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Book Review by Ida Nasatir
The Complete Poetic Works of Hayyim Naham Bialik
July 1949—Ida Nasatir, book review—The
Complete Poetic Works of Hayyim Naham Bialik—Southwestern Jewish Press, page 6:
Too little is known by many American Jews of one of their greatest poets, Hayyim
Naham Bialik. Yet there is no literary personality of modern times in any
country whose legendary reputation equals that of Bialik. He was more than
a sensitive poet who reflected the dreams and yearnings, the angers and moods of
his people, first in Russia and then in Palestine, where a new State was being
created. In more than one way, he WAS the Jewish people—in travail and in
redemption—in his poetry, and in his personality. He started the beautiful
custom of the Oneg Shabbat; he became the central figure in Jewish cultural
circles, which encircled the entire Jewish populace, literary and
otherwise. Today Bialik is a legend. A street was named after him: a huge
auditorium was named after him; publishing ventures have his name, prizes are
given in his memory: his poems are set to music, sung by and dance to, by
metropolitan Jews as well as kibbutz Jews. A tremendous library of
Bialikana has been set up. There is only one Bialik, and his memory, and his
poetry, and his prose writings, and his speeches—everything he has
produced—are loved and adored by the Hebrew speaking Israelis who are the most
literate people in the world. Now for the first time there is available in the
English language one complete volume of Bialik's poetry. It should be remembered
that other great poets have emerged quite badly in translation. For instance,
the Russian, Alexander Pushkin, is badly managed in English translation; he
sounds awkward and clumsy. While the quality of the English is somewhat
uneven in this work (eighteen different translators were involved) yet even with
this, the reader never misses the greatness of Bialik. In his major poems,
Bialik emerges in English, as he would in any language, as a great poet, one who
speaks not only to his generation, or to the Jews, but to the conscience of the
world, the sensitivity of civilized man. His "The City of Slaughter,"
written in poetic agony following the Kishineff pogrom, aroused the Jewish
world. It ridiculed the meekness of the Jews in facing slaughter. Later, when
the first pioneers in Palestine organized defense units (called Haganah) the
move was directly attributed to Bialik's scorn at the Jews who died without
fighting back. In lines of great poetry, reaching magnificent heights, he
describes the havoc wrought. No review of the book would be complete without a
word concerning the fact that it was beautifully published by the Histadruth
Ivrith of America and intelligently edited by Dr. Efrosf. Recognizing that a
cultural bridge between Israel and the Diaspora is a necessity, the Histadruth,
in issuing this book, has made a major contribution to American-Jewish
literature. Once, sometime ago, Bialik wrote: "He who reads his people's
literature in translation is like one who kisses his mother's face through a
veil." A craeful reading of this beautifully-issued volume of Bialik's
poetry in English will convince the lover of poetry that it is always worth
kissing a mother, even if she wears a veil.