The Mendele Review: Yiddish Literature and Language (A Companion to MENDELE) ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 08.001 [Sequential No. 140] 14 January 2004 DAVID FRAM CENTENARY TRIBUTE 1) About this issue of TMR (ed.) 2) David Fram Centenary Tribute (Joseph Sherman) 3) INVENTORY of the DAVID FRAM PAPERS (Jane Garner and Nathan Snyder) 4) Books Received 1)----------------------------------- Date: 14 January 2004 From: Leonard PragerSubject: "Singing with the Silence": The Poetry of David Fram (Joseph Sherman) "Singing with the Silence": The Poetry of David Fram Joseph Sherman The passing of David Fram on 10 July 1988, in his eighty-fifth year, silenced one of South Africa's finest and most enduring Yiddish poets. It is an honour, in this, the centenary year of his birth, to offer a biographical and critical overview of his life and work at a time when the number of Yiddish poets alive in the world grows ever smaller. Those of us who pursued Yiddish studies in South Africa, and who were privileged to enjoy the friendship of David Fram, had the rare benefit of learning from one whose knowledge of the language was as profound as his love for it, and who, during the course of a long life, had been associated in friendship and artistic endeavour with some of the greatest names in Yiddish literature. London was perhaps the only place outside his cherished birthplace Lithuania in which the poet, throughout his painfully restless life, felt truly comfortable. His late second wife Pamela (nee Grossman) was a Londoner born and bred, and though circumstances led the couple to spend the whole of their married life in South Africa, it was always of London that they spoke, less as home than as happiness. Yet ironically it is perhaps as the finest African Yiddish poet that David Fram will best be remembered. His verse, like his engagement with the social, political and artistic life of his adoptive home, reflects those forces which shaped the turbulence of this rich sub-continent. Fram's contribution to South African literature was made through the medium of his beloved Yiddish, moving testimony to the belief of so many Jewish immigrants to that country that they might create an African _goldene medine_. Subsequent events in South Africa appear rather to mark the triumph of despair over hope. These days, and for more than a decade past, young South African Jews are seeking fulfilment in emigration abroad. With one of those breathtakingly painful reversals for which history is notorious, this country which - like Lithuania centuries before - had seemingly offered peace and rest to their forefathers has now become another _alte heym_, recalled, if at all, as the birthplace of a failed promise. This ironic repetition of history lends increased poignancy to that refrain of disillusionment that repeatedly echoes through Fram's work: ikh hob gemeynt, az do vel ikh gefinen shoyn mayn ru, az do veln derfreyen mikh di teg, az s'vet mikh mer nisht onlokn der veg tsu voglen vayter, ergets andershvu. un vider benk ikh mid nokh shtiler, vayser ru. ikh hob gemeynt, az lib vet zayn mir hige erd. iz ober fun dos-nay mir vandern bashert un zukhn nokh a treyst in ergets andershvu. ['I thought at last to find my respite here, That here the days might bring content, That now no more the beckoning path would call to me To wander on again, to somewhere else. .. Yet once again with weariness I long for still, white rest. I thought that local earth might yet be dear - But destined all anew is wandering for me To seek another comfort somewhere else.'][1] Born in Ponevezh on 14 October 1903, Fram received a traditional Jewish education in his earliest years, supplementing his studies with instruction from private tutors. At the outbreak of World War 1, when the Jews were expelled by tsarist decree from the Pale of Settlement, Fram and his family were cast adrift in Samara (now Kuibyshev) in Russia. There he studied in the Russian gymnasium at Lomanosov, and at the age of eighteen he published his first poem, in Russian, in a student journal. Proleptically, in terms of what would become the abiding emotional concerns of his later work, it was entitled "Zima" (Winter). In 1921, having matriculated at a Soviet workers' school, he returned to Ponevezh, but since the Lithuanian government refused to recognise Soviet educational qualifications, he entered the Yiddish gymnasium in Vilkomir in 1922. While studying there, he lived in the house and under the tutelage of the great Yiddish linguist, Yudl Mark, who exerted a profound literary influence on him. Pursuing his determination to write, he had his work accepted in the literary journal _Kiten_ (Blossoms) edited by David Kot, contributed regularly to Kovno's Yiddish newspapers, notably _Yidish shtime_, _Nayes_, _Dos lebn_, and the prestigious Warsaw weekly _Literarishe bleter_. However, only with the appearance of his long poem, "Reb Yoshe in zayn gortn" (Reb Yoshe in his Garden), in New York's _Oyfkum_ in 1927 did Fram truly enter the international world of Yiddish poetry. [2] In 1926 the restlessness that was to characterise his whole life drove Fram to France, where he joined his four sisters, all long-standing members of the vibrant Yiddish-speaking community of Paris, in whose midst writers and artists - Marc Chagall among them - flourished. To further his studies, he enrolled at the agricultural college of the University of Toulouse, but remained there only three months. He knew little French, Toulouse was too small for him to fulfil his aspirations, he yearned for Paris . But even in the City of Lights he could find no rest, and in 1927 an uncle in Johannesburg sent him a boat fare to join him. Thus, almost by chance, Africa gained one of her greatest Yiddish praise-singers. Heir to Lithuania's rich creative legacy, and possessed of a delicate poetic sensibility, Fram was at first dislocated and jarred by the stark contrasts of his new surroundings. Gold and sunshine, endless blue skies, the disturbing and legislatively enforced discrimination between the opportunities offered to whites and those withheld from blacks, all reinforced his longing for the soft landscapes and gentle homeliness of Lithuania. In the first poem he ever wrote in South Africa, "Vert den gringer derfun?" ('Is there any relief?'), the poet expressed a pained awareness of that brutal inequality between the races which characterised life under white hegemony in South Africa: vert den gringer amol, az gebentsht iz dos land mit a zuniker gob - glaykh an ofener hant, vos tseshenkt un tseteylt, un farteylt, un tseshit mit a koyf, on a mos un fun keynem bahit? un fun shefe un gob, fun tsekvolener erd iz nisht alemen glaykh tsu genisn bashert, un der, vos farzeyt un vos shaft un vos boyt - iz bagrenetst in zun un ba'avelt in broyt . iz den gringer derfun, az es tsaytikt di troyb, un es gildert a shtral vu-nisht-vu oyf a shoyb? - az oyf shoybn a sakh iz farloshn di zun, vert den gringer derfun? ['Where lies the comfort which sorrow displaces, To see how the sunlight teems through each day And gifts with a glow the echoing spaces, And calls to all nature to join in the play? ... And wherever you glance you are filled with remorse - Men give and men take and still more accrue, And hands with abundance are swollen and coarse But meagre the measure to those that it's due. What balm for the heart if an earlier spring Ripens vines or illumines some windowpanes If to many a window no sunbeams cling? What balm for the heart?...'] [3] Fram longed for his birthplace, and mourned her in numerous poems. One of them, later to provide the title of his last anthology, typically recalled his vanished life on the farm of his childhood: oyf mayn dakh hot amol nokh getsvitshert a shvalb, un in shtub hot geshmekt mit tsufridenem broyt, un in shtal hot der friling geboyrn a kalb, un in kleyt hot gefoylt nokh faryoriker kroyt . umetum, yeder trot, yeder eyntsiker shpan hot gekvoln mit zun un geotemt mit freyd. oyfn taykh iz gefaln farnakht a tuman, un mit varemer erd hot fun felder geveyt. ['A swallow once twittered and chirped on my roof, While the scent of contentment pervaded the house, In the stable the springtime delivered a calf, And last season's cabbage decayed in the barn. Everywhere, every pace, every single footstep Swelled out in the sun and breathed only with joy. On the river the twilight was cloaked in a fog, And the warm scent of earth blew direct from the fields.'] [4] This preoccupation with times and places past and gone called forth sharp rebukes from critics in South Africa, notably the strong-minded Yiddishist Rakhmiel Feldman (1897-1968), who believed passionately that new immigrants should immerse themselves totally in the life and values of their new home, and become one with Africa and its challenges. Though Fram cherished Lithuania and grieved that he had been driven into another kind of exile, his creative resilience showed itself capable, when forced, of finding in every new environment in which he settled a fresh source of creative inspiration, and he was soon able to respond to the challenge which critics like Feldman threw at him. He was to spend the rest of his troubled life, artistically and socially, trying to make himself one with Africa. As the poet was steadily drawn into his new milieu, the stark contrast between the landscapes of Africa and those of his birthplace began to move him. Songs of nostalgia were replaced by vigorous responses to local stimuli, and Fram now earnestly began t o address himself to what had now become his great ambition: "To enrich Yiddish literature," as he told Meylekh Ravitch, "with an entire continent." [5] His first anthology, _Lider un Poemes_ ('Songs and Poems') was sponsored from funds collected by a committee in Johannesburg under the presidency of the Chief Rabbi, Dr J L Landau, [6] and was published in Vilna in 1931. From the first, two distinct poetic impulses could be detected in Fram's work. His natural talent was lyrical, but he felt a strong inclination towards the epic mode, moved by a desire to cover the widest possible canvas with philosophical and sociological speculation. Perhaps he felt that the lyric was too narrow a compass for the strong feelings which surged within him: before him, after all, lay always the towering example of Khayim Nakhman Bialik, with whom he had briefly been in correspondence. This conflict of impulses, and the concomitant search for proper poetic expression to which they continually gave rise, dominated all of Fram's subsequent work, and never resolved itself. For Meylekh Ravitsh, he was essentially "a lyric poet in the fullest sense of t he word." [7] For another critic, S. Zaramb, however, "he is essentially an epic poet . Fram has undertaken the task of re-creating in poetry that which history has ruined." [8] Whatever the final judgment might be about which was truly Fram's metier, he enriched both with his multi-faceted work, bringing Africa whole and vibrant into Yiddish poetry for the first time. His was a talent engendered of the times into which he was born, and nurtured by his wanderlust. It was a talent that needed the constant stimulation of others. In the 1930s he became a founder member of The Unicorn, a society of young Johannesburg writers, painters and sculptors who met every afternoon in the East African Pavilion, a well-known upmarket cafe, to share ideas about starting their own magazine and forming a club modelled on Moscow's famous Stoila Pegasa. [9] Among the regulars at these gatherings were artists who were later to gain considerable distinction in their different fields in South Africa: poets like Vincent Swart and Uys Krige, and visual artists like Alexis Preller, Lippy Lipschitz and Irma Stern. Lipschitz sculpted Fram's bust; Stern painted his portrait and corresponded with him for some time.[10] Fram enjoyed considerable success in his literary work in South Africa. In addition to his poetry, he scored a minor triumph with two operettas for which he wrote the book and lyrics; Hirsch Ichilchik and Francis Boehr were responsible for the music of both: _A tsigayner fantasia_ ('A Gypsy Fantasy') performed in Johannesburg in February 1932, and _Fun Fordsburg biz Parktown_ ('From Fordsburg to Parktown'), a satire of upward Jewish mobility, performed a year later in July 1933. Both productions were sponsored jointly by Leon Behrman and Rakhmiel Feldman, and Fram himself made enough money out of them to settle in London a few years later. At this time, also, Fram became active as a Yiddish journalist and editor. In July 1933 he was appointed Yiddish editor of Boris Gershman's _Afrikaner Yidishe Tsaytung_ jointly with Arthur Markowitz as English editor. This partnership lasted until August 1934 when Fram resigned to join Abel Shaban in the founding of a new Yiddish newspaper, _Der Yidisher Ekspres_. This weekly, which appeared regularly in Johannesburg between 1935-1937, was soon forced into bankruptcy and closure, but bespoke the enthusiasm and vigour with which Fram plunged into the artistic and cultural life of South Africa. His restlessness would not grant him zitsfleysh. He left Johannesburg on his first visit to London in 1934, where one of his most interesting jobs was doing research in the British Museum for Alexander Korda and Carol Reed who were then working on their f ilm of _Jew Suess_. Shortly before the outbreak of Hitler's War, Fram returned to South Africa, where he passed the black days of the Holocaust. This terrifying period produced two of his finest poems, _Efsher_ ('Perhaps') and _Dos letste kapitl_ ('The Last Chapter'), both published in London in 1947 by the Jewish Journalists and Authors Association. _Efsher_ originates in autobiography, charting that spiritual disquiet of which Fram's physical wanderings had simply been the outward manifestations. Most of the poem deals with South Africa, and describes the growth of white domination, especially after the discovery of gold on the Reef. The very title of the poem expresses the poet's grave doubts about the validity of all accepted values. _Dos letste kapitl_, regarded by many as his finest work, is Fram's sanctification of the martyrs of the Holocaust. A lament for the destruction of Jewish life in Lithuania, it recalls an harmonious - and largely mythic - time when Jew and Christian lived peaceably in brotherhood. The reality proved itself shockingly different: ['O Lithuania, I had looked to you To help the hunted Lithuanian Jew. But joining the hunters, with upraised own hand, You struck down the brother born in your own land. You allied yourself with the bloody invader, Transforming yourself into robber and raider.'] The poet, horrified at the destruction of his dream, is torn between love for the land in which he was born, and the fearful realisation that its native inhabitants - the very Lithuanian Christians he had longed to call "brothers" - were enemies of the Jews as implacable as the Germans, as hateful, treacherous, and murderous. Now the poet is cut off from the past to float in a present limbo of eternal pain: ['Of the friends of my childhood, the men I once knew, Is not left alive one Lithuanian Jew. What have I there now without Jewish young, Without Jewish song, without Jewish tongue, Without Jewish scholars, without Jewish lore, With no Jewish heart and no Jewish door? Of my Lithuania there is left to me Only a desolate vast cemetery.'] [11] By contrast with the inner turmoil of his troubled spirit, in his public life Fram always appeared closely in touch with day-to-day realities. The advent to power in South Africa of the Afrikaner National Party under D.F. Malan in 1948 understandably caused the greatest consternation among South African Jews, because of the violently anti-Semitic pronouncements before and during the war of Afrikaner Nationalist leaders, formerly outspoken supporters of Hitler and the Nazi Party, who now became members of the Cabinet. When the Afrikaans poet and journalist Ignatius Mocke wrote to the South African Jewish Times on 16 July 1948, contending that the Nationalist Afrikaner was not anti-Semitic, and that South African Jews had nothing to fear from the country' s new government, Fram responded in a strong letter, which concluded: "We Jews have nothing against pure nationalism. When nationalism, however, gets out of bounds and begins to mix with ugly chauvinism, with racialism, with self-aggrandisement and empty pride, then it becomes a danger not only to the Nationalist Party itself, and not only to the suffering victims of ugly chauvinism, but to the country and the people as a whole." [12] These two letters generated a vigorous debate, the issues of which, considerably oversimplified and sentimentalised in his own typical spirit of hoping against hope, were summarised by the gifted writer Herman Charles Bosman, then working as a journalist on the South African Jewish Times: "...what I regard as of particular significance is the fact that it is a couple of poets, Mocke and Fram, who have initiated this discussion and who have displayed a deeper sense of realism (because their approach to the question has been romantic) than almost any of the Jewish and Afrikaner politicians have revealed to date. The artist when he acts in accordance with his emotions gets pretty near, I believe, in this way, to the fundamental verities." [13] The upshot was that from November 1948, Fram was invited by Mocke to edit an English section of his apolitical Afrikaans journal _Horison_ which, founded in 1942 with a substantial readership of 22 000, had as its expressed aim "the ideal of racial tolerance and goodwill" carrying "articles on the literary and artistic achievement of all South Africa's peoples - aimed at mutual enlightenment." Despite the devastatingly disillusioning experience of Lithuania, Fram retained his idealistic belief in the possibility of cultural tolerance between Jews and Gentiles. In an interview published in the influential Afrikaans Cape daily, _Die Burger_, on Friday 22 October 1948, he made the comparison, so often noted by other South African Yiddish writers, between the struggle for survival of both Afrikaans and Yiddish: "Afrikaans culture [like that of Yiddish] has a greater attraction for me than the present culture of any language that I know . In both cases [in our struggle for cultural survival] we are surrounded by a greater and stronger culture against which we fight." But, like so much in South Africa, this ideal was never realised. Lack of funds prevented the journal _Horison_ from continuing, and subsequent political developments in South Africa widened, rather than closed that gap between English- and Afrikaans- speaking whites in South Africa, the creation of which had from the outset been the avowed policy of the National Party, which had long detested J.C. Smuts's policies of conciliation, and militantly enforced an ideology of Afrikaner hegemony. Fram continued to write, but his life was as restless as ever. He dealt in diamonds and Persian carpets during the war years, enterprises which made him wealthy for a while and enabled him to become a farmer in the Hekpoort district of what was then the Transvaal province. For a time it seemed as if he might take root there, for Hekpoort provided an environment nostalgically reminiscent of his grandfather the farmer, whose life he had celebrated in his long idyll, "Baym zeydn" ('At Grandfather's').[14] I n a poem of rarely expressed hope, he gladly exchanged city for country life in an exhausted quest for quietude: ['Thus I cast behind the town, And in among grass coarse and wild On mountains rocky-sloped and steep, Whose summits fume with blue-tinged smoke Breathed upwards from the ocean deep, I gladly hid in solitude And all anew began to love, Began believing in a God.'] [15] But his spiritual turbulence could not be quieted. The farm was sold, and Fram moved to join his brother in what was then Rhodesia, where he became a food producer in Salisbury (now Harare). Throughout this troubled part of his life, Fram's personal difficulties deepened his insight into the complexities of life in Africa. The black man, so alien in every way to the Eastern European immigrant, is steadily recognised as the pivot of every thought and action on the vast continent, and appropriately, he becomes the central figure of Fram's major poems of this period. The poet vividly evokes stony soil and scorching skies. Such long poems as "Matabela", "Matatulu", and "Matumba", which first appeared in the South African Yiddish journal _Dorem Afrike_ in the 1950s, are unique in Yiddish literature, vivifying there for the first time the bush, the kraal, the assegai, the ankle ring.[16] All the major actors on the South African stage step boldly forward in Fram's verse. His long poem "Boeren" gives a perceptive portrait of the rural Afrikaner,[17] while the long narrative "Vilyam Skot" [18] is, for its time, a sensitive tribute to those whites who were struggling courageously to advance the social and political development of black majority in South Africa. The epic always attracted Fram, haunted as he continued to be by the promise he had given to Ravitsh - to put all Africa in a poem. At Hekpoort, in entirely conducive surroundings, he began the great task of describing the troubled history of blacks and whites in South Africa, and charting the relationships and interactions of Afrikaners and Jews with each other and with the majesty and terror of the Dark Continent. He thought at first to call this poem "Volkns iber Hekpoort" ('Clouds Over Hekpoort'), but now, what has been written is entitled, quite simply, "In Afrike" ('In Africa'). Only two sections of a proposed five were completed, yet the poem as it stands is among Fram's most impressive and evocative verse, whose surging lyricism powerfully creates the sight, smells and sounds of the Africa the poet, after more than sixty years, had come to feel and understand so well: ['Even the bush, dried up and shrunken, got closer and homelier, and the dense steam that rose then from the red earth carried the sharp scent of the khaki herb, the tough African mass of the prickly wag-'n-bietjie bushes, of the cruel big cactuses and the fleshy little ones, of the strong scent of the wild mahalula fruit: and a damp darkness curled up from among the bushes, and out of the fullness of joy, Africa was on the verge of tears then.'] [19] To commemorate his eightieth birthday in 1983, all his poems written since World War 2, and some earlier uncollected verse, were assembled in one anthology and published in Johannesburg, by a special jubilee committee, under the title _A shvalb oyfn dakh_ ('A Swallow on the Roof'). One of the most significant features of this new anthology is the exquisite lyrical cycle "Lider tsu a froy aza vi du" ('Songs to a woman such as you'), approximately half of which is published in this collection for the first time . [20] This cycle of love poems reveals yet another aspect of Fram at his best - the poetry is alive with that powerful combination of passion, pessimism and eroticism which typifies his best verse, and has tempted several new translators: hot friling farshmekt mit zayn eydeln tsvit, s'hot shoyn der orandzh, der milgroym, der epelboym ergets geblit. raykh hot der tog zikh tsevaremt, gegosn, gegosn mit gold. blien hob ikh in der sho oykh azoy vi der orandzh gevolt. blien mit gloybn, mit yugnt, mit varemer, zuniker freyd, -- shtil nokh gefinen a ru in dem veykhn geroysh fun ir kleyd, trinken di psomim farshikert vos roykhlen zikh fun ire hor, un oyf a vayl khotsh fargesn dem emes fun nikhterer vor, un oyf a vayl khotsh gefinen a resht fun a zikhern shlof, -- vern bagnedikt fun laydn vi der farbrekher fun shtrof, un nokh farnemen di sheynkeyt fun friling, fun zoybern tsvit. zi iz gekumen mir treystn mit laykhte, mit zunike trit. ['The spring began to blossom with the scent of apple and lemon the orange poured gold in the golden day. In that hour I longed to bloom as the orange blooms to be drunk with her nectar tossed in the softness of her hair and for a moment to forget and be forgiven released from my suffering as a prisoner longs for sleep and dreams of the beauty of the petals. She came to console me With her steps of light.'] [20] When David Fram's eightieth jubilee anthology appeared, a literal-minded acquaintance took him to task for its title, on the grounds that swallows do not sit on roofs. Although at the time it was easy enough to counter that on David Fram's roof they do, and always have, the criticism unwittingly raised the real question about Fram's abiding poetic concerns. Are they really the dreams of childhood, the memories of a Lithuania once loved, now lost? Surely not. The real concern of Fram's verse is pain and loneliness, suffering and incommunicability: vil ikh zingn mit di shtilkeyt in mayn soydesfuln heykhl; efsher vet di nakht mir shenkn far mayn lid a vaysn shmeykhl. ['I will sing alone with silence In my deep and hidden temple, In the hope the night might grant me For my song a smile of favour.'] [21] Singing with silence as he does, it is as one of the last voices of Yiddish romanticism that David Fram will continue to steal silently, and linger unforgettably, in the poetic consciousness of his language and his people. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT AND APPEAL I acknowledge with deep gratitude and valuable assistance given me in my research by the late Mr Arthur Markowitz z"l, who was a close friend of the late David Fram from the time of the poet's first arrival in South Africa until his death. This essay is a preliminary draft of a fuller biographical/critical study of the life and work of David Fram on which I am presently working. I should greatly welcome contributions towards and criticisms of this study from all those who knew the poet either personally or through his work. I should also greatly appreciate receiving any new biographical details, personal anecdotes or press cuttings. I am also particularly anxious to trace sources of publication of all of Fram's poetry which was never included in his two major anthologies. The strong possibility exists of bringing out a commemorative edition of Fram's Collected Poems, with a selection of translations in English, and I should be glad to hear from prospective contributors to and sponsors of such a project. NOTES 1. Fram, D. 'Ikh hob gemeynt az do vel ikh gefinen shoyn mayn ru,' in _Lider un Poemes_ (Vilna: David Fram Publishing Committee, 1931). pp. 12-13. Translated by Joseph Sherman. 2. The Yiddish text of this poem is published in _Lider un Poemes_, op. cit., pp. 91-99. 3. Fram, D. 'Vert den gringer derfun?' in _Lider un Poemes_, op. cit., pp.5-6. Translated by Amelia Levy, _Jewish Affairs_, January 1949, p. 28. 4. Fram, D. 'Oyf mayn dakh hot amol nokh getsvitshert a shvalb,' in _A shvalb oyfn dakh_ (Johannesburg: Kayor, 1983), p.67. Translated by Joseph Sherman, _The Jewish Quarterly_, Vol. 31, Nos. 3-4 (115-116), 1984. p.45. 5. Meylekh Ravitch himself quotes these words in his introduction to _Lider un Poemes_. 6. Other members of this Committee were L. Behrman, D. Dainow, R. Feldman, A. Lipworth (Chairman), A. Ovidov, G. Rabinowitz, N. Salman and David Fram himself. 7. Ravitsh, M. Introduction to _Lider un Poemes_. 8. Zaramb, S. 'The Poetry of David Fram.' _The Zionist Record_. 9 November 1934. p. 20. Orignally published in and translated from _Literarishe Bletter_. 9. Leveson, M., ed. Vincent Swart: _Collected Poems_. Johannesburg: Ad. Donker, 1981. Introduction, pp. 11-12. 10. The Lipschitz bust of David Fram is now in the possession of the Library, University of Witwatersrand. I do not know who presently owns the original of the Stern portrait, but would be very glad to be informed. A reproduction of this portrait of Fram, together with reproductions of five of Stern's landscapes, were used to illustrate _Lider un Poemes_. The portrait faces p. 86. 11. Both of the short extracts quoted are from Fram, D. _Dos Letste Kapitl_. London: The Narod Press, 1947. 68p. The English translation is by Joseph Leftwich. Leftwich translated the whole of this poem into rhyming couplets in an attempt to imitate the style of the original, but his English version never pleased Fram, so it was never published in its entirety. Leftwich himself revised a small selection of his translation and published it in his revised edition of _The Golden Peacock_. New York: Thomas Yoseloff, 1961. pp. 631-632. A copy of the original typescript of the complete English translation is now in the possession of the Library, University of the Witwatersrand. 12. Fram, D. 'An Open Letter to Mr Mocke.' _South African Jewish Times_. Friday 30 July, 1948. p. 6. 13. Bosman, H.C. 'The Nationalists and the Jews.' _South African Jewish Times_. Friday 6 August, 1948. 14. The complete Yiddish text of 'Baym Zeydn' is published in _Lider un Poemes_, op. cit. pp. 147-209. 15. Translated by Joseph Sherman. I have not yet traced the original publication/republication source of the Yiddish text of this poem, and should be grateful to be informed. 16. The Yiddish texts of 'Matumba' and 'Matatulu' are republished in _A Shvalb Oyfn Dakh_: the former on pp. 85-88; the latter on pp. 89-92. 17. The Yiddish text of 'Boeren' is published in _Lider un Poemes_. op. cit. pp. 210-249. 18. I have not yet traced the original Yiddish publication/republication source of the Yiddish text, and would be grateful to be informed. 19. Fram, D. Introduction to 'In Afrike.' _Dorem Afrike_. July/September 1983. English translation by Gerry Resnik. _Jewish Affairs_. February 1984. pp. 22-23. 20. Fram, D. 'Friling,' in _A shvalb oyfn dakh_, p.9. Translated by Marcia Leveson, _Jewish Affairs_ 46:2, September 1991, p.83. 21. This cycle was written in the early 1930s and some of the poems were first translated from Yiddish into German by Arthur Markowitz. These translations were never published. The full cycle comprises some 60 poems, not all of which were themselves originally written for publication even in Yiddish. Many were satiric and erotic exercises, perhaps even jokes. [Personal communication: Mr Arthur Markowitz.] 22. Translated by Joseph Sherman. I have not yet traced the original publication /republication source of the Yiddish text of this poem and should be grateful for assistance. 3)----------------------------------- Date: 14 January 2004 From: Jane Garner and Nathan Snyder Subject: INVENTORY of the DAVID FRAM PAPERS Benson Latin American Collection. Rare Books and Manuscripts INVENTORY DAVID FRAM PAPERS, 192? -- 1984 Prepared by Jane Garner and Nathan Snyder / December 1996 Used by permission of The General Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Biographical Sketch Yiddish author David Fram was born in Panevezys, Lithuania, on Oct. 14, 1903 and died in Johannesburg, South Africa, on July 10, 1988. Having been exiled to Russia during World War I, he returned to Lithuania in 1921. He emigrated to South Africa in 1927 but also lived for many years in London and Rhodesia. He took a four-month trip beginning in Nov. 1946 to Paris, Basel, Antwerp, and New York in order to meet with other Yiddish writers and to discuss his writings. He began publishing in 1923 in Yiddish newspapers and journals in Kovno, Lithuania. He published two anthologies of his poetry - _Lider un poemes_ (Vilna: Johannesburg, 1931) and _A shvalb oyfn dakh_ (Johannesburg, 1983) - as well as two long poems, _Efsher_ and _Dos Letste Kapitl_ (both London , 1947). A significant amount of his work remains unpublished. Scope and Contents Note The collection of David Fram consists of correspondence, drafts (many incomplete) of his literary works, clippings, and publications. The time span is the 1920s to 1980s. Most of the collection is in Yiddish, but some items are in English or French. Correspondence to Fram includes business colleagues; family members; Hebrew writer, Yossi Gamzu; Yiddish writers, H. Erlikh, Yudl Mark, Nachman Mayzel, Chaim Sacks and David Wilkin; P.E.N. South African Centre; Dorem-afrikaner Yidishe kultur-federatsye (South African Yiddish Cultural Federation) and Yidishe kultur-federatsye, Cape Town, South Africa (Yiddish Culture Federation). Correspondence from Fram includes business colleagues; family members; Jewish artists, Alva and Bencjon Benn; Fram's translator, Joseph Leftwich; Yiddish writers, Meylekh Bakalczuk-Felin, Jonathan Batnitzky, Leah Benson-Rink, Leon Bernstein, Benjamin Jacob Bialostotzky, Hirsh Bloshtein, Jocob Botoshansky, Richard Feldman, Jacob Glatstein, Itshe Goldberg, S.J. Goldsmith, Chaim Grade, Za lman Levi, Chaim Sacks, Israel Jacob Schwartz, Levi Shalit, M. Tabatznik and David Wilkin; P.E.N. South African Centre; and Dorem-afrikaner Yidishe kultur-federatsye (South African Yiddish Cultural Federation). His literary works include poetry, prose and literary criticism. Arrangement The collection is arranged in three series: Correspondence, Literary works, Biography and assorted. Correspondence is arranged chronologically. Literary Works are arranged by genre as correctly as possible. Container List Box 2 Series 1. Correspondence Folder Description 1 Correspondence, 1920s 2 Correspondence, 1930s 3 Correspondence, 1940s 4 Correspondence, 1950s 5 Correspondence, 1960s 6 Correspondence, 1970s 7 Correspondence, 1980s 8 Letters from Fram to Jacob Botoshansky (Mar. 11, 1948; Sept. 26, 1964) 9 Letter from Jacobo Denker and Dorita Windler (Buenos Aires, Argentina) to Zisle Tabakavitsh (Johannesburg, South Africa, Jan. 21, 1982) 10 Correspondence, no date or no year Series 2. Literary works by Fram 11 Poem "Diamonds" 12 Poem "In Afrike" (chapters 1--3) 13 Poem "In Afrike" (p. 2--7, various copies) 14 Poem "In Afrike" (p. 1--2, unnumbered [unable to correlate]) 15 Poetry (Yiddish) Titled poems are in quotation marks. Untitled poems are without quotation marks. 1. [Recto] Avade vi s'kukt oys vet men shoyn zen groyse glikn [Verso] Gots viln mit got 2. Bay Dolke Masmazshnik flegt men zikh dervisn (4 unnumb. pp.) 3. "Beronis" 4. Di breter fun di klotskes hiltserne... 5. Dervayle hot di kar dergreykht shoyn yene felder, 6. Dos alts hot er gehat oyf zikh (verso also contains text) 7. Du bist gevezn ongeton in shvartsn... (6 p.:, p. 6, 7, 15, 59-61) 8. Di dzshongls un di shtet, dos khaye un der mentsh (3 p.: p. 2-4) 9. [Recto] Er hot aropgekukt keseyder arunter [Verso] Genug tsu zingen vegn shneyelekh un blumen 10. Es zaynen ergets-vu fargangen trit- (3 p.: p. 1, 3, 1 unnumb. p. earlier version of p. 1) 11. Farshparte in tfises, vi hilfloze shof (2 p.: p. 2, 3) 12. Flekhtlekh, klotslekh, lekelekh (other text on verso) 13. Fun destvegn (verso contains marked out lines) 14. Fun vaytn hot an alte vasermil geklapt, nokh kloymersht 15. Der gantser tararam- dos shtupenish. Der lyarem 16. "Gemeynt hob ikh" 17. Got iz zikh gezesn bay zayn alte shtibke, (verso also contains marked out lines) 18. Di hint arum di farmers hobn zikh kayn ort (3 unnumb. p.) 19. Hot men take teykefdik derlangt zikh a loz (10 p.: p. 3-6, 8-10, 13-18) 20. Hot men zikh take yetst ? genumen 21 Hot opgeshla??? er nokh a Bur (version contains text) 22. Hot yeder gehat a shteyger vos tsu zogn 23. Ikh bin oyf mider erd an umetiker geyer (2 p.: 2 variant cops.) 24. In mitn fun der nakht hot mitamol 25. Ir libe brent zikh teykef oys punkt vi a bintl shtroy (verso also contains text) 26. Der kalter naser vint hot im a shmits 27. Karta hot geshlofn sheyn in tsveytn kheyder 28. Khe khe, a vunder mamesh iz mit im geshen 29. Dos kleyd in velkher Lina iz gegangen tsu der levaye fun ir man 30. Di lid iz ongeshribn far mayn fraynd un zayn froy--Yaakov Zibuts (6 p.) Folder 16 31. "Matebele" (A kapitl fun der poeme) 32. Me ret, men makht a trunk. Men heybt dem kos--"mi-shir-mi-shir"... (2 p.: p. 2-3) 33. Men bet dokh oytsres gold haynt far a shtikl karka (erd)...un erd vert nisht farfoylt, (version also contains text) 34. Men hot gepruvt zey oyssamen, tseshtirn... 35. Men hot zikh vider mit a mol dermont fartsveyfltn... 36. Meshugener...vi narish im hot zikh nokh alts gedukht 37. Mir tretn in blut (4 p.: 2 cops. p. 1) 38. Mit heln, loykhtndikn farb fun frishe kreyter (1 p.: p. 4) 39. Mit yorn nokh tsurik--in Kovne vu er iz dan geven (1 p.: p. 2) 40. Nisht makhmes... 41. Nor hilfloz es zaynen di shvartse milyonen (14 p.: p. 4-7; variant cop., 6 p.) 42. Nor hot geduld un vart, kh'hob oykh vos tsu dertseyln - 43. Nor mit a mol derlangt um Yakub zikh a shtel fun h?tn bank (verso contains marked out lines) 44. Oys???n un potur di shedim 45. Oysgeloshen ale menores 46. [Recto] Punkt vi men volt gevolt aroys [Verso] Ot take davke zayn, ven farmers 47. "Samara" (2 p.) 48. Tsi vel ikh far ayn mentsh zingen (2 cops.: 1 handrwritten, 1 partially typed) 49. Tsu tantsn un loyfn teykef nokh di tents tseefenen di vaser (verso also contains text) 50. Un s'iz der vayser himl (verso contains marked out lines) 51. Un yor nokh yor...(2 p. [may be separate poems]: p. 8, 1 p. unnumb.) 52. Ven ikh kum tsurik nokh yorn no ve nod 53. Ver zogt dos, Afrike, az du bist mir dervider (3 p.: unnumb. p.: variant copy of p. 1) 54. Vi s'volt 55. Volt ikh shoyn fun im do aleyn a derleyzter (1 p.: p. 29) 56. Vu s'tript dos heyse blut fun zayne negl oyfn groz, (2 p.: p. 3-4) 57. Zay flegn mir farshafen freyd... 58. Zay flegn vi ganavim bafaln veyte farmers aropknaydn le-moshl fun (partial letter on verso) 59."A zelner" 60. Di zun iz shayn geshtaynen hoykh in himl (1 p.: p. 18) Folder 17 Poetry (English) 1. "First girl" (1 p.) 2. "Gypsy Song" (1 p.) 3. "The Last Chapter" (translated by Joseph Leftwich) (4 p.: pp. 1, 2, 3, 15) Original Yiddish edition published as: _Dos Letste Kapitl_ (London: Narod Press, 1947). Revised selections from the translation published in The Golden Peacock (New York: Thomas Yoseloff, 1961, pp. 631-632). A copy of the typescript of the complete English translation is located in the Library of the University of Witwatersand (South Africa) English translation Yiddish edition p. 1 p. 5-7 p. 2 p. 12-15 (line 2), p. 19 (line 13)-20 (line 6) p. 3 (lines 1-3) p. 20 (lines 7-8) p. 3 (lines 1-14) p. 22 (line 7)-23 (line 2) p. 3 (lines 15-19) p. 23 (lines 15-22) p. 15 (lines 1-2) p. 64 (lines 10-11) p. 15 (line 3) p. 65 (line 9) p. 15 (lines 4-6) not in Yiddish p. 15 (line 7) p. 65 (lines 10-11) p. 15 (lines 8-9) p. 65 (lines 12-13) p. 15 (lines 10-11) not in Yiddish p. 15 (line 12) p. 65 (line 16) p. 15 (lines 13-14) not in Yiddish p. 15 (lines 15-16) p. 66 (lines 5-6) p. 15 (lines 17-20) p. 66 (lines 9-14) p. 15 (lines 21-22) p. 67 (lines 4-5) p. 15 (line 23) not in Yiddish p. 15 (line 24) p. 67 (line 5) p. 15 (lines 25-26) p. 67 (lines 6-7) p. 15 (line 27) p. 67 (line 13) p. 15 (line 28) p. 67 (line 14) p. 15 (lines 29-31) p. 67 (lines 15-16) p. 15 (line 32) p. 68 (lines 1-2) p. 15 (line 33) not in Yiddish p. 15 (line 34) p. 68 (line 10) 4. "Scott" (2 versions. Version 1: p. 2-7. Version 2: p. 6-10) Yiddish version serially published in Dorem Afrike v. 8 no. 4-11 (Dec. 1955--July 1956). Folder 18 Prose Essays 1. "Berele Hagai--der bavuster hazan fun Nyu York in Dorem Afrike" (2 p.) 2. Northcliffe (1 p.: p. 2) Short stories 2. "Dorem Afrike fun der vaytns: ayndrukn un shtimungen" (9 p.: p. 1-9) 3. "Derveyl iz ongekumen Margo" (3 p. : p. 2, 3, 11) 4. "Gevis vays ikh vegn geshikhte" (4 p.: p. 1-4) 5. "Hot in Fortrn's" (1 p.: p. 12, 2 cops.) 6. "Ikh ze Got" (36 p.: p. 1-36) 7. "Mayn Got, iz dos Karmen?!..." (1 unnumb. p.) 19 Literary criticism 1. A. Liski (2 p.: p. 1-2, 2 cops.) 2. Malka Locker, b. 1887 (1 p.: p. 3) 3. Chaim Sacks (1 p.: p. 4) 4. M. Tabatznik, 1894-1895 A. "Der dertseyler" (2 p.: p. 1, 2 copys.) B. "Der mentsh, der dikhter, un zayn arum. Fun dem bukh Yidishe sharlatans un gute mentshn, vos ikh hob getrofn in Dorem Afrike: (5 p.: p. 1, 4, p. 1, 2 cops.) C. "Kalmon Bulan" (4 p., p. 1-4) D. No title: about Kalmon Bulan (2 p.: p. 2-3) E. "Un zayne bikher" (version 1: 2 p.: p. 1, 2 cops.; version 2: 2 p.: p. 1-2) F. No title: about Tabatznik's writings (1 p.: p. 2) 5. David E. Wolpe (1 p.) Series 3. Biographical and Assorted Folder Description 20 Biographical information on Fram 21 Assorted items 1. _Dorem Afrike_ (July--Sept. 1982 issue) 2. Hirsh Osherowitch. "In payn gelayterte dikhtung: vegn bukh A Volkn un a veg fun Dovid Volpe (photocopy from _Di goldene keyt_, Tel Aviv: 7 p.) 3. Simon Weber. "Di 'mysterye' arum der petire fun Hayyim Grade, a. h." ( photocopied clipping from _The Jewish Daily Forward_, New York, 1982, 2. p.) 4. "Hulle skoonheid vergaan nie" (with picture of Adele Kruger) (photocopied clipping, 1 p.) 5. Sol Liptzin. Book review of _Shtile vegn_ (Silent roads) by H. Ehrlich (1p.) 6. Unknown English language reviewe of Fram's _Dos Letste kapitl_ (London,1947 p. 2 only) 7. Examples of Hebrew forms of address for letters 8. Grocery list (on paper fragment) 9. Scrap sheet from Editor of _Dorem Afrike_. End of Box 1 Oversize (not filmed) 10. Newspaper: _Keneder odler_ (Montreal) (2 issues: Sept. 19, 28, 1952) 4)----------------------------------- Date: 14 January 2004 From: Leonard Prager <lprager@research.haifa.ac.il) Subject: Books Received: a. Lomir hern gute psures; b. _Jiddistik Mitteilungen_ 30 + Beilage a. Yoysef Guri, _Lomir hern gute psures; yidishe brokhes un kloles_. Yerusholaim: Hebreisher Universitet, 2004 [ISBN 965-90250-2-5] [English t.p.: Yosef Guri. _Let's Hear Only Good News; Yiddish Blessings and Curses_. Jerusalem: The Hebrew University, 2004. This latest of Yosef Guri's specialized four-language lexicons is no less usefully and attractively compiled than its predecessors (see TMR 3.017 and 6.006), making it accessible to laymen and scholars alike. The profusion of indexes makes it a research tool; its subject matter and illustrations make it a fun -- but not only a fun --book. Distributed by Magnes Press. P.O. Box 39099. Fax 972-2-5633370, Jerusalem 91390, Israel. E-mail: magnes@vms.huji.ac.il. Website: WWW.magnespress.huji.ac.il. b. _Jiddistik Mitteilungen_ Nr. 30 (November 2003). The lead essay of this new issue is Reinhold S. Ruf's "Ein frueneuzeitliches Zeugnis juedischer Gerichtsbarkeit in jiddischer Sprache aus dem Thueringischen Staatsarchiv Meiningen." c. _Jiddistik Mitteilungen_ Beilage zu 30/2003. The composite index to issues no. 1 to 30 of this journal covering "Jiddistik in deutschsprachigen laendern" will be welcomed by Yiddish scholars all over. It is organized into three discrete lists, the first a list of articles divided into seven categories: Sprach; Literatur; Handschriften, Druckwesen, Bibliographie; Juedische Kultur und Geschichte; Tagungen; Jiddisch-Unterricht, Forschung und Lehre; Nachrufe. Items are numbered consecutively from 1 to 129 and are alphabetically ordered in each group and subgroup. The second list, numbered 130 to 185 and alphabetical, covers reviews; the third list is an alphabetized register of authors and gives the numbers of articles and/or reviews. Very useful indeed. ----------------------------------------------------------- End of The Mendele Review Vol. 08.001 Editor, Leonard Prager Associate Editor, Joseph Sherman Subscribers to Mendele (see below) automatically receive The Mendele Review. Send "to subscribe" or change-of-status messages to: listproc@lists.yale.edu a. For a temporary stop: set mendele mail postpone b. To resume delivery: set mendele mail ack c. To subscribe: sub mendele first_name last_name d. To unsubscribe kholile: unsub mendele ****Getting back issues**** _The Mendele Review_ archives can be reached at: http://www2.trincoll.edu/~mendele/tmrarc.htm ______________________________________________________ End of The Mendele Review 08.001 Subscribers to Mendele (see below) automatically receive The Mendele Review. Send "to subscribe" or change-of-status messages to: listproc@lists.yale.edu a. For a temporary stop: set mendele mail postpone b. To resume delivery: set mendele mail ack c. To subscribe: sub mendele first_name last_name d. To unsubscribe kholile: unsub mendele ****Getting back issues**** _The Mendele Review_ archives can be reached at: http://www2.trincoll.edu/~mendele/tmrarc.htm