Celebrated as the “First Lady of Israeli Song,” the prolific Naomi Shemer (1930-2004) is perhaps best known for writing and composing the much-beloved Yerushalayim shel Zahav (“Jerusalem of Gold”), which became in essence a second Israeli National Anthem; indeed, many Israelis lobbied to have it officially replace Hatikvah. Her 200 songs include the most popular song of the Yom Kippur War, Lu Yehi (“Let it Be”), which began as a translation of the Beatles’ song by that name and evolved into an independent sensation. When she was awarded the Israel Prize for her significant contribution to Israeli music (1983), her citation read:
The Israel Prize is awarded to Naomi Shemer for her songs, which everyone sings, because of their poetic and musical merit and the wonderful blend of lyrics and music, and also because they express the emotions of the people.
Born on Kvuzat Kinneret and growing up overlooking the Jordanian shores, many of Shemer’s songs create nostalgic and idealized biblical landscapes that evoke the beloved countryside of her youth and reflect her love of the land of Eretz Yisrael. She composed more than two hundred songs, many enhanced by references to Jewish literature, with which she was broadly knowledgeable, as she drew equally from the sacred writings and modern Hebrew poets.
Even standing on their own without musical accompaniment, Shemer’s lyrics were achingly beautiful and highly emotional. A superlative example is presented in the original essay exhibited here, where she uses stunningly exquisite poetic prose to present her impressions of Passover, both as to her warm memories of celebrating the holiday with her family near her beloved Kinneret and in her understanding of the fierce and eternal dedication of the Jewish people to Passover:
Erev Pesach in the late afternoon, my father dons his white shirt and gathers the three of us [she and her siblings] around him to prepare for his role in reciting the Haggadah. Passover! A nation that preserves its exodus from the House of Slavery over thousands of years – and, amidst all the suffering, slavery, use of force against it, inquisitions, and destruction, continues to carry in its heart the memory of the Egyptian Exodus as a personal recollection, that never pales or fades. I quote from memory Beryl Katznelson, who wrote this, and these words find their place in the typical jumble of the “secular” Haggadah that was copied during the 1930s and 1940s in my Kinneret.
And all this begins a week earlier when the studies are completed: the rainy season has passed [here, Shemer uses a beautiful verse from Shir HaShirim, the “Song of Songs”], the mud has solidified into hard soil, smooth and cool so that it is a pleasure to play hopscotch and five stones on it. Early in the morning, they go out to uproot the wild grass so that it will be nice in honor of the holiday, and soulful conversations are held among the girls and among the bushes. The sprinklers open on the mowed grass. The air warms slightly. On the mountain, the green grass commences a hopeless battle against the first chamsin [heat wave].
New shoes. White dresses. A jumper. The workers from Kiryat Chaim arrive, and rehearsals for the chorus commence. The van delivering the matzah arrives in the morning, and packages fly from hand to hand, hand to hand, hand to hand [most likely a reference to an “assembly line” type of operation, where large and heavy boxes are passed from person to person]. The first matzah is eaten with butter and honey, crunchy and dry, and they are broken in half: the taste of manna.
In the evening, standing near the piano, I feel my back to the audience [she is apparently referring to her conducting a Passover choir], my palms hardly able to reach up to a single octave, yet she [poetic reference to herself] must pleasantly lead the Levii’im [literally, the “Levites;” the loving reference here is to the Levites who daily sang their beautiful songs in the Beit HaMikdash] into a single singing group. Years later, I will think of the group of singers in their white shirts, and I will understand that these very people, who fled out of synagogue [apparently, a reference to chilonim, non-observant Jews], actually carried the synagogue on their backs.
They go outside at midnight, and the night is tied with magical ropes, and the moon is like a gigantic gold coin – in the middle of the month, in the middle of the sky, in the middle of the universe, in the middle of time.
Though the Bible and its related holy texts were not religiously significant to her, Shemer always viewed them as an important part of her nation’s literary and ethical history and, as is evident from every line of prose in this essay, Pesach was particularly beloved to her. In fact, she recorded an album of Passover songs for children and also wrote Song of the Four Brothers, a whimsical take on the famous parable of The Four Sons in the Haggadah.
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His literary career a watershed in modern Hebrew literature and considered the greatest Hebrew poet of modern times, Chaim Nachman Bialik (1873-1934), “the Poet of the National Renaissance,” was also an essayist, storywriter, songwriter, translator and editor who profoundly influenced Jewish culture. Credited with freeing Hebrew poetry of the overwhelming biblical influence which had dominated it for centuries, he forged a new poetic idiom, freeing Hebrew poetry from its didactic and propagandistic tendency and abandoning the accepted syllabic meter of biblical cadences. While his Hebrew remained learned and literary, he anticipated the conversational verse which was to become the hallmark of Hebrew poets and was among the first to try the Sephardic accent in children’s verse.
Although Bialik’s works are often filled with fervent Jewish yearning, memories, and ideals, his content was always subordinated to aesthetic criteria. His dominant theme was the crisis of faith which confronted his generation as it broke with Jewish religious culture while desperately seeking to retain the Jewish way of life and thought in a secularized world. Adopting the ethic-humanist reading of Judaism, he nonetheless had grave misgivings as to its efficacy in bridging the traditional and the modern, and these doubts often found conscious and unconscious expression in his writing.
In this handwritten correspondence dated “Erev Pesach,” April 5, 1909 [exact date determined from the postcard cancel], Bialik writes to Goldfaden:
My dear Friend Goldfaden:
On Thursday morning, I and Ravnitzky are traveling to Rechovot. We are waiting therefore for a wagon that you will send on Thursday to Ramle.
Best to you and your spouse, and may you rejoice in your [Passover] holiday.
Abraham Goldfaden (1840-1908) was a Russian-born Jewish poet, director, actor, and author of some 40 plays. Considered the father of modern Jewish theatre, he founded in Romania the world’s first professional Yiddish-language theater troupe (1876) and put on the first Yiddish play, The Recruits, which was entirely his creation: as with many of his later productions, he himself built the stage; painted the set; designed the decorations; wrote the piece; composed the music; and directed the actors. He also famously staged and performed the first Hebrew-language play in the United States, David at War (1904). His contribution to Jewish theatre was such that the Hebrew Actors Union awards for excellence were named the “Goldies” in his honor and, indeed, his legacy is nothing less than the institution of Yiddish theater itself. On an interesting note: one of his enduring contributions to the Yiddish lexicon is the word “shmendrik,” a name he made up for a clownish character.
Goldfaden created Yiddish theater when, passing through Jassy, Romania in 1876, he was – as usual – desperate for cash. He had published volumes of Hebrew and Yiddish poems and various songs before graduating from a rabbinical seminary at Zhitomir (1866), but he had failed at a string of jobs and businesses in several countries. Deciding to fill a need that local Jews were lacking, he wrote, produced and directed the first professional secular Yiddish play, bringing to the stage a lifelong love of Yiddish folk culture, including songs, Purim plays, and the traditional rhyming of wedding jesters. His family was strongly associated with the Haskalah and he became committed to the ideals of the Enlightenment; with a modern secular “European” Yiddish literature already developing, he found himself in the right place at the right time. The most popular themes of his operettas include outmoded traditions, as in The Fanatic, and Zionism, as in Bar Kokhba or The Last Days of Jerusalem.
Yehoshua Hana Ravnitzky (1859-1944) was a Yiddish author and editor best known for his collaboration with Bialik in editing and publishing Sefer HaAggadah (“The Book of Legends,” 1908-1911), a three-volume thematic arrangement of the folk tales and proverbs scattered through the Talmud broadly recognized as a masterwork. Born in Odessa, he became a member of Chovevei Zion and, after his appointment as editor of the Yiddish periodical Der Yid (1899), he made aliyah to Eretz Yisrael (1922), where he helped to establish the Devir publishing house. Ravnitzky’s association with Bialik began in 1892 when he published Bialik’s first poem, El Hatzipor (“To the Bird”), which expresses a longing for Zion which eased Bialik’s way into Jewish literary circles in Odessa. In the early 20th century, they led the effort to found a Hebrew publishing house, Moriah, which issued Hebrew classics and school texts, and they re-established the Dvir publishing house.
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The songs taught in schools in Eretz Yisrael during the first quarter of the twentieth century were primarily songs imported from the Diaspora, which were deemed no longer suitable for the hoped-for nascent Jewish State because they were sung in a foreign language, rather than the reborn Hebrew language that was becoming the language of the Yishuv, and because they failed to promote Zionism and the love of Eretz Yisrael to the children. Levin Kipnis (1894?-1990), renowned as “the King of the Children” and as “the Father of Children’s Hebrew literature” led the effort to develop a repertoire of Shirei Eretz Yisrael (“the songs of the Land of Israel”).
His work, which included poetry, songs, fairytales, riddles, and stories, influenced the perception of generations of Jewish children about the chagim, with his holiday stories usually set in a beautiful utopian Eretz Yisrael and evoking Zionist sentimentalities. The prolific author published over one hundred children’s books, 800 stories, 600 poems, and many songs, often incorporating scripture. He was awarded the prestigious Israel Prize in 1978 for “devoting his life to the development of children’s literature in Hebrew.”
On the cover of his Passover 1919 pamphlet exhibited here, Kipnis writes a lovely poem about Eliyahu Hanavi:
Who loves Elijah?
Every wee child!
Every Passover he comes,
to every household.For him the door is opened,
then a cup is poured for him.
Every child will laugh,
he’ll drink his wine and pass gas.
The pamphlet includes a beautiful and lengthy children’s Passover story, including chapters on:
- “A Field of Apples:” In the Land of Goshen, Jewish women descend to the field with their young children to hide them from the Evil Pharaoh who sought to drown them in the Nile River.
- “The Cradle of a Country:” Apples and butterflies guard over the children, and an angel descends for each individual child and sings a song to protect him.
- “The Kindergarten:” The children drink honey and milk and dream about salvation until the sun emerges., proclaims that Moshe will redeem the Jews from Pharaoh, and its warm rays turn the now-golden field into a large kindergarten.
- “Light and Freedom;” The day of the redemption from the Egyptian exile has arrived.
Also exhibited here is a poem from the pamphlet in which Kipnis describes a metaphorical “Rabi Nissan,” who will bring spring, flowers, sweet apples, and a happy and lovely Pesach.
Ho, children, please prepare!
Rabi Nissan is coming!
And what gift will he bring us?
A new spring, a cherished spring,
golden rays kiss all around,
buds and flowers on the mountain and in the valley!…And what gift will [Rabi Nissan] bring us?
A good Pesach holiday, a pleasant Yom Tov,
games with nuts, pleasant clothes,
freedom and liberty!
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Probably more than any other Jewish writer, Solomon Rabinowicz, better known as Shalom Aleichem (1859-1916), epitomized the Jewish desire for survival, as he wrote of Jewish society at a time of great historical transition from the old order of traditional life in Eastern Europe. The greatness of his work was his ability to describe the dominant patterns of Jewish life and his ability to create a pageant of Jewish society as a “Jewish comedy” rather than as the tragic drama of disintegration described by the Jewish storytellers of the time. Though tragedy and shattered dreams are never absent from his important works, Aleichem was beloved for his ability to emphasize the Jewish zest for life and to depict the unflagging ability of the Jewish community to renew and regenerate. Though viewed by the intelligentsia as merely a popular writer for the masses, they came to appreciate him as a great writer, and his popularity has spread well beyond the Yiddish-speaking public.
In this April 8, 1906 correspondence in Yiddish on his “Solomon Rabinowicz” letterhead, Aleichem writes about his Passover plans, which he characterizes as a seemingly impossible busy schedule to accomplish:
I am awaiting the [printing stereoplate?] with great impatience.
Probably, you have already arrived home so I wish you a kosher Passover. Have you met with Mr. Devanitski? I am booked for Passover and until the last day of Passover the [ ] 17th (then I am booked in three towns at once, so one will have to slice me in three, do they have a choice?) I will only be able to be in Vienna on Thursday the 19th or Shabbat the 21st. Later, I am going to Romania for ten days and from Romania to London on the 1st of May, where one is already waiting for me – For that reason, that it is appointed in Vienna for the 17th, the last day of Passover, I would have no use for [literally, “neating kaparot”] all three towns in favor of Vienna, only I guess that in Vienna it will not come to pass at all, otherwise, I would have sure knowledge by now. We greet your esteemed family and wish your esteemed family a happy holiday.
Shalom Aleichem
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Together with Bialik and Tchernichowsky, Zalman Shneur (1887-1959) is considered one of the three great figures in Hebrew poetry in his generation. He was the poet of heroism and non-surrender; the symbol of revolt against the conventions and long-established customs of the ghetto; and the poetic and literate voice of both life in Eastern Europe and the new Jewish State. A great proponent of Eretz Yisrael, he sang of the rebuilding of the land and wrote lovingly of the Jewish pioneers.
In this delightful original children’s poem, Schneur writes:
Bake, bake, for whom are you baking this cake?
It is matzah for Passover, bread for the holiday of redemption.Pour, pour, what are you pouring into the bottles?
Fine wine for the Four Cups, my sweet children.Mother, mother, what are you grinding with your eyes all teary?
Marror for Passover, in remembrance of bitterness.Father, father, what are you weighing with scales?
Kenamon and shekadim for the charoset, in remembrance of the cement in Egypt.
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Boris Schatz (1866-1932), “the Father of Israeli Art,” is best known as the founder of the Bezalel Academy of Arts, named after Bezalel ben Uri ben Chur, the legendary Biblical artist and creator of the Mishkan. He is credited with reviving a Jewish aesthetic consciousness and planting the seeds for artistic culture in Israel, and his vision of arts as a necessary component of Zionism played an important role in Israel’s singular commitment to the arts.
Schatz’s own work, which was heavily influenced by his traditional training in Europe, reflects romanticized, sublime, and sentimental visions of Jewish personalities, religious practices, and sites in Eretz Yisrael. Jewish art at the time was essentially related to the art of the Diasporan communities where the Jews happened to live, and Schatz changed that by establishing a distinctively Jewish art that employed Jewish themes and designs. Believing that a facility in Jerusalem would serve as a center for his novel Jewish art that would gather talented Jewish art students from around the world, he founded Bezalel to develop and promote an indigenous artistic tradition for Eretz Yisrael.
Schatz sought to express the national ethos through depictions of simple Jews at work and at prayer. Bezalel artists and craftsmen under his tutelage celebrated farmers, road builders, and factory workers, and the Bezalel artists became noted for combining their deep feelings for Jewish themes and nationalism with remarkable skill and craftsmanship. He planted the seeds for artistic culture in Israel, and Israel’s extraordinary commitment to the arts is in no small part due to his vision of arts as a necessary component of Zionism.
In this 1912 correspondence on his Bezalel letterhead, Schatz notes that Ben Aharon has not sent anything for as long time and that, with the imminent arrival of Chag HaPesach, Bezalel needs his artwork very desperately. He begs Ben Aharon to have everything shipped to facilitate arrival before Passover, and he concludes with blessings of Birkat HaChag (“Blessings of the Holiday”).
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In this April 3, 1985 correspondence, Nathan Rapoport, after making inquiry regarding his correspondent’s health, writes that he is completing a large project and hopes to arrive in Eretz Yisrael and extends warm Passover greetings.
Rapoport (1911-1987) is known for fashioning twelve renowned public Holocaust monuments in Poland, Israel, the United States, France, and Canada, but he is perhaps best known for his Monument to Jewish Fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto which, of the thousands of Holocaust memorials created after World War II, is probably the most widely known and celebrated of all. It was the first post-war memorial to mark the complete annihilation of the Jews of Warsaw and the heroism of Jewish resistance to the Nazis.
His other renowned Holocaust sculptures include Liberation, dedicated in New Jersey’s Liberty State Park in May 1985; Monument to Mordechai Anilewicz, at Kibbutz Yad Mordechai in Israel; Scroll of Fire, in the Judean Hills outside Jerusalem; The Last March, at Yad Vashem; and Memorial to the Six Million Jewish Martyrs, in Philadelphia. A copy of Warsaw Ghetto Monument, which was dedicated at Yad Vashem (1976), and his final work before his death, Brotherhood of Man, was dedicated at the Magen David Adom Blood Center in Ramat Gan.
In approximately 367 B.C.E., Haman was hanged on the very tree that he had designated for Mordechai’s execution. In 1948, the year of the birth of the Modern Jewish State from the ashes of the Holocaust, Rapaport’s Warsaw Ghetto Memorial, which was constructed in part by materials Hitler had designated for a memorial to the destruction of Jewry, was unveiled. There are many such “coincidences” over the centuries, but what they all have in common is the hand of G-d manifesting itself through Jewish history.
