Another mostly Mandate Palestine Miscellany

Sometimes the most interesting books come in and go right out. These books have been kicking around for some time and no-one seems to have ever noticed them. They all belonged to the same reader once upon a time.


Cornfeld, Peretz, edited by. Palestine Personalia 1947. Tel Aviv, Palestine Personalia, 1947. Octavo in dust jacket with minor edge wear and a quarter sized chip at the head of spine, 360 pp. Hardbound. Very Good. Includes members of all groups, Jewish, Arab and British. (47509) Cornfeld was involved in later in most of the collective biographical directories published in the 1945-1949 period. These are all uncommon. This one, which includes a section "Palestinian Institutions and Enterprises," has only about a dozen holdings internationally.     $95.00

Halevy, Shoshana. Ha-Sefarim ha-Ivriyim she-nidpesu bi-Yerushalayim ba-hamishim ha-shanim ha-rishonot: 601-651 (1841-1891)/ The Printed Hebrew Books in Jerusalem During the First Half Century (1841-1891). Jerusalem, Mekhon Ben Tsevi: ha-Universitah ha-Ivrit bi-Yerushalayim ‘al yede Kiryat sefer, 1963. Quarto in dust jacket, 202 pp., b/w illustrations of title pages, indexes. Hardbound. Very Good. In Hebrew. 662 items listed (24762)     $40.00

Halevy, Shoshana. Ha-Sefarim ha-Ivriyim she-nidpesu bi-Yerushalayim ba-hamishim ha-shanim ha-rishonot: 601-651 (1841-1891)/ The Printed Hebrew Books in Jerusalem During the First Half Century (1841-1891). Jerusalem, Mekhon Ben Tsevi: ha-Universitah ha-‘Ivrit bi-Yerushalayim ‘al yede Kiryat sefer, 1963. Quarto , soiled black cloth with gold lettering, 202 pp., b/w illustrations of title pages, indexes. Hardbound. Very Good. In Hebrew. 662 items listed (27551)     $25.00

Lewin-Epstein, Elias Wolf. Zikhronotai. Tel Aviv, Hotsaat ha-ahim Levin Epshtain ve-shutafam, 1932. Royal octavo, paper covers with a paper label on the front cover, 387 pp., b/w photos, errata sheet. Softbound. Very Good. In Hebrew. Lewin-Epstein was an early Zionism from Lithuania. He was one of the founders of the settlement of Rehovot and the manager of the Jewish Agricultural Colony there. He was one of the founders of the Carmel Wine Company. He participated in the Ahiasaf Publishing Company and was one of the founders of Lewin-Epstein Publishing House which was for many years a leading publishing company in Mandate Palestine and Israel.  (47293)     $40.00

Sapoznikow, G., edited by. Der Holts-industryal. Yorbukh 1955 VXter Yorgang/ El Indutrial Maderero Año XV Anuario. Buenos Aires, Asociacion Industriales de la Madera y del Hierro (Argentina), 1955. Quarto, green cloth with gold lettering, 232, 16 pp., b/w photos, ads, brief introductory section in Spanish at the rear, minor water-rippling at the base of the text block. Hardbound. Good. In Yiddish with a small Spanish language section at the rear. A combination furniture manufacturer's trade journal and Yiddish literary magazine. Thirty literary contribution primarily from known Yiddish litterateurs.  (47502)   Not widely held.  $50.00

Shamri, Arie. L[amed] v.[av.] shirim al Lezer Tsipres: poemah. Tel Aviv, Hotsa'at ha-K.buts ha-Artsi ha-Shomer ha-tsair, 1939. Quarto, maroon cloth with black lettering, 88 pp., illustrations by Yitshak Polikvits. Foxing to the endpapers. Hardbound. Very Good. Translated into Hebrew from the Yiddish by A. Shlonski. Shamri was a prolific Yiddish author. This is the only volume of translations of his writings into Hebrew or any other language. Shlonsky was one of the most important Hebrew language author in Mandate Palestine. More on him below. I am not sure exactly who the illustrator is, but the work is interesting. (27786)      $75.00

Shatz, Z[vi]. Al gevul ha-demamah: ketavim. Tel Aviv, Hotsaat Davar, 1929. Small octavo, soiled paper covers, 166 pp., mild foxing. Softbound. Good. In Hebrew (47353)     $30.00

Shlonsky, Abraham. Devai: shete po'emot dramatiyot. Tel Aviv, 1924. Octavo, paper covers with edgewear and a small chip at the base of the front cover, 135 pp., two pasted-in illustrations and the cover design by Pinchas Litvinovsky. Softbound. Good. In Hebrew. Shlonsky the leader of the generation of modernist Hebrew writings in the cohort that followed Brenner and Bialik. He was particularly active as a translator with a preference for Russian literature. There are those who feel that modern Hebrew syntax has more to do with Russian syntax than Biblical Hebrew syntax and if there is any truth in that Shlonsky is the one to blame. In his later career be came to represent a more conservative stream within Hebrew literature Litvinovsky  attended the Odessa Academy of Art, the Bezalel Academy of Art & Design, and the  Academy of Art, Petrograd, in 1917. He was influenced by Constructivism. In 1926, he designed the sets for the Habima production of Ansky's Dybbuk. In later years he worked in Expressionist and then Minimalist styles. He has had exhibits at the major Israeli Art Museums and his works sell well in only in the four and five figure range. (47506)    $125.00

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Item number 80,000.

Let's start at the end. Like most people I have a weakness for big round numbers. After many years of cataloging I recently reached the item number 80000. The book is a recent academic book in English. My price is a fraction of the retail price and if you want another copy you can probably find a copy on Amazon (evil made manifest, may God take them) or on some other website that Amazon controls or has not yet bought solely to present a case that they don't completely control every aspect of the book trade. At this point in my career I'm easing my way out of the business of selling English language books (and other fool's errands), but in addition to a weakness for big round numbers I also have a weakness for really good books and I do actually care about what's in them.

And so, I bring you lucky number 80000:

Harshav, Benjamin. Three Thousand Years of Hebrew Versification: Essays in Comparative Prosody. New Haven, Conn., Yale University Press, 2014. First Edition. ISBN: 978-0-300-14487-1. Octavo, printed paper covered boards, xxii, 352 pp., A List of Spanish Hebrew Meters, notes, Publications by Benjamin Harshav (Formerly Hrushovski) on Prosody and Related Fields, Index of Persons, Index of Topics in Prosody and Literature, Index of Hebrew Versification and Yiddish Poetry. Hardbound. Very Good.  (80000)       $20.00

             Benjamin Harshav, z"l, was born Binyamin Hrushovski in Vilna in 1928. As he described it the family lived above the publishing house B. Kletskin. He learned Hebrew and Yiddish in that great city. He parents were both educators at the Sofye Gurevich Secular Yiddish School. His mother took over the school from Gurevich herself. Moyshe Kulbak was a teacher in the school. He was friends with the young Weinreichs who lived next door to Zalman Reisen. His parents were friends with Sutzkever, Manger and Grade who all spent time together. Max Weinreich had young Binyomin in his sights as a future Yiddishist from birth and had fate not destroyed the Vilna Jewish community Harshav certainly would have been a leader of it in his generation.
           The family survived the Holocaust by fleeing to the east with great incident and arrived through great good fortune. It was there that they remained through the war. He studies Mathematics and Physics at Orenberg State University. After the war they made their way to the DP camps in Germany. Before leaving Germany for Mandate Palestine on the last illegal Zionist vessel Harshav published his first book of poetry in Yiddish, Shtoybn (Munich, Merkaz "Deror" in Daytshland, 1948). In the newly independent state of Israel he became on the the many fresh faces thrown into uniform.
         I don't know much about how Harshav transitioned into Israeli society and how he went from Mathematics and Physics to Yiddish literature. At that time he became associated with a number of younger poets who would go on the very successful careers, among them Yehuda Amichai and Dalia Ravikovitsh.
         His first published academic article "On free rhythms in modern Yiddish poetry," appeared in the first volume of The Field of Yiddish, in 1954. In 1960 a book on Hebrew literature of his was published and he participated in a book of translations of Aaron Glantz-Leyeles into Hebrew together with Dov Sadan and Shimshon Meltzer. Although Harshav continued to publish poems in Yiddish and Hebrew (under pseudonyms) his primary work became the study and translation of Yiddish into Hebrew. He edited one of the great anthologies of Yiddish literature in any language, A Shpigl oyf a Shteyn Antologye. Poezye fun tsvelf farshinitene yiddishe shraybers in Ratn-Farband, together with Chone Shmeruk, Sutzkever and Mendel Piekarz.
        In 1967 he founded Department of Poetics and Comparative Literature at Tel Aviv University. One of his first projects at Tel Aviv University was the founding on the journal "Ha-Sifrut."It was immediately a central journal for literary studies in Israel. The journal ran until Harshav left Israel for the US in 1986.
        His first book published in English, Structuralist Poetics in Israel, a collaboration with Ziva Ben-Porat, was published in 1974. In 1979 Harshav established the academic journal "Poetics Today," in order to serve his interest in theories of versification. (The festschrift in honor of Harshav was published three issues of the still running journal in 2001).
        Barbara Harshav, a historian and translator began working with Yad Vashem between 1978 and 1986. She came from a typical American Jewish background of her time and became multi-lingual through talent rather than environment. In 1986, together with her husband (and with additional assistance from Kathryn Hellerstein), they did the translations for the massive bilingual Yiddish-English anthology American Yiddish Poetry. That year both took posts on the faculty at Yale University and moved to the United States. They worked on many translations into English including the work of Yehuda Amichai, Avraham Sutzkever, Shmuel Yosef Agnon, Menke Katz. On his own Benjamin Harshav completed translations of Marc Chagall and of vital significance, Herman Kruk's The Last Days of Jerusalem of Lithuania: Chronicles from the Vilna Ghetto and the Camps, 1939-1944.  
        After her return to the US Barbara Harshav became a very successful translator into English of texts from French, German, Hebrew and Yiddish on her own.
        On his own Benjamin Harshav continued to write Yiddish poetry, publishing a new collection in Take oyf tshikayes: geklibene lider in 1993/4. He continued to publish translations into Hebrew from Yiddish. Among the writers he worked on are Jacob Glatstein and Glantz-Leyeless. In the field of Hebrew literature he continued to write about specific authors like Avot Yeshurin and Uri Tsvi Grinberg. He continued his work on Hebrew versification. This brings us back to Three Thousand Years of Hebrew Versification: Essays in Comparative Prosody, item number 80000. Seen in the grand sweep of his career this volume seems to be an attempt to gather and offer up the best version of a life's work in literary theory. The volume is the last one published by Harshav.
       To see a nearly three hour oral history conversation recorded with Benjamin Harshav by the National Yiddish Book Center take a look here. The full video is in Yiddish but there are some highlights which have been captioned in English.

       Below are a few more Harshav items available from my stock:

Harshav, Benjamin. Language in Time of Revolution. Berkeley, University of California Press, 1993. ISBN: 0-520-07958-2. Octavo in dust jacket, xii, 234 pp., references, index. Hardbound. Very Good.  (12774)      $8.95

Hrushovski, Benjamin, edited by. Ha-Sifrut Riv'on La-MadaHa-Sifrut 1-25, 27/ Hasifrut: Quarterly for the Study of Literature. Vol. I,No. 1, Spring 1968 - No. 25 (VII/2), October 1977; No. 27 (VIII/1), December1978. Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv University, 1968-1978. Royal octavos, paper covers (with wear to the head of the spine of the second issue only), viii, 237, ix-xv, fold-out b/w photo + 249-454 pp. + 455-778 pp. + 264 pp. + 265-448 pp. + 449-696 pp. + 697-888 pp. + 186, viii pp. 187-364, xiv pp. + 365-622, xii pp. + 191, xi pp.  + 399, xii-xix pp. + 400-578, xx-xxx pp. + 579-770, xxxi-xlii  + 161, xi pp. + 238, xii pp. + 160 pp. + 176, vi pp. + 155, ix pp. + 170, iv pp. + 163, ix pp. ... + 164, vi pp. Some covers soiled.  Softbound. Very Good-. In Hebrew. At Vol. IV, No. 1, January 1973 the title changes to Ha-Sifrut Riv'on La-Mada Ha-Sifrut: Teoriyahm - Poetikah - Sifrut Ivrit - Sifrut Kelalit/ Ha-Sifrut - Literature: Theory - Poetics - Hebrew and Comparative Literature. At September 1974 (V, 1) 17 the Hebrew title changes to Ha-Sifrut: Ketav-Et Le-Mada Ha-Sifrut.  At the April 1976 22 issue Itamar Even-Zohar becomes the editor. 150, xii pp., fold-out chart + 170, iv pp. There are three double issues, thus twenty-three separate issues. The periodical ran until 1986 and concluded with issue 35/36. (63117)      $400.00

Harshav, Benjamin. Marc Chagall and His Times: a Documentary Narrative. Stanford, California, Stanford University Press, 2004. ISBN: 0-8047-4213-8. Royal octavo in dust jacket, frontispiece photo, xxii, 1026 pp., b/w photos and reproductions, notes, index of names, index of works of art by Marc Chagall mentioned in the text, index of letters and documents,  Hardbound. Very Good. Translations from Russian, Yiddish, French, German and Hebrew by Benjamin and Barbara Harshav (56631)      $6.95

Harshav, Benjamin. The Meaning of Yiddish. Berkeley, University of California Press, 1990. ISBN: 0-520-05947-6. Octavo in dust jacket, xx, 206 pp., index. Hardbound. Very Good.  (9358)      $7.95

Harshav, Benjamin. Ritmus ha-rahavut: halakhah u-ma'aseh be-shirato ha-ekspresyonistit shel Uri Tsevi Grinberg/ The Theory and Practice of Rhythm in the Expressionist Poetry of U.Z. Greenberg. Tel Aviv, Ha-Kibuts ha-me'uhad, 1978. Duodecimo, paper covers in shelfworn dust jacket, 88 pp. Softbound. Good. Text is in Hebrew. Literature, Meaning and Culture 8: Publications of The Porter Institute for Poetics  Semiotics, Tel Aviv University in collaboration with Siman Kri'a and Ha-Sifrut/ Literature. (72985)      $15.00

Harshav, Benjamin. Shirat ha-yahid be-Nyu-York: deyukna'ut shel arba'ah meshorere Yidish u-mivhar shirehem be-targum Ivri/ Yiddish Poets in New York. Selected Writings: Volume V. Jerusalem & Tel Aviv, Karmel and ha-Makhon ha-Yisre'eli le-poetikah ve-semyotikah a. sh. Porter, Universit`at Tel-Aviv, 2002. Octavo, paper covers with flaps, 228 pp., b/w photos. Softbound. Very Good. Yiddish poetry translated into Hebrew. In Hebrew. OCLC Number: 51529552. (68451)      $20.00

Harshav, Benjamin and Barbara, edited by. American Yiddish Poetry. Berkeley, University of California Press, 1986. First Edition. ISBN: 0-520-04842-3. Royal octavo in dust jacket, xxvi, 814 pp., b/w illustrations, glossary. Hardbound. Very Good. In Yiddish and English on facing pages (32120)     $50.00

Harshav, Benjamin, with documents translated by Harshav by various authors. The Moscow Yiddish Theater: Art on Stage in the Time of Revolution. New Haven, Conn., Yale University Press, 2007. ISBN: 978-0-300-11513-0. Royal octavo in dust jacket, b/w frontispiece illustration, xiv, 199 pp., color illustrations, notes, glossary of names, bibliography, illustration credits. Hardbound. Very Good. This collection includes translations of many previously un-translated articles as well as many articles that were never publicly available before the end of the Soviet Union. (62195)      $4.95

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Daniel Persky: Slave to the Hebrew Language. The Forgotten Men: American Hebreaism, Part Two.

       

Daniel Persky as portrayed by Saul Raskin

             Memorializing a teacher and a gadfly is a difficult thing to do when the audience you are speaking to never knew the person. For many years Daniel Persky was just a gold-stamped name on the spine of a few slow selling Hebrew books. He only came alive to me in an obituary, a random clipping that I found in another book one day The author was loving but light-hearted. The Persky he knew was a devoted teacher at the Herzliah Hebrew Teachers' College and a bit of an oddball. Persky, he wrote, never bothered to own more than one suit at a time. Persky selected his attire from the finest goods that thrift stores provided. One day the white batting was streaming out of the shoulder pad of one of these fine suits. His eager students apprised him of this sartorial flaw. Persky calmly dipped his fountain pen in ink and blotted the contrast away before preceding on with his lesson. This is the Persky that for many years I thought I knew. .
         Luckily many different voices once rose to speak Persky's deeds. Dwight MacDonald profiled Persky in greater depth for the New Yorker in 1959. MacDonald wrote, "He buys good suits, but after that they're on their own. 'I can't be emptying my pockets all the time just to get a suit pressed,' he [Persky] says." (MacDonald, New Yorker, Nov. 28, 1959, p. 72.) MacDonald saw in Persky a man with little concern for the externals. His challenge was to understand how Persky could flourish outside of any version of a normal life.
         MacDonald, neither Jewish nor a speaker of Hebrew nor even Yiddish, was a left-wing writer and critic. He was the editor of the Partisan Review from 1937 to 1943, a position that put him at the center of New York Jewish intellectual life. By the time he wrote his profile of Persky he must have known him for some time. MacDonald appears to have first come in contact with Persky in Persky's own apartment. Persky serially sublet the majority of his apartment to various leftish tenants. MacDonald was visiting his friends Edith and Noah Greenberg when Persky wandered into one of the Greenbergs lively parties to pose a question relevant to his work on a large Hebrew-English dictionary. What possessed MacDonald to pitch (successfully) Persky as a good profile subject is unknown. Nevertheless, MacDonald's portrayal of Persky was still very much in the mind of many of those who wrote about Persky at the time of and after his death. Eisig Silberschlag even footnotes MacDonald in his entry on Persky for the Encyclopedia Judaica.
           In 1906, at age nineteen, Persky arrived in the US. He immediately sought work as a teacher of Hebrew. He was slowly able to accumulate private students. Some of their parents stepped up to offer financial support to his Hebraist organizing and publishing efforts. Bernard Isaacs, a longtime friend of Persky, was able to see Persky's idiosyncrasies even as he saw past them to appreciate his accomplishments.
           Isaacs founded the United Hebrew Schools of Detroit, Michigan. This was the first community wide entrenchment of the Ivrit be-Ivrit approach in America. The Detroit schools were for both girls and boys which was still a new thing. MacDonald mentions Eliezer Ben Yehuda's Jerusalem school, founded in 1891, where girls were educated. The local Orthodox community in Jerusalem considered his efforts borderline demonic. (MacDonald, 1959, P. 60-61). The first of the Bais Yaakov schools for Orthodox girls opened in Krakow in 1917 only two years before Isaac's United Hebrew Schools opened in Detroit. Isaacs founded the United Hebrew Schools two years before Moshe Feinstein established the Herzliah Hebrew Teachers' College. Persky was the first teacher that Feinstein hired. Persky had long since begun teaching Hebrew language to girls and he continued to do so at Herzlia.
           Isaacs gives a description of Persky's activities in a colloquy that I am guessing could be dated from 1945 or possibly 1961 (as it refers to Persky's 40th anniversary of "service to the Hebrew language and literature.") He described two essential activities that Persky performed outside of his teaching responsibilities. Firstly, "When it comes to his love and devotion to Hebrew authors, Persky knows no discrimination. Both the veteran and newcomer in literature are equally dear to him. He loves the budding author, he hovers over him and commands him to write, like the legendary angel who hovers over the sprouting plant and commands it to grow." (Sefer B. Issacs, P. 64). Isaacs describes Persky as a miniature paper bridge, a smaller version of a piece of architecture of the messianic times, a paper bridge that would carry the Jewish people back to the land of Israel from exile. But Persky's bridge carried two way traffic, "A veritable stream of books flows from his well-stocked room to Israel and a similar stream flows back from Israel to Persky."(Sefer B. Isaacs, P. 65).  "Persky is one of the biggest non-corporate customers of the Cooper Union post office."  (MacDonald, 1959, P. 75).
           MacDonald's picture of Persky's cultural transfer effort focused as much on the physical details - drawers full of used string and unkempt mounds of papers and books - as it did on the success of the mission for which these were only the means. Persky's parents ran a Kosher butcher shop and his technique in book shipping was probably derived from that experience. To my knowledge, the butcher paper and twine shipping technique is still in use at Y.L. Peretz Farlag in Tel Aviv, and despite my amusement seeing the Peretz Farlagers in action I am able to see past that and remember how vital their string-tied bundles are to today's Yiddishist enterprise. MacDonald failed to see a metaphor for sustenance that seems clear to me.
           Persky spent the years 1927-1933 traveling in Mandate Palestine and Eastern and Central Europe. His initial destination was the Fifteenth Zionist Congress in Basel. He traveled from town to town offering free lectures on Hebrew language and literature. Somehow he got by with no real source of income. This way of living never entirely ended for Persky even long after he had come in off the road. He saw some very difficult things in Europe and only avoided violent attack by a group of Nazi's because he happened to be in the bathroom when they attacked the restaurant he was in. He was also attacked by some Jews who mistook him for a Communist organizer. It seems possible that Persky's return to the US was motivated by a sense that America was the only physically safe place for his love of Hebrew though the entry on Persky in the Leksikon Ha-Sifrut Ha-Ivrit Ha-Hadashah suggests otherwise. Perhaps Persky really did return to the US because he felt that American Hebraism was doomed without him. But, things had changed in his absence. Persky's obsessive focus on Hebrew language and literature was no longer in sync with Jewish society even to the extent that it had been between the years 1910 and 1925.Persky was always at the center of American Hebraism. Sadly, after the 1920s the movement itself drifted farther and farther from the center of American life.
           There were quite a few Hebrew language newspapers and periodicals in the US starting in the 1880s. They were edited and produced by the Maskilim who arrived from Eastern Europe in the early part of the great Jewish migration. These publications, varying widely in their merit, flickered into print briefly and were swiftly snuffed out. With the rise of Chaim Bialik and then Yosef Chaim Brenner the younger generation of immigrants, among them Persky and nearly all of the group that I refer to as the American Hebraists, there was a desire to create a literature that reflected the new current that could be found in Ha-Shiloah and other European Hebrew periodicals.
          Along with Reuben Brainin, Persky was active in the Ahiever group. This group, formed in 1910, was involved with Silkiner's publication of Mul ohel Tumura: shiray po'ema (Before Timmura's Tent) and the Brainin edited anthology, Senunit: ḳovets-shirim. (Senunit is one of the Hebrew words for the bird name swallow.) Persky suggested the title for a new periodical that would carry on that work, "Ha-Toren," or "The Mast." He chose the name, "As a sign that our Hebrew ship sails here from beyond the sea." (Mintz, Alan, edited by. Hebrew in America: Perspectives and Prospects, Detroit, 1993, P. 74-75). "Ha-Toren" would become the main American Hebraist journal in the US in the critical period when a successful American Hebraist future seemed genuinely possible. It was the first long running Hebrew language periodical and ran until 1925. Only "Ha-Doar," which Persky later edited and wrote for lasted longer.

           Persky was one of the initial editors of "Ha-Toren," in 1913-1914. At that time it was a monthly. In 1915 "Ha-Toren," was reorganized for the first time and Y.D. Berkowitz became the editor. Under his editorship it became a weekly. Berkovitz was part of a cadre of European Hebraists and Zionists who arrived in the US fleeing from the chaos of the First World War. Berkowitz, of course, was Sholom Aleichem's son-in-law. Also arriving in that immigration with him were Shemarya Levin (and Mintz lists) "David Ben-Gurion, Itzhak Ben-Zvi, Eleizer Ben-Yehuda, Meyer Berlin (Bar-Ilan) and Judah L. Fischman (Maimon,)" (Mintz, 1993, P. 35) as some of the others in the emigre group. At that time the Zionist project in Ottoman Palestine was at a low ebb and it was unclear if Herzl or Ahad Ha'am would prevail in the conflict over the proper direction of Zionism. Persky was less involved in the production of "Ha-Toren," under Berkowitz. With the end of hostilities and the promulgation of the Balfour Declaration that cadre dissipated and leadership of the journal fell to Reuben Brainin. Brainin was at the time a Hebraist though in later years he transformed into a Yiddishist Territorialist and proselytizer for the Soviet Yiddish state in Birobidzhan. Brainin was unable to maintain the journal in the face of rising expenses and falling subscription. Persky was certainly very active in the distribution of the journal.
          The most important contribution that Persky made to "Ha-Toren" after his initial editorial stint was a letter by Persky that appeared in the March-April 1915 issue. Mintz discusses this letter in his contribution to Hebrew in America, "A Sanctuary in the Wilderness: The Beginnings of the Hebrew Movement in America in Hatoren." Persky wrote about his identity as a Hebraist. He states flat-out his alienation from traditional faith and plays at being a sort of simple soul. While Persky may have been a simple soul in his emotional life his dedication to his cause was already exceptional. Mintz explains that for Persky (and I quote here from Mintz at length in hope again for forgiveness for my presumptuousness), "...the struggles of belief belong to an earlier era. But yet the Torah and the commandments were the 'portable sanctuary' that Israel had brought with them into exile and that furnished them with a culture of daily holiness, a culture that was tangible, material, and deeply textured. Denied recourse to this culture by the failure of faith - a condition over which one can have no control - a Jew can make do with abstract talk about the ideals of Judaism (yahadut avirit = luft yiddishkeit), that is, tell the story without performing the practice, or a Jew can turn to the one element of the tradition that has not been invalidated by apostasy: the Hebrew language. The emphasis is on language as a concrete experience in the here and now, an ambient fluid of everyday life. Like the commandments, then, Hebrew enacts the paradox of the holy within the everyday. As the only salvageable component of the tradition, Hebrew becomes invested with all the sanctity and ultimate importance that inhered in the total system of which it was once a part. The Hebrew movement, Persky declares, is 'my Ohel Moed to which I repair to become sanctified and re-purified; it is the synagogue in which I pray.'" (Mintz, 1993, P. 42-43).
          Persky was not an enemy of religious faith. He could take pleasure among those who celebrated the joys of faith. MacDonald quotes Persky to good effect on this: "I had no need to lunch on Simhath Torah. The reason is a simple one. I was treated in every synagogue to goblets of liquor followed by a dessert of cookies and sponge cake. Some treated me to a bit of herring - until I had more than my fill....And if I did meet up with one or two victims of drink, what did they talk and sing about? These drunken Jews, who poured down their throats a dozen portions of hundred-proof stuff, opened their mouths and sang, 'Praises to the Holy One, Blessed by He of the Election of Israel!'" (MacDonald, New Yorker, P. 102). As long as Persky was among Hebrew speakers he was happy.
         With the specific land of Israel potentially optional and religious faith off the table the purpose of American Hebraism was difficult to explain. A few other writers in "Ha-Toren," attempted to explain the mission of the Hebraists in America. Mintz mentions the contributions of Moshe Halevi and Kalman Whiteman to the definitional cause. (Mintz, 1993, P. 52). The approaches of Halevi and Whiteman leaned heavily on a negative definition of American Hebraism. They proposed Hebraism as an antidote to a venality of the crude Yiddishist crowd and the larger crude and anti-spiritual American Nation as a whole. While this logic offered some appeal to Persky it was a logic that would serve the Hebraists poorly in the period after 1920. The Jewish historian M.Z. Frank sub-titled his obituary of Persky, "Hebrew Language Was His Wife." (Frank, M.Z., The National and Jewish post and Opinion, Friday, June 1, 1962). [Mintz has an extended discussion of an erotic emotion and expression particularly in his chapter on Abraham Regelson's Ḥaḳuḳot otiyotayikh: shirim in Sanctuary in the Wilderness: A Critical Introduction to American Hebrew Poetry.] Love offered a more potent sustenance than did angry disdain.
          Persky's letter offered a potential way of being that the American Hebraists could live for rather than against. For some it provided a model for a lifetime (Ephraim Lisitsky, Gabriel Preil and Eisig Silberschlag, for instance). For others the declaration of the state of Israel collapsed that possibility (Israel Efros, Simon Halkin and Abraham Regelson). In his later years Persky may have finally let the disappointment of the decline of the American Hebreaist's project get to him. He was always capable of a snarky remark. However, even from within his "mikdash me'at," the emotional aspect of Whiteman and Halevi's theories began to creep into in his later writings. (Waxman, Meyer, A History of Jewish Literature, Volume IV, Part Two, New York, 1960 [Second Edition], P. 1081).
            Persky was probably more important for his teaching, speaking, editing, advocacy and dissemination of literature than for his own literary contributions. His presence was seemingly everywhere and his column for "Ha-Doar," was sometimes a venue for Hebraist gossip. MacDonald quotes a variety of unnamed colleagues: "He is a fanatic, but a sweet-natured one. Everyone is indulgent toward him, and yet everyone respects him." "He is a kibitzer. At Meetings he stands around and tells everyone else how to do things." "...there is only one Daniel Persky. Un type as the French say,..." and "Persky is boring in a very interesting way." (MacDonald, 1959, P. 84-85).
          Persky's specialty as a writer was the feuilleton. The form was originally a French form, a light essay. It was very popular in Yiddish and early Modern Hebrew literature. Persky was a great practitioner of the form. Meyer Waxman described his work in that area:"The range of his theme is wide, a daily event, a date in the Jewish calendar, the appearance of a book, the celebration of a writer's jubilee or his demise, impressions of travels, and numerous other episodes. The humor is wholesome and much of it consists in puns and manipulations of the language. ... There is little depth in the thoughtful essays, but we meet frequently with a brilliant reflection that makes us pause. Of interest is also the numerous anecdotes relating to the life and activities of many Hebrew writers met by Persky ... he has preserves bits of conversation and bon mots of his chosen heroes." (Waxman, Volume IV, Part Two, P. 1081-1082).
           Among the collections of feuilletons are:

     Persky, Daniel. Li-khevod ha-regel: mo'ade Yisra'el bi-kedushatam uve-simhatam. New York, 1946. Octavo, black cloth with gold lettering against red panels with minor soiling at the base of the spine, 328 pp. Hardbound. Very Good. Text is in Hebrew. (48556)      $30.00

Persky, Daniel. Ivri anokhi (On Hebrew Language, Literature and Culture). Kitve Daniel Persky Kerakh Rishon. New York, 1947. Octavo, brown cloth with gold lettering, 315 pp., index. Hardbound. Very Good. Text is in Hebrew. (52254)      $25.00

  Persky, Daniel. Mat'amim le-hag: reshimot u-feletonim, bedihot ve-hidudim le-kol mo'ede ha-shanah. New York, Pardes , 1939. Octavo, green cloth with gold lettering, 256 pp. Hardbound. Very Good. Text is in Hebrew. (10488)      $25.00

  Persky, Daniel. Zemanim Tovim. New York, Hotzaat "Pardes", 1944. Octavo, pinkish cloth with black lettering, 272 pp. Soiling to the rear board. Hardbound. Good. Text is in Hebrew. Inscribed by the author on the title page. (11281)      $25.00

  Persky, Daniel. Le-Elef Yedidim. New York, Vaad Ha-Yuval, 1935. Octavo, tan cloth spine green cloth covered boards with blue lettering, 96 pp. With a portrait of the author by Saul Raskin. Hardbound. Very Good. Text is in Hebrew. (32262)       $25.00

                Persky was the house linguist for Camp Massad one of several Hebreaist summer camps that tried to advance the Ivrit be-Ivrit agenda. Summer camp took the children out of their English language environments and immersed them in Hebrew for weeks at a time. I don't know how many years Persky attended the camp, but for a certain number of years he was on hand to provide new words to fill out the lexicon needed for camp life. He created a dictionary for the Camp.

  Persky, Daniel, edited by. The Massad English-Hebrew Dictionary: A Classified Listing of Everyday Words, Cross Indexed/ Milon Shimishi Angli-Ivri le-fi Ha-Inyanim veha-miktso'ot. New York, Camp Massad, 1947. 16mo, brown cloth with gold lettering, xxii, 271 pp. Hardbound. Very Good. In Hebrew and English. Compiled by Shlomo Shulsinger and Hillel Rudavsky. Meant for use at an American Hebrew speaking summer camp. (34206)  $20.00

             The Massad Dictionary was not organized in ABC order. Rather it was organized by subject so that the campers could familiarize themselves with all the vocabulary related to a specific activity.

             Persky was always involved in the children's supplement of "Ha-Doar," where he was the resident vocalizer. He did publish some material for children such as below.

  Persky, Daniel. Tsehok me-Erets Yisrael. Kitve Daniel Persky: Kerakh Sheni/ Israel Laughs. New York, 1950/1. Octavo, grey cloth with gold lettering and illustration in green, 267 pp. Hardbound. Very Good. Text is in Hebrew. (55021)      $25.00

         Persky was not the most aggressive practitioner of "Amerikaniyut," but he did apparently have at least a minor moment of patriotism when he translated the US Constitution into Hebrew.

   Persky, Daniel, translated into Hebrew by. Hukat Artsot ha-Berit shel Amerikah/ The Constitution of the United States of America. New York, Ha-Histadrut ha-Ivrit ba-Amerikah, 1928. Octavo, stapled paper covers, 14 pp.  Softbound. Very Good. Text is in Hebrew. (78230)      $18.00

             Nowadays when the "Mikdash Me'at" for most people is an iphone or a tablet it comforts me to remember a man who loved words and good company more than data and social media. Daniel Persky offered an individual model for engagement with Jewish culture (whether one is religious or not) that still has something to say to today's American Jews and perhaps even to today's Israelis though few if any of them still are ready to listen.

Bibliography

Brown, Michael Gary. "All, All Alone: The Hebrew Press in America from 1914-1924," in American Jewish Historical Quarterly, Volume LIX, December, 1969, Number 2. Hebrew and Yiddish in America. Waltham, Mass., American Jewish Historical Society, 1969. Edited by Nathan M. Kaganoff. 

Frank, M.Z. "Persky Spurred Re-birth of Hebrew in U.S.: Hebrew Language was His Wife," in The National Jewish Post and Opinion, Friday, June, 1, 1962. Indianapolis, Ind., National Jewish Post, Inc., 1962

MacDonald, Dwight. "The Slave of Hebrew," in The New Yorker, November 28, 1959. New York, The New Yorker, 1959.

Mintz, Alan, edited by. Hebrew in America: Perspectives and Prospects. Detroit, Wayne State University Press, 1993.

Mintz, Alan. Sanctuary in the Wilderness: A Critical Introduction to American Hebrew Poetry. Stanford, California, Stanford University Press, 2012.

Nobel, Morris, editor. Sefer B. Isaacs. New York, Publications Committee, 1977. 

Waxman, Meyer. A History of Jewish Literature. (Five Volumes in Six Parts). New York, Thomas Yoseloff, 1960. Second Edition.

Another good bibliographical reference on Persky can be found in the 

                                          לקסיקון הספרות העברית החדשה 

edited by Yossi Galron at https://library.osu.edu/projects/hebrew-lexicon/01174.php. This entry, largely based on the work of the Israeli bibliographer G. Kressel details Persky's early years, his family, his education, his Zionist activities and his problems with the Russian authorities. It is a good source for some details of Persky's activities between 1927 and 1933. It also lists his publications and notes a variety of Hebrew language sources in him. It also reveals the pseudonyms, D. Daniel and Daniel Ben Rebecca, that he used when he wrote in Yiddish. 

The entry for Persky in the Encyclopedia Judaica is by Eisig Silberschlag and can be found online entire in the entry Persky, Daniel on the Jewish Virtual Library website.

A few books for Jewish Children.

A few Jewish children's books mostly from the 1920s and 30s in Hebrew and Yiddish. The Twentieth Century brought fantastic and furious innovation in the field of children's publishing. In the 1920s and 30s authors, illustrators and publishers began to take into account the actual interests and preferences of children. The works presented here are either from before this era of innovation or on the cusp of that era. Levin Kipnis, represented by one work below, crossed over into that new era and provided Israeli readers in Hebrew and world readers in Yiddish many many works that appeal to children and adults alike.

Ben Uri, [Meir]. Masot ha-pela'im shel Rabah bar Bar Hana: meubad lefi ha-Talmud. Tel Aviv, Hotsaat H. Loewenstein, 1936. 16mo, 18 pp. in an accordion fold, drawings throughout by Ben-Uri. Softbound. Very Good. Text is in Hebrew. (77350) Rabbah Bar Bar Hana was a master of Aggadah in Talmud Bavli. He appears in at least a dozen different tractates. His special province as a story teller is the strange journey full of wonders and miracles that help him understand parts of Torah that were difficult for him. This treatment, a dos-a-dos pamphlet with text and illustrations on every page, depicts such a journey.    Sold

Kaplan, Chayim Aron. Sefer ha-mishakim ha-sha'ashuim veha-hitamlut: sefer-ezer le-horim, le-morim ule-talmidim. Warsaw, Limud, 1927. Octavo, mildly worn stapled paper covers, 84 pp., b/w drawings and photos. Softbound. Good. Text is in Hebrew. (78089)  A book of games and songs for children.   $30.00

Kipnis, Levin. Hayoh hayah: sipurim ketuvim bi-yede Levin Kipnis Alef. Erelah u-Vubatah. Tel Aviv, Dvir, 1930s. Octavo, stapled paper covers, 8 pp., cover and two drawings by A. Heshkovits. Softbound. Very Good. Text is in Hebrew. (78082)  Levin Kipnis was a major force in Israeli children's literature, primarily in Hebrew. In his later years he turned his attention towards Yiddish and became a major presence with the Yiddishist world. He began writing as a young child. He was mostly closely associated with the publisher Dvir in the mid to late 1920s. He did work with them later and I date this pamphlet to a later period on the basis of the illustration and calligraphy on the cover. This is a pleasant little story of a girl and her doll meant for a younger elementary school reader.   $35.00

Limude ha-keri'ah = oder, Unterrikht im lezen, dez loshoyn ha-koydesh un Yidish-Daytsh ... fir di izraelitishen shulen. Fürth, Druck und Verlag von D. Zürndorffer und Sommer, 1852. Duodecimo, paper covers, 24 pp. Softbound. Very Good-. Text is in Hebrew and German with a section in Yidish-Taytsh and the special Ivri-Taytsh type. A later printing of the work with the same title dated 1846 under the OCLC number 137242070. (77315)  This is what a children's Hebrew primer looked like in the first half of the nineteenth century.    $50.00

Mendele Mokher Seforim, Sholom Aleykhem, Y. L. Peretz. Shul Bibliotek No. 1. Dos Kelbl. No. 2. Sholom Aleykhem's Dos Meserl. No. 3. Y.L. Perets' Kinder-Lider. Warsaw, Farlag "Kultur-Lige", 1921. 16mo, gray cloth spine with minor wear, printed paper covered boards, soiled covers, first title page loose, 32, 32, 16 pp., yellowed paper, frontispiece illustrations and in-text illustrations throughout the first Mendele story by Joseph Chaikov. Hardbound. Good-. Text is in Yiddish. OCLC Numbers: 38094865, 19309125, 613226955. Three short stories, one each by the three Klassikers of Yiddish literature, meant for school use. The first of the three, "Dos Kelbl," is illustrated by Chaikov. Chaikov along with Boris Aronson and El Lisitsky was one of the founders of Kultur-Lige which is the publisher of all three stories. Chaikov was active as a sculptor already at the time of this publication. Over time his focus turned more towards sculpture particularly after the Soviet turn against the avant garde. (78068) Sold
 



     ________
Raskin, Bentsiyon. Aviv-ziv. Tel Aviv, B. Berlevi, 1930s. Octavo, single sheet folded to create 10 pp., b/w drawings by Sh. Ovadyahu. Softbound. Very Good. Text is in Hebrew. (78093)  A story for young elementary school children telling of two birds surviving their encounters with various predators. Natural realistic drawings accompany the large sized type of the text. Sold