#benjamin harshav

[terrorignitis]

The Meaning of Yiddish | Benjamin Harshav

[jouissanceangel]

“The Bible itself favored the monologue form of narrative and poetry. The typical biblical discourse is a narrative monologue by an anonymous speaker (or God) describing things in the third person or in the past (in which short dialogues and scenic presentation may be embedded). The narrative may recede into the background to make room for poems, laws, and finally for the books of the prophets — all monologue genres in their own right. True, these monologues can be seen as a series of texts strung on a dialogical tension between God and His chosen people: every event, every seemingly trivial love affair, acquired its depth in light of this historical-moral-existential tension. Furthermore, many of the important monologues by individual voices — God's words or the prophets’ ‘Word’ to the people — are delivered in a dialogical situation, while the other side responds mostly with actions rather than with words. Nevertheless, the constitutive form of the discourse itself is a monologue.” - Benjamin Harshav, The Meaning of Yiddish

[terrorignitis]

The Meaning of Yiddish | Benjamin Harshav

[allyourprettywords]

"What Kind of a Person Are You," Yehuda Amichai

"What kind of a person are you," I heard them say to me. I'm a person with a complex plumbing of the soul, Sophisticated instruments of feeling and a system Of controlled memory at the end of the twentieth century, But with an old body from ancient times And with a God even older than my body. I'm a person for the surface of the earth. Low places, caves and wells Frighten me. Mountain peaks And tall buildings scare me. I'm not like an inserted fork, Not a cutting knife, not a stuck spoon. I'm not flat and sly Like a spatula creeping up from below. At most I am a heavy and clumsy pestle Mashing good and bad together For a little taste And a little fragrance. Arrows do not direct me. I conduct My business carefully and quietly Like a long will that began to be written The moment I was born. Now I stand at the side of the street Weary, leaning on a parking meter. I can stand here for nothing, free. I'm not a car, I'm a person, A man-god, a god-man Whose days are numbered. Hallelujah.

[16thstreet]

1919 by Jacob Glatstein (Yankev Glatshteyn) translated by Kathryn Hellerstein and Benjamin Harshav

Lately, there's no trace left Of Yankl, son of Yitskhok, But for a tiny round dot That rolls crazily through the streets With hooked-on, clumsy limbs. The lord-above surrounded The whole world with heaven-blue And there is no escape. Everywhere "Extras!" fall from above And squash my watery head. And someone's long tongue Has stained my glasses for good with a smear of red, And red, red, red. You see: One of these days something will explode in my head, Ignite there will be a dull crash And leave behind a heap of dirty ashes And I, The tiny dot, Will spin in either for eternities, Wrapped in red veils.

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Translation source: Jewish American Literature, A Norton Anthology

Submitted by Sarah Ponichtera, Center for Jewish History.