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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.