1. Arn Vergelis    No.1   Idle Curiosity A synagogue stands in the sky, a church stands on the ground.    Idly curious, I turn the frame this way, then I  turn the frame that way. Church bells, the shofar's call, each man enters his own temple,    Our fathers had a reason to follow their own way.    God is in Heaven, He knows who is right.    Idly curious, I turn the frame, take it up and look at it from the back.    Indeed, the church is still there, and it is given pride of place.    The synagogue is brushed away, like a pestering child...    A cathedral stands in Moscow's Kremlin, the synagogue is in a dead-end street.    Idly curious, I turn the frame, I turn it backwards and  No. 2. Le théatre de mon âme (translation required)     No. 3  Kaf Hakal . I made a covenant with God,    He has terrible grief from me,    Sometimes I act to spite Him,    Sometimes I call Him Darling God.    Mama is blessing a candle nearby,    The light is streaming out of the wick.    Sometimes I speed to meet my life,    Sometimes I crawl to meet my death.    I lied to mama,    And I am punished by Kaf Hakal.    Death always leads to ruin,    Life is a carnival... ((Kaf Hakal - a torture for souls of sinners, when evil spirits torment them by throwing them from side to side) (Translations by Marina Bower)

2. Boris Mogilner No. 4.   By the Lake In the Autumn the water is bitter, It is redolent of wormwood, it is cool and dark. The trees are keeping firm watch, Sunk in cobweb nets. A quiet song is heard in the forest, Without birdsong or words. It disappears softly in the distance, But it lingers in my sensitive heart. Autumn is stern but it draws and beguiles me With delicate bunches of rowan berries, With mysterious footprints of wild animals That glitter and shine like colourful leaves on the waves. The mist creeps over slowly and  silently, Hoping to shroud the splendour of the season. But don't despair, just before the rain The dawn may dare yet to light a Summer bonfire. You won't see this anywhere else. My pen shall not shake When I turn this picture into tidy lines of words, Although I know that the spark will have gone... I feel this too may sustain me and make me strong To take up that beguiling challenge, to follow the voice That would separate us forever. (Translation by Marina Bower)   No. 5.  Interpreting dreams (translation required)

3. Helpern Leivick   No.6   "Forever"   The world takes me around with arms long and prickly, and throws me in pyres that burn all the day. I burn and I burn but the fires don't consume me — I pick myself up, stride again on my way. In fact'ries that I stride through, I fall 'neath the giant wheels. With courage, I blow up the steam pipes today. I lay myself down as a brand new foundation — I pick myself up, stride again on my way. Just see: now I'm a horse, in harness of leather; my raging young rider is whipping away. . I slice through the ground like a sharp-bladed farm plow — I pick myself up, stride again on my way. I sow all of my poems-I sow them like grain seeds; they sprout and they grow just like grain stalks today. But I still lie here like a twisted old bramble -- I pick myself up, stride again on my way. I live here in a dungeon, blow open the cell-door; above me the freed men are joyful today. They leave me here bleeding, alone in the doorway -- I pick myself up, stride again on my way. My clothes bloodily soaked, and dragging my weary limbs, . with purified love I am coming this day. I come to a house and collapse on the doorstep — I pick myself up, stride again on my way. (Translation by Barnett Zumoff)   No. 7. - (under research)     No. 8.  "How did he get here?  (from the cycle "Spinoza", No. 2) How did he get into this sickroom? the philosopher from Amsterdam? I look at him - there's no uncertainty. It's he, it's he. The full lips. The long nose. The whole head as though under glass. His sick chest heaves, straining, racked, racked by fits of coughing. Three hundred years - as though one minute. A drop of blood dots his lip. Three hundred years of moonlight fall on his head and pillow. Fall. Holy one,I touch your sleeve. Wake up. Rise up. Recognize me. (Translation by Ruth Whitman) No. 9.  - (under research) No. 10.  "Two times two is four" (from the cycle "Spinoza", No. 11) My body's passion-hide is stripped away. My pure soul, what does she do? She counts, she counts. Two times two is - four, I times I is - you, you times you is - me, death times death is - rest. My head is in the east, my feet are in the west; drive quicker, don't get lost - near times near is - far. Tap the door. - Knock, knock. - It's open, come right in, - kindle the last look, - death times death is - being. (Translation by Ruth Whitman)

7. Yankev Glatshteyn   No. 14.  Good night, world Good night, wide world, big stinking world. Not you but I slam shut the gate. With a long gabardine, with a fiery yellow patch, with a proud stride, because I want to, I'm going back to the ghetto. Wipe away, stamp out every vestige of conversion. I roll around in your garbage - praise, praise, praise, - hunchbacked Jewish life. Damn your dirty culture, world. I wallow in your dust even though it's forsaken, sad Jewish life. German pig, cutthroat Pole, Romania, thief, land of drunkards and gluttons. Week-kneed democracy, with your cold sympathy-compresses. Good night, electrified arrogant world. Back to my kerosene, candle shadows, eternal October, candle stars, to my crooked streets, humped lanterns, my sacred pages, my Bible, my Gemorra, to my backbreaking studies, to the bright Yiddish prayerbook, to law, profundity, duty, justice, - world, I walk gladly towards quiet ghetto light. Good night. I'll make you, world, a gift of all my liberators. Take back your Jesus-Marxes, choke on their courage. Croak over a drop of our christianized blood. For I have hope, even if He is delaying, day by day my expectation rises. Green leaves will yet rustle on our sapless tree. I don't need any consolation. I'm going back to my very beginnings, from Wagner's pagan music to melody, to humming. I kiss you, disheveled Jewish life, I cry with the joy of coming back. August 1938. No. 14.is one of the most famous Yiddish poems. Its content (particularly the words about the Germans and the Poles) should, of course, be taken in the context of the time when it was written: in 1938.  No. 15. Mozart I dreamed that the gentiles crucified Mozart and buried him in a pauper's grave. But the Jews made him a man of God and blessed his memory. I, his apostle, ran all over the world, converting everyone I met, and whenever I caught a Christian I made him a Mozartean. How wonderful is the musical testament of this divine man! How nailed through with song his shining hands! In his greatest need all the fingers of this crucified singer were laughing. And in his most crying grief he loved his neighbour's ear more than himself. How poor and stingy - compared with Mozart's legacy - is the Sermon on the Mount. (Translation by Ruth Whitman)   No. 16. The Joy Of the Yiddish Word O let me come close to the joy of the Yiddish word. Give me whole days and nights of it. Bind me, weave me into it, strip me of all vanities. Let ravens feed me, I'll live on crumbs. A broken roof, a hard bed. But give me whole days and nights of it. Don't let me forget the Yiddish word for a single moment. I'm becoming harsh and commanding, like the hand of my livelihood. Capons and champagne indigest my time. The Yiddish word lies garnered, but the key rusts in my hand. Logic steals away my understanding. O sing, sing youself towards naked austerity. The world becomes fat in your bed. There'll soon be no place for either of us. The Yiddish word, loyal, silent, is waiting for you. And you sigh in a burning dream: I'm coming, I'm coming. (Translation by Marina Bower)

8.   Rivka Basman Ben-Chaim No. 17. "Scorched Bees" You don't even know how well off we are, we Jewish orphans, who lay out our pain in Yiddish, like bricks added to a doomed building, a building where angels sing near the walls and the song reaches the heavens. You have no idea how sweet it is to sing with an angel. Melodies circle round like scorched bees - they will yet discover honey in a Yiddish word. (Translation by Barnett Zumoff)

10.  Avrom Sutzkever No. 21.  Poetry The last dark violet plum on the tree, delicate and tender as the pupil of an eye, blots out in the dewy night all love, visions, trembling, and at the morningstar the dew becomes airier - that's poetry. Touch it without letting it show the print of your fingers.   No.  22.  "The Banks of a River" From a high mountain I see how the banks of a river shimmer. In the distance near the horizon they darken and wrangle, then light up silvergreen and violet, then darken again. I look down into the river where my face's tinder is quenched and my body shines clear, transparent, and I say to the east, west, north, south: Look and see how beneath chocked leaves and houses in cold riverwriting my name is written. Broadcast it all over the world. Amen. 1938 (Translation by Ruth Whitman) No. 23.    -  under research

13.  Tsilye Dropkin No. 27 "To a Young Poetess" What good is it that your gaze pierces deep into things? Your heart, your heart is asleep. And when he came and you gazed clearly at him, as at a sun - what good did it do? You have to burn three times, like me, in Hell in the fire of love - burn long and slowly; you have to be purified three times in Hell, like me; you have to love unwisely, without pride, love unto death; then, when you recognize death in love, then write love-poems! (Translation by Barnett Zumoff)

14.  Ana Margolin No. 28.  We Went Through Days We went through days as through storm-shaken gardens. We blossomed and were happy and played with love and death. Clouds and insolence and dreams were in our words. And amid stubborn trees and summer-rustling gardens we grew into a single tree.   And evenings spread out with heavy, dark blueness, with the painful desires of winds and falling stars, with the wandering, fawning shine on twitching grass and leaves. And we wove ourselves into the wind, permeated ourselves with blueness, and were like happy animals and wise, playful gods.   No. 29.   Fall of Night and Weeping  A silence, sudden and deep, Between the two of us, Like a confused letter Announcing parting, Like a sinking ship - A silence without a look, without a motion, Full of night and weeping Between the two of us, As if we ourselves Were closing the door To Paradise.

17.  Emmanuil Kazakevitch No. 34.  The Korean Novella On my straw mat I lie at ease, with my sturdy limbs, and you sit near me, saying nothing and playing your guitar. Beyond  trusty little windows, the reddish sun is dying. Somehow everything is so bluish— there’s a bright lump in my heart. You are a Korean girl and I am silent, like Buddha. It’s a wonderment to me that you can’t speak Yiddish. Your singing has the flavor of Asia, often with the blessing of Jewish candles, often with age-old gray stones carved with little figures. “Good morning, pretty girl— I don’t understand what you are saying.” Your hair like crow’s feathers, your thousand-voiced guitar, your lips like swan’s hearts, your eyes like bits of diamond-- beyond the windows lie the dark Amur mountains. The sun is pouring its bright shine onto my straw mat like a beautiful, tender Korean novella— so peacefully, without complaints, the way you give your lips. Tomorrow you’ll go to your school to teach the youngest children. I'll help fulfill the plans throughout the broad land, and the Korean novella unfolds in the rapidly passing days. The sunlight on my straw mat gets paler and paler, and the sun, terribly tired, drowns in the waters of the Amur. (Translation by Barnett Zumoff)

18.  Boris Sandler No. 35. (one of the ten "spheres") Beauty    What does beauty mean, what?  Ask a blind man. He guards the secret  like that guardian in Paradise  who guards the cleanness of souls.  He feels beauty with his skin,  with the nerve-endings of his fingertips  transmitting, as if through the finest wires,  to his sight-deprived brain.  He can appreciate beauty  painted with the colors of night, when every rustle and tremor  tenses the vessels like strings  on an as-yet-unplayed instrument,  to hear how the quiet, virginal melody  Ask a blind man where the road to beauty is, and follow him. Become a shadow  and tap the earth along with his cane his eyelids and his pupils— and he’ll bring you there,  himself unaware  that he is already near the goal and it’s just one more step to reach it. And you, the seeing person with eyes—  don’t stop him, and from the very peak of the mountain  let him take his last step,  for as he is falling  he’ll first take that last step up  to his longed-for goal: beauty, to which he has blundered in the darkness,  holding onto the thread of a moonbeam.     (Translation by B.Zumoff)