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"Tsu di Poylishe Yidn in Amerike". Binem Heller’s Dialog with the Polish Jews in America

Mon, December 17, 10:30am to 12:00pm, Seaport Hotel & World Trade Center, Cityview 2 Ballroom

Abstract

After the war, Binem Heller (1908-1998), the author of the famous poem “In varshever geto iz itst khoydesh nisn”, became one of the most distinguished Polish Yiddish poets who wanted to contribute to establishing a Jewish life in Poland after the Shoah. He was simultaneously a communist and became familiar with the new Poland, which promised to let Jews be part of the society. In that role, Heller became in post-war Poland – in the true sense of the word – a significant Yiddish voice in poetry, speaking regularly on Polskie Radio's Yiddish programmes. His target audience was Polish Jews – but not living in Poland, where these foreign broadcasts could not be received at all but in the USA and other countries. But what messages did Heller send to his countrymen, from a communist country to capitalist nations? Using Binem Heller's distinctive poem “Tsu di poylishe yidn in amerike” as an example, I examine which topics were addressed with what intentions in the poems, which were explicitly aimed at the target group of Polish Jews in the United States. Heller's position finally transformed from a dedicated speaker of Polskie Radio to a more and more disappointed critic of communism and the repeated anti-Semitic circumstances in Poland. In 1956, he emigrated and also accompanied that development in form of poetry “Akh, hot men mir mayn lebn tsebrokhn” (Oh, how they've destroyed my life). Since 1960, Heller lived in Israel, and – in spite of the Hebrew-speaking environment – he continued to write his poems in Yiddish, as he used to say: “far mayn shvester Khaye mit di grine oygn”.

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