Re: Yehoash

[Lori Cahan-Simon <l_cahan...>]

Thanks!  Just what I'm looking for.  What else is in that book, Yiddish
Poets in Song?

Susan Lerner wrote:

>  What I am most familiar with is Yehoash's highly regarded translation
> of the Bible into Yiddish.  Here is what I learned about him from A
> History of Yiddish Literature by Sol Liptzin:
>
> Yehoash (1870-1927) is one of a group of Yiddish poets who began the
> transition from the social lyrics of the sweatshop poets to a more
> individualistic and impressionistic style, most often identified with
> the first indigenously American Yiddish poets, known as "Die Yunge".
> Yehoash, the pen name of Solomon Bloomgarden, came to the US from
> Lithuania in 1890, by which time Peretz had already published some of
> his early lyrics.   The hard life of privation in NY sent him to
> Denver to spend 10 years in a Jewish sanatorium to recover from
> tuberculosis.  He is considered to have written most of his finest
> poetry in the sanatorium, with his collected lyrics published in 1907
> establishing his reputation as a foremost Yiddish lyricist.  He went
> to Palestine when his health improved in 1914, but returned to the US
> due to the outbreak of WWI.
>
> Liptzin writes: "Yehoash enriched Yiddish with songs, ballads, fables,
> legends, satire, travel sketches, short stories and translations of
> Longfellow, Lafcadio Hearn (?), Omar Khayyim, Dmitri Merezhkovski, and
> parts of the Koran....Yehoash's supreme achievement was his
> translation of the Bible, a superb rendering upon which he worked for
> thirty years and which made use of the idiomatic treasures of the
> various dialects and of the many generations since the Tsena Urena.
> He faithfully reproduced the meaning, rhythm and tone of the
> original,...Yehoash's concentration of all efforts on this marvelous
> translation, which he regarded as a holy task, deprived him of the
> leisure to continue with his own original poetry just when he had
> acquired supreme mastery of the Yiddish medium as had no American
> writer before him."  His translation of the Bible was published
> posthumously.
>
> The Mloteks' Pearls of Yiddish Song has 1 song with lyrics by Yehoash,
> Mamenyu Mayne.  Yiddish Poets in Song, a Jewish Music Alliance book
> from the '60's, includes a song entitled "Shlitlendik" which has
> lyrics by Yehoash.  I'm not really familiar with either.  There is a
> song which I know I sing which has lyrics by Yehoash, but, for the
> life of me, I can't remember which one, and it didn't turn up in a
> quick search of my books.
>
> Shira
>
> At 11:24 PM 3/14/00 -0500, you wrote:
>
>> The title page of my copy of The Feet of the Messenger by Yehoash
>> (Jewish
>> Publication Society of American, 1923, translated from the Yiddish
>> by Isaac
>> Goldberg) says that Yehoash is the pen name of Solomon Bloomgarden.
>>
>> I also have an English translation of Yehoash's one-act play The
>> Shunamite,
>> which I directed in 1973.
>>
>> However, all I know about Yehoash comes from reading those two
>> works.
>>
>> Jacob Bloom
>>
>>
>> >From: "Trudi Goodman" <goobietheg (at) hotmail(dot)com>
>> >To: World music from a Jewish slant <jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org>
>> >Subject: Re: Yehoash
>> >Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2000 15:22:18 PST
>> >Mime-Version: 1.0
>> >Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed
>> >
>> >
>> >   Yes, a pen name, but I'm not sure for what.
>> >   I know that some of his work was put to music.
>> >   I believe that he won a Nobel Prize for Literature...or some
>> other major
>> >award like that.
>> >    He also wrote novels.
>> >    Check with YIVO.  I believe they have his work in translation.
>> >     Also the Jewish Publication Society in Philadelphia.
>> >
>> >      Trudi the G
>> >
>> >>From: Lori Cahan-Simon <l_cahan (at) staff(dot)chuh(dot)org>
>> >>Reply-To: jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org
>> >>To: World music from a Jewish slant <jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org>
>> >>Subject: Yehoash
>> >>Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2000 06:43:29 -0500
>> >>
>> >>What can anyone tell me about the poet Yehoash?  Was this a pen
>> name?
>> >>Did he have a last name?  Did he write music, or were his works
>> put to
>> >>music only by others?  Where from?  Dates?  Anything else?
>> >>
>> >>a dank,
>> >>Lorele
>> >>
>> >>
>>
>>
>> ---------------------- jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org
>> ---------------------+
>>