Sheva Zucker: Candles of Song

Sheva Zucker, editor of Afn Shvel (On the Threshold), the all-Yiddish magazine published by The League for Yiddish, launched a blog of Yiddish poems about mothers in February, in memory of her own mother, Miriam Pearlman Zucker, who died on January 25 of this year. “Although it is customary in the Jewish tradition to say kadish for 11 months after the death of a parent,” she wrote in her introduction to the blog, “and although I do belong to a Conservative synagogue, it somehow did not feel natural for me, an agnostic, to say kadish for my mother, also an agnostic brought up in the tradition of secular Yidishkayt. However, I am doing it (not totally regularly), and while I do find the act somewhat meaningful, it does not essentially express who I am as a Jew and who she was.

“My mother was a graduate of the I.L. Peretz School of Winnipeg, Canada. She was in its first kindergarten class (arguably the first Jewish kindergarten in North American) and graduated from the day school, mitlshul (junior high) and hekhere kursn (higher courses). She remained active in the school in various capacities and, sadly, lived to see its demise. She and my father, Meyer Zucker, z”l, both loved Yiddish language and culture and instilled a love of these things in myself and my sister Rochelle. I felt that the most meaningful way to honor my mother’s memory and her way of being a Jew would have to be connected in some way to Yiddish.

“I decided, therefore, to create a blog of Yiddish poems about mothers in her memory.”

Sheva has given Jewish Currents permission to post these translations, along with the Yiddish originals (and in transliteration) at our website on a regular basis. We urge readers to visit her blog as well as the website of the League for Yiddish (for non-Yiddish speakers, the website can be viewed in English).

The first poem, “Piously,” by Rashel Veprinski, is translated by Sheva and provided her with the title of her blog, “Candles of Song.”

Veprinski (1896-1981) was born in the town of Ivankov, not far from Kiev, in Ukraine. She came to New York in 1907, and at 13 she went to work in a shop. At 15, she began writing poetry, and was first published in 1918 in the journal Di naye velt (The New World). She wrote several books of poetry, among them Ruf fun foygl (The Call of the Bird), 1926, Di Palitre (The Palette), 1964, Tsum eyntsikn shtern (To the Single Star), 1971 as well as an autobiographical novel, short stories, and articles and was published regularly in Yiddish periodicals. From the 1920s until his death in 1953, she lived with the famous Yiddish writer Mani Leyb.

PIOUSLY

Piously my mother blessed her candles,
I – light the wicks of songs –
Eyelashes covered, fingers grow luminous,
Lips once again trembling in awe.

For joy and for sorrow,
For aging wit.
God, put the word of your mouth
Into mine.

The word not yet bloomed,
That sleeps in the stone, in the dust down below,
Wake it up, let it blossom forth anew
As if in the flowerbed,
In the line-harvest of my poems.

And the pain and the woe, and the grief of the world,
I put before you, in your presence –
Piously as my mother the waxen wicks,
I light my candles of song.

Di Palitre, 1964

פֿרום
ראַשעל וועפּרינסקי

פֿרום האָט מײַן מאַמע געבענטשט אירע ליכט,
איך — צינד די קנויטן פֿון לידער —
די וויִעס באַשירעמט, ס’ליכטיקן פֿינגער,
ליפּן אין פאָרכטיקייט ציטערן ווידער:

פֿאַר פֿרייד און פֿאַר צער,
פֿאַר דעם שׂכל באַיאָרט,
גיב מיר גאָט פֿון דײַן מויל
אין מײַן מויל דאָס וואָרט.

דאָס וואָרט וואָס האָט נאָך ניט געצוויט,
וואָס שלאָפֿט אינעם שטיין, אינעם שטויב אין דער נידער,
וועק עס אויף, לאָז עס אויפֿבליִען פֿריש ווי אין בייט,
אין דער שורה־שניט פֿון מײַנע לידער.

און דעם ווינד־און־וויי, און צער פֿון דער וועלט,
שטעל איך פֿאַר דיר, פֿאַר דײַן אָנגעזיכט —
פֿרום ווי מײַן מאַמע די וואַקסענע קנויטן,
צינד איך מײַנע לידערליכט.

די פּאַליטרע ‚1964

FRUM

Frum hot mayn mame gebentsht ire likht,
Ikh – tsind di knoytn fun lider –
Di vies bashiremt, s’likhtikn finger,
Lipn in forkhtikayt tsitern vider:

Far freyd un far tsar,
Far dem seykhl bayort,
Gib mir Got fun dayn moyl
In mayn moyl dos vort.

Dos vort vos hot nokh nit getsvit,
Vos shloft inem shteyn, inem shtoyb in der nider,
Vek es uf, loz es ufblien frish vi in beyt,
In der shure-shnit fun mayne lider.

Un dem vind-un-vey, un tsar fun der velt,
Shtel ikh far dir, far dayn ongezikht –
Frum vi mayne mame di vaksene knoytn,
Tsind ikh mayne liderlikht.
Di Palitre, 1964