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ABSTRACT
During the 1920s, Uri Zvi Grinberg’s attitude to the Jews of Eastern Europe and their Jewish lifestyle underwent fascinating changes. This article will examine how Grinberg’s aliyah to Eretz Israel and his becoming a pioneer influenced how he viewed the Jews of Eastern Europe and their distinctive symbols of Jewish identity. Did the fact that the Third Aliyah pioneers severed all their ties with Jewish tradition and its diaspora manifestations, cause him to reject the experience of shtetl life or did it perhaps give him a new perspective on it? The corpus through which these questions will be explored includes Grinberg’s poetry and journalistic writings from the time he immigrated to Eretz Israel in December 1923 until 1928.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Tamar Wolf-Monzon is Professor of Hebrew Literature at Bar-Ilan University and an editor of Criticism and Interpretation. Her research focuses on Hebrew poetry written in the twentieth century in its historical, social, cultural and linguistic contexts.
Notes
1 Uri Zvi Grinberg, “Alei karka kan” [Here on this soil] 15, 29. All the quotes below are cited from here, with the volume and pages noted.
2 See Ze’ira, 26–56.
3 This article will explore Grinberg’s approach to Jews of Eastern Europe in the poems he wrote from the time he immigrated to Eretz Israel in late 1923 until the corpus of poems published in 1927–1928 under the heading “Brit hayehudim hapra’im” [Covenant of the savage Jews]. In the complete study, the discussion will be expanded to include his works in Yiddish Until the 1930s.
4 Grinberg, His Complete Works, 69–74.
5 On the roots of the term Ma-yufes, see Shmeruk, Ma-yufes, 167–174.
6 The Hebrew words ma yafit are pronounced ma-yufes in the Ashkenazi Hebrew used by Eastern European Jews, and maufis in Yiddish.
7 Avraham Avish Shor presents evidence that that it was already known in the 15th century, describing how the great rabbi, R. Israel Isserlin, the author of Terumat hadeshen, would sing “Mah Yafit” at the Friday night Shabbat meal. http://beta.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=42705&pgnum=167 (retrieved on 9 August 2017).
8 [8] Nulman, “Mah Yafit,” 27–38.
9 See, Shor, 169–173.
10 For the way in which hostile stigmatization of Jews can lead to self-hatred, see Reiter-Tzedek, The Implications.
11 The Hebrew word פארור used here appears twice in the Bible (Joel 2:6; Nahum 2:11) and means pale and ashen with fear and terror.
12 On Grinberg’s complex approach to Shabbetai Zvi and how he structures the image of Shabbetai Zvi in the poem “Kfitzat haderekh,” [The shortening of the path] see Wolf-Monzon, Lenogah nekudat hapeleh, 168–177.
13 Grinberg was not an anomaly in the Labour movement in taking a favourable view of Shabbetai Zvi’s messianic passion. On manifestations of the change in values towards Shabbetai Zvi in the generation of nationalism and Zionism see Werses, Enlightenment and Sabbatianism, 235–264. On the attitude of historians of the Zionist period to the false messiah, see Kolatt, “Zionism and messianism,” 421. On trends involving Dehikat haketz (hastening the messianic End of Days) among the leaders of the Labour movement and the support of leaders such as Zalman Shazar, Berl Katznelson and David Ben-Gurion for the generators of the redemptive movement, see Shapira, Land and Power, 277–288.
14 The late Prof. Joseph Bar-El of the Chair for Yiddish Studies at Bar-Ilan University pointed this out to me in one of our talks.
15 On how Chagall used Jewish iconography and his tendency to translate Yiddish idiom visually out of a conscious desire to appeal to Jewish public opinion, see Amishai-Maisels, “Chagall's Jewish in-Jokes,” 76–93.
16 On the poetic features of the cycle and its importance in formulating Grinberg’s Eretz Israel style, see Wolf-Monzon, Lenogah nekudat hapeleh, 180–208 and Hever, “And Where Is Tur Malka?” 40–53.
17 The poems of the cycle are included in Collected Works, 97–104.
18 Grinberg, “Hymn to the Jews in the world,” Hagavrut ha`olah, Collected Works, 96.
19 This fact is of particular interest because this poem was first published in the literary supplement of Hapo`el Hatza`ir (18 May 1926), during the period when Grinberg was establishing his position as the poet of the pioneers.
20 Manuscript 2:2088 – UZG's Archive, Manuscript Department of the National Library of Israel. I would like to thank the poet’s wife Aliza Tur Malka-Grinberg and Yaron Sahish, the director of the archive, for allowing me to review and cite archive materials.
21 The manuscript is only partially vocalized. The signs {} indicate words written above or below the line. See the manuscript above.
22 In the text of the manuscript, UZG supplemented the sources of inspiration associated in his mind with the Latin text, and mentions, one after another, Goethe, Walt Whitman, Dostoyevsky and Nietzsche. On the other hand, in the final version, this comment appears in parenthesis (And what if in these letters I saw Nietzsche’s vision of Übermensch?) To the best of my knowledge, UZG's English was basic.
23 The manuscript has no heading and is not dated but based on the type of paper and the caption, it may be assumed that it was written in the second half of the 1920s.
24 The poem was not published.
25 Grinberg, “Mehatam lehakha” [Aramaic for: From there to here], Davar, Collected Works, 155–156.
26 The Tashlikh ceremony, which took root in Ashkenaz in the 15th century, is held on the first day of Rosh Hashanah near a source of water. It is based on Micah 7:18–19, which talks of casting out iniquity: “Who is a God like You, who pardons iniquity and passes over the transgression of the remnant of His inheritance […] You will cast out all our sins into the depths of the sea”
27 The reference is to the streets and churches of Berlin, to where Grinberg moved in November 1922 after the Polish censor forbade the dissemination of the journal Albatross, which Grinberg edited.
28 Grinberg, “He was mad,” Collected Works, 168.
29 See Weinfeld, “Naked ones,” 385–390.
30 The phrase “sons of the king’s palace” comes from a piyyut written by R. Isaac Luria for the late afternoon Shabbat meal.
31 The title had different variations, and all included the phrase “Covenant of the Savage Jews.”.
32 The first poem in this poetry cycle, “The poet in the doctrine of the Savage Jews” was printed as the final poem in Klapei tish`im vetish`ah, Sdan, 5686 (1926), 46, Collected Works, 225. It was previously published in Davar, Shabbat and Holiday Supplement, 8 October 1926.
33 Grinberg, “Shir hayadayim hapeshutot” [Poem of the stretched out hands], Collected Works, 157.
34 Grinberg, “Kol yahid kamoni” [A single voice like mine], Collected Works, 67.
35 On how Grinberg used fixed linguistic codes that appear very frequently and in various morphological variations, see Wolf-Monzon and Livnat, “The Poetic Codes,” 19–33.
36 The mapping of the occurrences relates to Eimah gedolah veyareah (31) and the poems of Hagavrut ha`olah (4), which were included in Uri Zvi Grinberg – Collected Works, volume 1; the “Tur Malka” poetry cycle (5) and the “Covenant of the Savage Jews” poetry cycle (9), which are included in volume 4, and journalistic writings included in volumes 15 (19) and 16 (37).
37 Grinberg, Prologue to Eimah gedolah veyareah, Collected Works, 7. All the emphases are mine unless otherwise indicated.
38 Grinberg, “Ba’elef hashishi” [In the sixth millennium] 18.
39 Grinberg, “Bama`arav” [In the west], 43.
40 Grinberg, “Hadam vehabasar” [Man and flesh], 25.
41 Grinberg, “Ba’elef hashishi,” 18.
42 On how he structured the concept of “majesty” as a poetic code in Griberg’s poetry in Hebrew and Yiddish, see Sivan Har Shefi, The Concept of Majesty in the Poetry of Uri Zvi Grinberg: Sources, Structure and Meaning, Ph.D. dissertation, Bar-Ilan University, 2012.
43 Grinberg, “Ba’elef hashishi,” 18.
44 Grinberg, “Yerushaliyim shel mata,” 61.
45 Spinner, 'The Society of Savage Jews’;(forthcoming). Spinner analyses Lasker-Schüler paintings and demonstrates that the “savage Jews” in her works are imbued with a pure devotion and selflessness, and that the covenant to which they belong is an established and organized covenant, rather than a random association. I am deeply grateful to Samuel Spinner for allowing me to read his fascinating article while still in the writing stage.
46 Grinberg, “Dvorah beshivya,” (in honour of the 50th jubilee of Else Lasker-Schüler), Davar, Collected Works, 11–128.
47 Grinberg, “Betokh aspaklarya [In a mirror]” Hagavrut ha`olah, 169. The phrase “The covenant of Savage Jews” appears in the source in larger letters, an unusual way to create emphasis, which Grinberg usually did by spacing the letters.
48 The reference is to kabbalistic concepts such as the “shattering of the vessels,” “revelation of Elijah,” “Sefira” and the “vision of Messiah.”
49 Grinberg, “Masa bamahaneh” [Journey in the camp], in “Covenant of the Savage Jews,” Davar, Shabbat and Holiday Supplement, 26 August 1927; Collected Works, 121.
50 The image of God as a blacksmith striking the pioneers or the poetic speaker appeared in the poem “Pa`amon haboke`a,” Hagavrut ha`olah, Collected Works, 84 and lies at the centre of the poem that introduces the cycle of “Im eli hanapakh,” Anacreon al Kotev ha`itzavon, 24.
51 Uri Zvi Grinberg, “Ad saf hamakolin hanotzri,” Davar, Ad saf hamakolin hanotzri, Shabbat and Holiday Supplement, 28 October 1927; Collected Works, 125. The meaning of the word makolin is slaughterhouse (from Greek).
52 On May 25, 1926, Schwartzbard assassinated Symon Petliura as he was emerging from a restaurant in Paris’s Latin Quarter. Schwartzbard then surrendered to a police officer, saying, “I killed a great murderer.” He was remanded until his trial in October 1927, when a French jury completely exonerated him, justifying his act on moral grounds. Schwartzbard wanted to immigrate to Eretz Israel but the British Mandate authorities prevented his entry. Only in 1967 were his remains brought to Israel and interred in Moshav Avihayil.
53 Grinberg, “Hanishba`im labrit,” Bama`alah, 28–30, Complete Works, 127–128.
54 The column in “Benaharot bavel-eropa” [By the rivers of Babylon-Europe] appears in the original in the centre of the page.
55 Abot 2:6: He too [Hillel the Elder] saw a skull floating on the surface of the water. He said unto it: Because you drowned others they drowned you; and those that drowned you will eventually be drowned.
56 Gen., 7–21.