrability of theldquo Father rsquo s kingdom rdquo in ldquo Pietagrave rdquo but only from the point of view of the

speaker who stands outside the devotional act with some amount ofenvy Yes the speaker may admire these icons but she has no access totheir comfort or power

We have followed these poems as they grapple with the 8520701048681gure ofMary in all her diverse emanations from a muted metaphorical ren-dering in ldquo Pietagrave rdquo to wooden icons of Mary to actual prayer by an in-dividual woman facing a statue of Mary Magdalene These 8520701048681gurationsevolve one more time in the startling reversal ם נערה ו ל ח ( A young girl rsquo sdream )31 where the speaker imagines herself as Jesus being served byMary Magdalene The gender reversal in ldquo A Young Girl rsquo s Dream rdquo resem-bles Margolin rsquo s audacious impersonation of a young Greek hedonist whose time traveling ends at the margins of approaching ChristendomIn both poems we 8520701048681nd an attempt to poetically inhabit the world of theother to appropriate it for one rsquo s own aesthetic purposes

31 Ibid 71

ם נערה ו ל ח

ל 853480 ק ולרק תאמ הנומת - ldquoהשודקה הנלדגמ rdquo Kaiser Friedrich Museumבברל ן ב תאצמנ

- אתה שאנ ח מת אנ 853480 ק לש הנ דגמו

984538 מג שה מש 984551ה רותח הב בגב ע בדלח מצפה

mdash 984538 רו לתפנ שחנ mdash ת תלה ח ב עגונ הרבע מד

ה ו ר בט ח רמ ר ו כ ש כל גופ

A Young Girl rsquo s Dream

ldquo Holy Madgalena rdquo ndash painting by Carlo Crivellifound in the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Berlin

I dreamed that I was ndash you And Crivelli rsquo s Magdaleneserved me a boiling-hot drink pureIn a gold-crusted crystal goblet And her curls ndash a spiraling soft snakeOn each side ndash touch my cheeks And my whole body is drunk with the scent of tuberoses




The poem marks a distinct thematic and formal departure the settinghas moved indoors away from the pastoral landscape and into an in-

terior space of contemplation furthermore it is ekphrastic that is itdescribes a painting not an actual scene though given the epigraph wemay imagine the speaker standing in front of this particular painting ina speci8520701048681c location the Italian Renaissance channeled through a muse-um in Berlin The Hebrew term used is ldquomagdālenāh rdquo and not ldquo mariāhha-migdālīt rdquo the proper form of reference to the historical 8520701048681gure Butthis is precisely the point Goldberg is less interested in the historical8520701048681gure and more in her artistic representation as a Christian icon Thespeaker rsquo s thirst for the Magdalene destroys the memory of all else in-cluding the ldquo other woman rdquo ldquohā-aḥeret rdquo in this case the 8520701048681gure of a pale young girl ldquo No escaping Magdalena rdquo points to a kind of erotic servi-tude a cyclical condition of waiting and substitution that characterizesthe volume rsquo s poems of frustrated love

Critics have largely viewed the Christian imagery of Goldberg rsquo searly poems as a kind of immature and unripe stage (רסב) ndash what DanMiron has called her ldquo diasporic modernism rdquo 32 ndash something the poetneeded to get out of her system before addressing the proper Hebrewliterary business of the day ndash that is the national and social impera-tives of the Zionist movement Some have suggested that Goldberg rsquo sdepictions of women praying to statues especially matriarchal 8520701048681guresare foreign to Jewish tradition33 However if we think about these po-ems within the context of Yiddish poetry and the their scenesתח נותof female devotion do not seem so unusual A female address to the ma-

triarchs especially in times of trouble was a model for female liturgicalexperience in traditional Jewish life Furthermore the Madonna rsquo s griefand joy are references to life-events that are key features of the תח נותFinally we should note that the idea of women treasuring idols to thepoint of theft in fact has a solid biblical precedent The image of Rachelstealing the idols constitutes the metaphorical core of Wendy Zierler rsquo srecent study of the emergence of modern Hebrew women rsquo s writing

32 Miron 1999 33033 Ibid 350 See also Karton-Blum 2006

I dreamed that I was ndash you And the face of a pale young girl Was forever wiped from my memory And I am thirsty for Magdalena

And there was no way out of the dream rsquo s terror And no escaping Magdalena

- אתה שאנ חלמת אנת ח ה ענ לש הפוצ1050088 פועומ ם נ ו ר כזמ החמנ

מגדלנה מא אנכ

ם ו ל ח תע 984538ותמ אומ ה א הה מפ ט ממגנה א ה




in which she argues that women writers refashioned the language ofmen to create their own distinct literary tradition34Goldberg rsquo s countryscenes of a female speaker worshiping a female aspect or incarnationof the divine is just such a scene her poems domesticate the sacredrooting the divine in a speci8520701048681c location ndash this is what idols generallydo In fact modern Hebrew poetry also had its own internal exampleof a female address to a female deity ndash Saul Tchernichovki rsquo s עשתרת( ldquo My Astarte rdquo ) Tchernichovski rsquo s poem impersonates a female voiceל

addressing a religious amulet which itself represents a deity whois adamantly part of the pagan world The most well-known modernHebrew example of this general scene of addressing a statue may also

be found in Tchernichovski rsquo s work פסל אפולו לנוכח ( ldquo Facing a statueof Apollo rdquo 1899 ) where the poet declares an ambivalent aesthetic loy-alty to Hellenic culture That poem too reverberates within this laterdiffferent scene of worship instead of lěnōkhaḥ pesel apōlō mūl peselmagdalenāh This connection becomes more easily apparent with themediating example of Yiddish and the Of course it rsquo s true thatתח נות or any kind of prayer do not invoke actual statues but viewedתח נותas a model for modernist poetry liturgical texts may evoke ndash in muchthe same way that Margolin viewed her poems divinely shaped by herbreath as objects ndash with all the attendant seductiveness of other spiri-tual traditions with their relative openness to icons and idols

Among modernist Hebrew poets Goldberg rsquo s work does not displayan easily readable connection to Yiddish writing and culture and thisessay does not wish to claim her as a kind of lsquo covert rsquo Yiddishist Hertranslations from the Yiddish were far fewer for example than those ofher contemporary Avraham Shlonsky Yet we do 8520701048681nd in a late autobi-ographical statement by the poet an enigmatic reference to her fatheras a ldquo Yiddishist rdquo a term which perhaps had more of a political thana cultural connotation for the poet in this context 35 Furthermore theChristian motifs in her early work and their particular connection toItalian Renaissance painting represented a spiritual example for thepoet a religious experience which was not a part of her early familylife or childhood world Goldberg rsquo s poems do not highlight the foreign

quality of the Christian Mary in order to shore up her own Jewish-ness if anything the poems seem to want to make her more familiarto appropriate her in order to motivate a poetic utterance It is not thestrangeness of Mary that appeals but her grudging proximity her like-

34 Zierler 200435 השקפות ו אבל לשון הד בור בב ת ה תה רוס ת ה ה ד שסטאן לגב Goldberg 2007 b Theאבdocument dated 13th December 1968 was discovered in the Goldberg archives by GideonTicotsky




ness to the poetic speaker and her situation a strategy similar to thatfound generally in modernist Hebrew and Yiddish writing about Chris-tian motifs The proximity between the poetic speaker and Mary existsin situational terms that are emotional and afffective as well as broadlyspeaking cultural

Ariel Hirshfeld has argued that the early massive appeal of Gold-berg rsquo s poetry was due to the fact that it both recorded the psychic breakengendered by leaving Europe and its landscapes behind and intimat-ed the approaching physical destruction of these landscapes36 Indeedthe images of Mary in Goldberg rsquo s poems are ultimately connected tothe idea of home both actually and mentally Yet this lsquo home rsquo is certain-

ly not the social demography of the shtetl but perhaps that very samelandscape with few recognizably Jewish attributes The native land-scape is dotted with multiple Marys who were all historically speaking Jewish We also 8520701048681nd an expressly gentile 8520701048681gure ndash the praying peasant who turns out through the mediating example of the tkhine to resem-ble Jewish women at least in some respects

3 Hebrew and Yiddish Women Poets ndash A Room of Their Own

This essay addresses the broad domain of Hebrew-Yiddish literary rela-tions and begins to consider the implications of thinking critically andcomparatively about women poets within this wider sphere37 I havealready written about the possibility of a more ldquo visual rdquo poetics on thepart of Hebrew and Yiddish women poets given the less traditional cul-tural baggage brought by women poets to the production of a secularliterary genre in languages linked to sacred texts 38 Here I have exploreddiverse renderings of a central 8520701048681gure from the Western imaginationone which seems to have struck the fancy of two Jewish women writersliving liminally at its center in more or less the same cultural momentldquo Mary rdquo matters massively of course in narratives about Christian ori-gins yet her meaning difffers substantively from that of Jesus who asnoted above often appeared in Hebrew and Yiddish writing by male

authors Mary is both a creative agent of her own fate and a passivereceptacle of God rsquo s will the dual quality of which we have noted inpoems by both Margolin and Goldberg Perhaps this ambiguity suitedthe aesthetic needs of these women poets operating within normative-ly patriarchal literary systems

36 Hirshfeld 2000 13737 See Kronfeld 1996 Brenner 2010 and Schachter 201138 Mann 2004




An example from another tradition in which religious imagery 8520701048681g-ures heavily offfers an enlightening context for our purposes CynthiaScheinberg explores how Victorian Jewish women poets such as AmyLevy utilized religious tropes to critique literary norms governed by aChristian belief system Their poems represented in essence an in-tervention in these dominant norms and were related to the religiousimagery in work by more well-known non-Jewish poets like ElizabethBarrett Browning For example according to Scheinberg Milton rsquo s Pa-radise Lost ldquo present[ s ] Mary as the object of male narrational gaze andminimize[ s ] her active role in Christian history rdquo39 However we 8520701048681nd therelated 8520701048681gure of Mary Magdalene cast in a very diffferent role in Amy

Levy rsquo s poem ldquo Magdalen rdquo That poem alludes to an intimate physical re-lationship between Jesus and his female disciple but ultimately refusesto accept the transformation of their relationship after his resurrec-tion ndash a rejection of Christianity and an insistence on Magdalen rsquo s ( andthe poet rsquo s ) Jewish roots40 Obviously there exist signi8520701048681cant linguisticand cultural diffferences between the work of Anna Margolin and LeahGoldberg on the one hand and the Victorian milieu of Amy Levy onthe other However when we expand our purview beyond Hebrew and Yiddish modernism to consider work by Jewish women writers fromother periods we isolate gender as a category of analysis enabling usto better and more critically view the strategies historically deployed by women writers operating in these diverse social settings Embeddingthese insights in a more complex discussion of Margolin rsquo s and Gold-berg rsquo s work and its reception deepens our appreciation of the mean-ing of these two poets for Hebrew and Yiddish literary history In somesense their poetry exists at the canonical center of modernist literaryproduction in Hebrew and Yiddish ndash both for its formal innovation andfor the multiple cultural aff8520701048681liations that emerge through a close read-ing of their work At the same time however something about theseMary poems resists absorption into this consensual center pushingstubbornly against the cultural taboos governing the depiction of bothfemale agency and Christian icons offfering an alternative path for thereading of Jewish literary history

Bibliography

B983154983141983150983150983141983154 Naomi 2010 ldquo Slippery Selves Rachel Bluvstein and Anna Mar-

golin in Poetry and in Public rdquo In 983150983137983155983144983145983149 A Journal of Jewish Women rsquo sStudies and Gender Issues 19 100 ndash 133

39 Scheinberg 2002 7740 Ibid 220 f Levy rsquo s ldquo Magadalen rdquo also includes the line ldquo I wonder did God laugh in Heav-en rdquo




G983148983157983162983149983137983150 Michael 1991 ldquo The Exclusion of Women from Hebrew Literary

History rdquo In Prooftexts 11 ( 3 ) 259 ndash 278

G983151983148983140983138983141983154983143 Leah 1986 Šīrīm 3 vols Tel Aviv Sifriat hapoalim

ndash 2005 Yōmānēy Lēāh Gōldberg Tel Aviv Sifriat hapoalim

ndash 2007 a ( 1937 ) Mikhtavī m mi-něsī lsquoāh m ě dummāh Tel Aviv Sifriat hapo-

alim

ndash 2007 b ldquo Tōlědōt ḥayyīm rdquo In Haaretz 4 February 2007 http www

haaretzcoilliteraturepoetry11382965

G983148983137983156983155983144983156983141983161983150 Yankev Leyeles A[rn] and Minkov N[okhem] 1986 ldquo Intro-

spectivism [ manifesto of 1919 ] rdquo Transl by Anita Norich In Benjamin

Harshav and Barbara Harshav eds American Yiddish Poetry A Bilin-

gual Anthology Berkeley University of California Press 774 ndash 784H98315110486781048678983149983137983150 Matthew 2007 From Rebel to Rabbi Reclaiming Jesus and the

Making of Modern Jewish Culture Palo Alto 983139983137 Stanford University

Press

H983141983148983148983141983154983155983156983141983145983150 Kathryn 1988 a ldquo lsquo A Word for My Blood rsquo A Reading of Ka-

dya Molodowsky rsquo s lsquoFroyen-lider rsquo ( Vilna 1927 ) rdquo In 983137983146983155 Review 13 ( 1 ndash 2 )

47 ndash 79

ndash 1988 b ldquo A Question of Tradition Women Poets in Yiddish rdquo In Handbookof American Jewish Literature New York Greenwood Press 195 ndash 237

ndash 1992 ldquo From Ikh to Zikh A Journey from lsquo I rsquo to lsquo Self rsquo in Yiddish Poems

by Women rdquo In Naomi B Sokolofff Anne Lapidus Lerner and Anita

Norich eds Gender and Text in Modern Hebrew and Yiddish Literature

New York Jewish Theological Seminary 113 ndash 143

ndash 2000 ldquo Translating as a Feminist Reconceiving Anna Margolin rdquo In Prooftexts 20 ( 1 ndash 2 ) 191 ndash 208

H9831459831549831559831441048678983141983148983140 Ariel 2000 ldquo lsquoAl mišmār ha-nā rsquo īviyyūt lsquoal tafqīdāh ha-tar-

būtī šel šīrat Lēāh Gōldberg rdquo In Pěgīshōt lsquoim měshōreret masōtu-měḥqārīm lsquoal yěẓirātāh šel Lēāh Gōldberg Jerusalem Sifriat hapoal-

imHebrew University 135 ndash 151

K983137983154983156983151983150-B983148983157983149 Ruth 2006 ldquo Mū rsquoeket ha-ḥillōniyyūt ha-dī rsquoalōg lsquo im ha-brīt

ha-ḥadāšāh ba-sifrūt ha-yiśrě rsquo ēlīt rdquo In Dimui 27 7 ndash 32

ndash and Anat W983141983145983155983155983149983137983150 eds 2000 Pěgīshōt lsquoim měshōreret masōt u-měḥ-qārīm lsquoal yěẓirātāh šel Lēāh Gōldberg Jerusalem Sifriat hapoalimHe-

brew UniversityK9831549831519831501048678983141983148983140 Chana 1996 On the Margins of Modernism Decentering Litera-

ry Dynamics Berkeley University of California Press

M983137983150983150 Barbara 2002 ldquo Picturing Anna Margolin rdquo In Modern LanguageQuarterly63 ( 4 ) 501 ndash 536

ndash 2004 ldquo Jewish Imagism and the lsquo Mosaic Negative rsquo rdquo In Jewish Quarterly Review 11 ( 3 ) 282 ndash 291

M983137983154983143983151983148983145983150 Anna 1929 Lider New York n p

ndash 2005 Drunk from the Bitter Truth The Poems of Anna Margolin Shirley

Kumove ed and trans Albany 983155983157983150983161 Press




M983141983161983141983154983155 Carole 2005 ldquo Miriam Music and Miracles rdquo In Deirdre Good

ed Mariam the Magdalene and the Mother Bloomington University

of Indiana Press 27 ndash 48

M983145983154983151983150 Dan 1991 rsquo Immāhōt měyasddōt aḥāyōt ḥōrěgōt Tel Aviv Hakib-

butz hameuchad

ndash 1999 ldquo Ha-rsquoōmeẓ lěḥullīn u-qěrīsātō lsquoal ṭabbā rsquoōt lsquoāšān mē rsquo ēt Lēāh Gōld-

berg kě-taḥanat-ẓōmet bē-hitpatḥūt ha-šīrāh ha-lsquoivrīt ha-mōdernīt rdquo

In Ha rsquo ādām rsquo ēynō rsquo ellāhellip lsquo iyyūnīm bě-šīrāh Tel Aviv Zmora-Bitan

309 ndash 388

N983151983158983141983154983155983144983156983141983154983150 Avraham 1990 ldquo Who would have believed a bronze statue

could speakhellip rdquo In Prooftexts 10 ( 3 ) 435 ndash 467

ndash 1991 ldquo Ana Margolin materyaln tsu ir poetisher geshtalt rdquo In 983161983145983158983151-bleter New Series 1 129 ndash 171

ndash 2008 ldquo Ha-qōlōt wě-ha-maqhēlāh šīrat nāšīm bě-yīdīš bēyn šětēy milḥa-

mōt ha-lsquo ōlām rdquo In Biqqōret u-faršānūt 40 61 ndash 145

S983139983144983137983139983144983156983141983154 Allison 2011 Diasporic Modernisms Hebrew and Yiddish Li-terature in the Twentieth Century New York Oxford University Press

S983139983144983141983145983150983138983141983154983143 Cynthia 2002 Women rsquo s Poetry and Religion in Victorian Eng-land Jewish Identity and Christian Culture New York Cambridge Uni-

versity Press

S983141983156983162983141983154 Claudia 2005 ldquo Three Odd Couples Women and Men in Mark and

John rdquo In Deirdre Good ed Mariam the Magdalene and the Mother Bloomington University of Indiana Press 75 ndash 92

S983144983151983139983144983137983149 Haya 2000 ldquo Ha-děmūt ha-nāshīt wě-lsquo iẓẓūvāh bě-šīrīm rsquo in-

terteqstūālīm šel Lēāh Gōldberg In Pěgīshōt lsquoim měshōreret masōtu-měḥqārīm lsquoal yěẓirātāh šel Lēāh Gōldberg Jerusalem Sifriat hapoal-


S98315198314798315198314898315110486781048678 Naomi B Anne L983137983152983145983140983157983155 L983141983154983150983141983154 and Anita N983151983154983145983139983144 eds

Gender and Text in Modern Hebrew and Yiddish Literature New York

Jewish Theological Seminary 1992

S983156983137983144983148 Neta 2008 ldquo lsquoUri Zvi Before the Cross rsquo The Figure of Jesus in the

Figure of Uri Zvi Greenberg rdquo In Religion amp Literature 40 ( 3 ) 49 ndash 80

T983145983139983151983156983155983147983161 Gideon 2006 ldquo Yiẓẓūg ha-nōf ha-rsquo ereẓ-yiśrěrsquoēlī bě-šīrat Lēāh

Gōldberg kě-zīrat hitmōdědūt lsquo im muskāmōt sifrūtiyyōt wě-rsquo īdēyrsquoōlō-

giyyōt rdquo Masters rsquo thesis The Hebrew University of Jerusalem W983141983145983155983155983148983141983154 Chava 1998 Voices of the Matriarchs Listening to the Prayers of

Early Modern Jewish Women New York Beacon Press

Z983145983141983154983148983141983154 Wendy 2004 And Rachel Stole the Idols The Emergence of Modern Hebrew Women rsquo s Writing Detroit Wayne State University Press



J i d d i s t i k

E d i t i o n amp F o r s c h u n g

Y i d d i s h

E d i t i o

n s amp R e s e a r c h

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דיי

ISBN 978-3-943460-09-4

9 783943 460094

Der vorliegende Sammelband לeroumlffnet eine neue Reihe wissenschaftli-cher Studien zur Jiddistik sowie philolo-

gischer Editionen und Studienausgaben

jiddischer Literatur Jiddisch Englisch

und Deutsch stehen als Publikationsspra-

chen gleichberechtigt nebeneinander

Leket erscheint anlaumlsslich des

Symposiums fuumlr Jiddische Studien

in Deutschland ein im Jahre von

Erika Timm und Marion Aptroot alsfuumlr das in Deutschland noch junge Fach

Jiddistik und dessen interdisziplinaumlren

Umfeld ins Leben gerufenes Forum

Die im Band versammelten Essays zur

jiddischen Literatur- Sprach- und Kul-

turwissenschaft von Autoren aus Europa

den Kanada und Israel vermitteln

ein Bild von der Lebendigkeit und Viel-

falt jiddistischer Forschung heute







Herausgegeben von





Jiddistik heute





Band 1


Leket








Printed in Germany




the other1





Barbara Mann































































































Landscape






























27 See Mann 2002 517













28 Goldberg 1986 ( 983145 ) 39








































31 Ibid 71















































Bibliography












alim








Press



47 ndash 79



























butz hameuchad




309 ndash 388








versity Press






















Herausgegeben von





Jiddistik heute





Band 1


Leket








Printed in Germany




the other1





Barbara Mann































































































Landscape






























27 See Mann 2002 517













28 Goldberg 1986 ( 983145 ) 39








































31 Ibid 71















































Bibliography












alim








Press



47 ndash 79



























butz hameuchad




309 ndash 388








versity Press




















Band 1


Leket








Printed in Germany




the other1





Barbara Mann































































































Landscape






























27 See Mann 2002 517













28 Goldberg 1986 ( 983145 ) 39








































31 Ibid 71















































Bibliography












alim








Press



47 ndash 79



























butz hameuchad




309 ndash 388








versity Press



















the other1





Barbara Mann































































































Landscape






























27 See Mann 2002 517













28 Goldberg 1986 ( 983145 ) 39








































31 Ibid 71















































Bibliography












alim








Press



47 ndash 79



























butz hameuchad




309 ndash 388








versity Press












































































































Landscape






























27 See Mann 2002 517













28 Goldberg 1986 ( 983145 ) 39








































31 Ibid 71















































Bibliography












alim








Press



47 ndash 79



























butz hameuchad




309 ndash 388








versity Press





































27 See Mann 2002 517













28 Goldberg 1986 ( 983145 ) 39








































31 Ibid 71















































Bibliography












alim








Press



47 ndash 79



























butz hameuchad




309 ndash 388








versity Press






















28 Goldberg 1986 ( 983145 ) 39








































31 Ibid 71















































Bibliography












alim








Press



47 ndash 79



























butz hameuchad




309 ndash 388








versity Press









































31 Ibid 71















































Bibliography












alim








Press



47 ndash 79



























butz hameuchad




309 ndash 388








versity Press





















































Bibliography












alim








Press



47 ndash 79



























butz hameuchad




309 ndash 388








versity Press
























alim








Press



47 ndash 79



























butz hameuchad




309 ndash 388








versity Press























butz hameuchad




309 ndash 388








versity Press
















07 Leket Mann of Madonnas and Magdalenes A

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Transcript of 07 Leket Mann of Madonnas and Magdalenes A