Tag Archives: Poets

Jew of the Week: Zelda Mishkovsky

Israel’s Hasidic National Poet

Shaina Zelda Schneersohn (1914-1984) was born in what is now Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire, to a religious family of Chabad Hasidim. She was a first cousin of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. An only child, she made aliyah with her parents when she was 12. The family settled in Jerusalem, where Zelda went on to study at the city’s Bezalel Academy of Arts in the hopes of being a professional painter. She ultimately became a teacher and taught at school in Tel-Aviv, Haifa, and Jerusalem. (One of her students was renowned writer Amos Oz). Meanwhile, she wrote poems and essays for local newspapers, and slowly gained a large following of fans. After marrying Hayim Mishkovsky, Zelda became a full-time writer and poet. She published her first collections of poems in 1967, blending themes from both Israel and Russia, infused with religious symbols and mystical concepts from Kabbalah and Hasidism, often mixing Modern Hebrew with Biblical Hebrew and Yiddish. The poems were hugely popular across Israel’s social, political, and religious spectrum. She went on to publish five more collections of poetry over the next two decades, each reaching bestseller status. She became affectionately known in Israel simply as “Zelda”, going on to win the Brenner Prize in 1971, and the Bialik Prize in 1978. Her poem “Each Person Has a Name” is publicly recited in Israel on Holocaust Remembrance Day (which also happens to be her yahrzeit). Like her cousin the Lubavitcher Rebbe (with whom she kept a regular correspondence), Zelda never had children, but had many devoted students and foster daughters that she took into her home. She is recognized today as one of Israel’s greatest poets.

Purim Begins This Saturday Night – Chag Sameach!

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3 Quran Verses Every Jew Must Know

Words of the Week

We are immersed in an evolving, ongoing conflict: an Information World War in which state actors, terrorists, and ideological extremists leverage the social infrastructure underpinning everyday life to sow discord and erode shared reality.
– Renée DiResta

Jews of the Week: Sara Braverman and Hanna Szenes

First Ladies of the IDF

Sara “Surika” Braverman (1918-2013) was born in Romania. She joined Hashomer Hatzair, the Zionist youth movement, when she was just 9 years old. She made aliyah at 20 and co-founded Kibbutz Shamir in the Galilee. She served with the pre-IDF Haganah, and then joined its elite special forces unit, the Palmach. During World War II, she agreed to join a group of soldiers to form a “Jewish commando” unit that would parachute into Nazi-occupied Europe with the British Special Operations Executive (SOE). The mission was to go undercover and assist in underground operations while rescuing Allied pilots and helping Jews escape. Out of 240 that volunteered, 110 were taken for training in Egypt, and 33 were ultimately selected, including Braverman.

Another inductee was Hanna Szenes (1921-1944), originally from Hungary. Her parents noted her bright mind early on, and put her in a prestigious private school. However, Jewish students had to pay triple the tuition, and Szenes nearly dropped out because she couldn’t afford it. (The school later reduced her tuition as she was a gifted student.) Such discrimination led her to become a passionate Zionist. Upon graduation, she made aliyah and studied at the Nahalal Girls’ Agricultural School. Szenes soon joined a kibbutz, as well as the Haganah. In 1943, she joined the British Women’s Auxiliary Air Force and became a paratrooper. She was then recruited by the SOE and met Sara Braverman. In March of 1944, they were air-dropped in Yugoslavia. Their mission to go into Hungary was called off, but Szenes went anyway with part of the group. They were captured and tortured. Szenes refused to give up any information, and was ultimately executed by firing squad. Her remains were returned to Israel in 1950, and her diary and inspiring poems (in both Hebrew and Hungarian) were posthumously published and became hugely popular. Meanwhile, Braverman had stayed behind and joined Josip Tito’s underground partisans. When her mission ended, she was smuggled out through Italy and returned home. At the start of Israel’s War of Independence, Braverman founded the IDF Women’s Corps at the request of Chief of Staff Yaakov Dori. She recruited 32 other women and the group trained together in Tel Aviv. She went on to promote IDF service among Israeli women for decades to come, and is today known as the “IDF’s First Lady”.

Words of the Week

The gravest sin for a Jew is to forget what he represents.
– Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

Jews of the Week: Sarah of Yemen and Qasmuna bint Ismail

Great Arabic Poets

The single surviving poem of Sarah of Yemen

Sarah (fl. 6th-7th century) was born to the Jewish Banu Qurayza clan of the Arabian Peninsula, in the pre-Islamic era when much of the peninsula was inhabited by Jews. Her family originally hailed from what is today Yemen. They lived in Yathrib, the flourishing oasis of the Banu Qurayza Jews. In 622, Muhammad entered the city, and in 627 he annihilated the Banu Qurayza tribe (and renamed the city “Medina”, making it the first capital of the Islamic empire). Sarah was a poet, and one of her poems describing the devastation of Yathrib has survived. It was first printed in a 10th-century anthology of Arabic poems called Kitab al-Aghani. She wrote: “By my life, there is a people not long in Du Hurud; obliterated by the wind. Men of Qurayza destroyed by Khazraji swords and lances; We have lost, and our loss is so grave…” According to legend, she fought in the battle against Muhammad and was killed. (In a little-known quirk of history, Muhammad actually took two of the Jewish captives for himself as wives, and one of them is even considered a “mother of Islam”!) Incredibly, Sarah of Yemen may be history’s oldest and first known Arabic poet.

Another famous Jewish-Arab poet was Qasmuna bint Ismail (fl. 11th-12th century), who lived in Andalusia (today’s Spain). She was the child of a wealthy and well-educated Jew, who made sure his daughter was literate and taught her the art of poetry. Qasmuna is the only Sephardic Jewish female poet whose work has survived. Three of her poems were published in a 15th century anthology. In one of her poems she wrote: “Always grazing, here in this garden; I’m dark-eyed just like you, and lonely; We both live far from friends, forsaken; patiently bearing our fate’s decree.” In another she describes reaching the age of marriage and the struggle of finding the right partner: “I see an orchard, Where the time has come; For harvesting, But I do not see; A gardener reaching out a hand, Towards its fruits; Youth goes, vanishing; I wait alone, For somebody I do not wish to name.” She has also been referred to as “Qasmuna the Jewess” and “Xemone”.

The Guardian Angels of Israel

Back When Palestinians Insisted There’s No Such Thing as Palestine

Words of the Week

In Judaism the word for “education” (chinukh) is the same as for “consecration”. Is your child being consecrated for a life of beneficence for Israel and humanity?
– Rabbi Dr. J.H. Hertz, former Chief Rabbi of Britain