Hayim Nahman Bialik

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Hayim Nahman Bialik
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Hayim Nahman Bialik (Hebrew: חיים נחמן ביאַליק; January 9, 1873 – July 4, 1934)[a] was a Jewish poet who wrote primarily in Hebrew and Yiddish. Bialik is considered a pioneer of modern Hebrew poetry, part of the vanguard of Jewish thinkers who gave voice to a new spirit of his time, and recognized today as Israel's national poet.[1] Being a noted essayist and story-teller, Bialik also translated major works from European languages.[2]

Biography

Hayim Nahman Bialik in 1905

Hayim Nahman Bialik was born in Radi,

Volhynian Governorate in the Russian Empire[3] to Itzik Yosef Bialik, a wood merchant from Zhytomyr, and his wife, Dinah Priveh.[4] He had an older brother Sheftel (born in 1862) and two sisters Chenya-Ides (born in 1871) and Blyuma (born in 1875).[5] When Bialik was 8 years old, his father died. His mother took him to Zhytomyr to live with his Orthodox grandfather, Yankl-Moishe Bialik. Bialik would not see his mother for over twenty years, when he brought her to Odessa to live with him.[6]

In Zhytomyr, alongside the traditional Jewish religious education he received, Bialik explored European literature. At the age of 15, he convinced his grandfather to send him to the

Haskala), and, as a result, drifted away from yeshiva life. A story in the biography of Rabbi Chaim Soloveitchik
cites an anonymous student, presumably Bialik himself, being expelled from the Yeshiva for getting involved in the Haskala movement. As he was being escorted out by Rabbi Chaim himself, Bialik asked: "Why?"; in response, the rabbi is said to have spent the time convincing Bialik not to use his writing talents against the yeshiva world. Poems such as HaMatmid ("The Talmud student") written in 1898, reflect Bialik's great ambivalence toward that way of life: on the one hand admiration for the dedication and devotion of the yeshiva students to their studies; on the other, a disdain for their narrow world.

At 18, Bialik left for

Hebrew
.

The 1892 Bialik published his first poem, El Hatzipor "To the Bird", which expresses a longing for

Zionist
outlook.

In 1892 Bialik heard news that the Volozhin Yeshiva had closed and returned home to Zhytomyr to prevent his grandfather from discovering that he had discontinued his religious education. He arrived to find both his grandfather and his older brother close to death. Following their deaths, Bialik married Manya Averbuch[7] in 1893.

For a time he served as a bookkeeper in his father-in-law's lumber business in

Zaglebie, in southern Poland, then part of the Russian Empire. There, Bialik worked both as a Hebrew teacher and, to earn extra income, a coal merchant
. In 1900, feeling depressed by the provincial life of Sosnowiec, Bialik secured a teaching job in Odessa.

Signed drawing of Chaim Bialik by Manuel Rosenberg, 1926

Bialik visited the US, where he stayed with his cousin Raymond Bialeck in Hartford, CT. He is the uncle of actress Mayim Bialik's great-great-grandfather.[8]

Literary career

A young Bialik

The year 1900 marked the beginning of what is considered Bialik's "golden period": he continued his activities in

Zionist and literary circles, and his literary fame continued to rise. In 1901 his first collection of poetry was published in Warsaw, where it was greeted with much critical acclaim, being hailed as "the poet of national Renaissance". Bialik relocated to Warsaw briefly in 1904 to serve as literary editor of the weekly magazine HaShiloah founded by Ahad Ha'am
, a position he served for six years.

In 1903, in the wake of the Kishinev pogroms, the Jewish Historical Commission in Odessa asked Bialik to travel to Kishiniev (today Chișinău) to interview survivors and prepare a report. In response to his findings Bialik wrote his epic poem "In the City of Slaughter" (originally published under the name "Massa Nemirov"), a powerful statement of anguish at the situation of the Jews. The poem's condemnation of passivity against anti-Semitic violence is said to have inspired thousands of Jewish youths to cast off their pacifism and join the Russian underground against the Czar,[9] the founding of Jewish self-defense groups in the Russian Empire, and, later on, the Haganah in Palestine..[10][6]

…Get up and walk through the city of the massacre,
And with your hand touch and lock your eyes
On the cooled brain and clots of blood
Dried on tree trunks, rocks, and fences; it is they.
Go to the ruins, to the gaping breaches,
To walls and hearths, shattered as though by thunder:
Concealing the blackness of a naked brick,
A crowbar has embedded itself deeply, like a crushing crowbar,
And those holes are like black wounds,
For which there is no healing or doctor.
Take a step, and your footstep will sink: you have placed your foot in fluff,
Into fragments of utensils, into rags, into shreds of books:
Bit by bit they were amassed through arduous labor—and in a flash,
Everything is destroyed…
And you will come out into the road—
Acacias are blooming and pouring their aroma,
And their blooms are like fluff, and they smell as though of blood.
And their sweet fumes will enter your breast, as though deliberately,
Beckoning you to springtime, and to life, and to health;
And the dear little sun warms and, teasing your grief,
Splinters of broken glass burn with a diamond fire—
God sent everything at once, everyone feasted together:
The sun, and the spring, and the red massacre!

Excerpt from the poem "

Vladimir Jabotinsky[11]

It was during his visit to Odessa that Bialik first met the painter Ira Jan,[12] with whom he conducted a secret love affair for many years.[13]

In the early 1900's, Bialik, together with

Wilhelm Tell, Miguel de Cervantes novel Don Quixote, Heinrich Heine's poems and S. Ansky's The Dybbuk
.

Throughout the years 1899–1915, Bialik published about 20 of his

Ibn Gabirol and began a modern commentary on the Mishnah, but only completed Zeraim, the first of the six Sedarim (Orders), of the Mishna.[14] For this, Bialik intentionally chose to use the traditional Vilna edition of the Mishnah instead of a more scientific text and created, arguably, the first modern commentary to a Seder of Mishnah that included, in its introduction, a short summary of the content as well as all of the relevant biblical passages.[15] In the 1950s, under the direction of Hanoch Albeck, the Bialik Institute
published a commentary on the entire Mishnah, an expansion of Bialik's project.

In 1919 in Odessa, Bialik founded the

Yiddish music
on the concert stage.

Bialik remained in

Bolshevik Revolution. Through the intervention of Maxim Gorky
, a group of Hebrew writers were given permission by the Soviet government to leave the country;

Move to Germany

Hayim Nahman and his wife Manya in 1925

Bialik moved, via

Hebrew
language scientific journal.

In Germany, Bialik joined a community of noted Jewish authors and publishers. Among them:

Shoshana Persitz (founder of Omanut publishing house) and Martin Buber. They met routinely at the Hebrew Club Beith haWa'ad ha'Ivri הוועד העברי in Berlin's Scheunenviertel
, in Café Monopol (which had a Hebrew-speaking corner), or Café des Westens (both in Berlin's more elegant western boroughs).

Bialik succeeded Klal publishing's Hebrew chief editor Saul Israel Hurwitz, upon his death on August 8, 1922, during which time, 80 titles were published.[18]

In January 1923, Bialik's 50th birthday was celebrated in the old concert hall of the Berlin Philharmonic bringing together everybody who was anybody.[19]

Move to Tel Aviv

Bialik House, mid-1920s
Bialik House, Tel Aviv, 2015

Bialik first visited Palestine in 1909.[10][6] In 1924, he relocated with his publishing house Dvir to Tel Aviv, devoting himself to cultural activities and public affairs and becoming a celebrated literary figure in the Yishuv. In 1927 Bialik was elected as head of the Hebrew Writers Association, a position he retained for the rest of his life. That year, he founded the Oneg Shabbat society of Tel Aviv, which sponsored communal gatherings on Shabbat afternoons to study Torah and sing. Even though he was not an observant Jew, Bialik believed that public observance of Shabbat was essential to the preservation of the Jewish people. In response to criticism regarding his community activism, Bialik responded: "Show me the judge who can say which is preferable: a good poem or a good deed."[20]

Works and influence

Bialik wrote several different kinds of poetry: he is perhaps most famous for his long, nationalistic poems, which call for a reawakening of the Jewish people. Bialik had his own awakening even before writing those poems, arising out of the anger and shame he felt at the Jewish response to pogroms. In his poem

Kishinev who had allowed their persecutors to wreak their will without raising us to defend themselves.[21]
No less admired are his passionate poems on love, nature, the yearning for Zion and children's poems.

Bialik wrote most of his poems using

Sephardi pronunciation (what Miryam Segal called the "new accent"), i.e., an amalgam of vowels and consonantal sounds from variety of sources.[22] Consequently, Bialik's poems are rarely recited in the meter in which they were written, although according to Segal, the Ashkenazi (penultimate) stress pattern is still preserved.[23]

Bialik contributed significantly to the revival of the Hebrew language, which, before his days was used almost exclusively for liturgy. The generation of Hebrew language poets who followed in Bialik's footsteps, including Jacob Steinberg and Jacob Fichman, are known as "the Bialik generation".

Bialik is honored as Israel's national poet.

Caracas, Venezuela, the Jewish community school is named Herzl-Bialik and the Jewish school n Rosario
, Argentina is named after him.

Bialik's poems have been translated into at least 30 languages, with some set to music as popular songs. These poems, and the songs based on them, have become an essential part of the education and culture of modern Israel and throughout the Jewish world.

Death

Bialik died in Vienna, Austria, on July 4, 1934, from a sudden heart attack a week after undergoing a successful prostate operation.[25] His burial in Tel Aviv had a large mourning procession followed from his home, the street named after him, to his final resting place.[citation needed]

Gallery

Notes

  1. ^ Also spelled Hayyim, Chayyim, Chaim or Haim

References

  1. ^ "Heroes – Trailblazers of the Jewish People". Beit Hatfutsot. Archived from the original on November 7, 2019. Retrieved November 7, 2019.
  2. OCLC 11814265. Archived
    from the original on September 3, 2021. Retrieved February 4, 2021.
  3. ^ "Hayyim Nahman Bialik". Archived from the original on March 2, 2023. Retrieved March 2, 2023.
  4. ^ Birth records of both Hayim and Blyuma Byalik are available at JewishGen.org (genealogical database for Ukraine). Date of birth: January 6, 1873. Parents: Itsko-Yosef Byalik (son of Yankel-Moyshe Byalik), from Zhytomyr, and Dinah-Priva Byalik. His sister Blyuma was born on January 20, 1875, in Ivnitsa.
  5. ^ Revision list with all members of the Bialik family in Zhytomyr (including Hayim-Nakhman, aged 10) from 1884 is available at JewishGen.org. His father was still alive and 56 years old at the revision, his mother was 51.
  6. ^ a b c Krutikov, Mikhail (May 18, 2017). "Insightful Biography of Hebrew Poet H. N. Bialik Misses Key Element". The Forward. Archived from the original on June 5, 2022. Retrieved June 5, 2022.
  7. ISBN 9780300227741. Archived
    from the original on September 20, 2022. Retrieved September 19, 2017 – via Google Books.
  8. ^ "Mayim Bialik: From 'Blossom' to Brachot". Jewcy. May 6, 2009. Archived from the original on December 11, 2018. Retrieved April 23, 2018.
  9. ^ Max Dimont, Jews, God, and History, Simon and Schuster, 7th printing, 1962, p. 347
  10. ^ a b "Hayim Nahman Bialik". My Jewish Learning. Archived from the original on June 28, 2022. Retrieved June 5, 2022.
  11. ^ "Hayim Nahman Bialik—the National Jewish poet who spent his childhood in Zhytomyr". UJE - Ukrainian Jewish Encounter. March 13, 2018. Retrieved June 5, 2022.
  12. ^ Bachi Kolodny, Ruth (February 27, 2009). "IRA JAN". Jewish Women's Archive. Archived from the original on October 19, 2019. Retrieved October 18, 2019.
  13. ^ Rotem, Tamar (July 17, 2001). "The Flower Is Forgot". Haaretz. Archived from the original on October 19, 2019. Retrieved October 19, 2019.
  14. ^ "HebrewBooks.org Sefer Detail: משנה ערוכה לתלמידים - כלאים -- ביאליק, חיים נחמן, 1873-1934" Archived March 26, 2023, at the Wayback Machine
  15. ^ Mordechai Meir, “Shisha Sidrei Ha-Mishna Menukadim U-mefurashim al Yedei Chaim Nachman Bialik: Kavim Le-mifalo Ha-nishkach shel Bialik,” Netuim 16 (5770), pp.191-208, available at: http://www.herzog.ac.il/vtc/tvunot/netuim16_meir.pdf Archived June 27, 2022, at the Wayback Machine
  16. ^ "English". Archived from the original on May 14, 2014. Retrieved September 19, 2017.
  17. ^ "Natasha Farrant : Writer & Literary Scout". natashafarrant.com. Archived from the original on July 26, 2021. Retrieved July 23, 2021.
  18. ISBN 3-89468-002-4
  19. ^ Michael Brenner, 'Blütezeit des Hebräischen: Eine vergessene Episode im Berlin der zwanziger Jahre', In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, September 23, 2000, supplement 'Ereignisse und Gestalten', p. III.
  20. ^ Spending Shabbat with Bialik, Haaretz
  21. ISBN 1569800421
    .
  22. ^ Miryam Segal, A New Sound in Hebrew Poetry: Poetics, Politics, Accent (Indiana, 2010)
  23. ^ Segal (2010), Preface, and "The Conundrum of the National Poet: in Segal (2010), 139-150 Chapter
  24. ^ "Home – Bialik Hebrew Day School". Bialik Hebrew Day School. Archived from the original on December 25, 2012. Retrieved January 7, 2013.
  25. ^ "Bialik dies suddenly" (PDF). Jewish Daily Bulleting. No. 2889. Jewish Telegraphic Agency. July 5, 1934. Archived (PDF) from the original on March 5, 2016. Retrieved November 18, 2014.

Selected bibliography in English

Further reading

External links

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