The recently published 19th issue of the quarterly literary magazine Yidishland opens with materials dedicated to Hayim Nahman Bialik’s 150th birth anniversary: a new song to Bialik’s poem “Unter di grininke beymelekh” written by the young Israeli composer Gershon Leizerson, and Velvl Chernin’s article about Bialik’s contribution to the development of Yiddish poetry. Although this great poet mainly wrote in Hebrew, he is also the author of important Yiddish works.
Once again – as in the previous issues — the magazine clearly demonstrates that Yiddish poetry continues to flourish. The new issue features the first poems of the young poetess Katerina Kuznetzova (Berlin). Contemporary Yiddish poetry is also represented by Yoel Matveev (St. Petersburg), Boris Karlov (Jerusalem-Bloomington), Felix Khaimovich (Minsk) and Velvl Chernin (Kfar Eldad). The magazine also presents a selection of poems by William Butler Yeats, translated by Yoel Matveyev from English into Yiddish.
The new issue of Yidishland also contains translated prose: Isaac Babel’s story “How it was done in Odessa”, translated from Russian by Velvl Chernin. As for original Yiddish prose, the magazine contains a chapter from Mikhoel Felzenbaum’s new novel, written under his new pen name Michael Zhutko, and a story by Eli Scharfstein who lives in the kibbutz Ma’agan Michael.
Having started from the previous issue, Yidishland continues to publish the prison memoirs of the Soviet Jewish writer Noah Lurie. Another important part of the magazine are a review of the Jewish writers’ archives from the Center for the Studies of History and Culture of East European Jewry at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.
As usual, the magazine, published in Israel and in parallel circulation in Sweden, contains its traditional sections “New Books” and “Materials for the Yiddish Literature Lexicon in the 21st Century”.