Leah Goldberg

Leah Goldberg
Leah Goldberg in 1946
Born	(1911-05-29)May 29, 1911 Königsberg (now Kaliningrad), East Prussia, German Empire
Died	January 15, 1970(1970-01-15) (aged 58) Jerusalem
Occupation	poet, translator, playwright, researcher of literature
Nationality	Israeli (after 1948)
Literary movement	Yakhdav (led by Avraham Shlonsky)

Songs of My Beloved Country - Draft, handwriting of Leah Goldberg

Memorial plaque on Leah Goldberg's house in Tel Aviv

Leah Goldberg or Lea Goldberg (Hebrew: לאה גולדברג; May 29, 1911, Königsberg – January 15, 1970, Jerusalem) was a prolific Hebrew-language poet, author, playwright, literary translator, illustrater and painter, and comparative literary researcher.

Her writings are considered classics of Israeli literature.

Biography

Leah Goldberg was born to a Jewish Lithuanian family from Kaunas, however her mother traveled to the nearby German city of Königsberg (today, Russian Kaliningrad) in order to give birth in better medical conditions. When asked about her place of birth, Goldberg often stated "Kaunas" rather than Königsberg.

When the First World War broke out, three-year-old Goldberg had to escape with her parents to the Russian Empire, where they spent a year in hard conditions. In Russia, her mother gave birth to a baby boy, Immanuel, who died before reaching his first birthday.

According to Goldberg's autobiographical account, in 1938, when the family traveled back to Kaunas in 1919, a Lithuanian border patrol stopped them and accused her father of being a "Bolshevik spy". They locked the father in a nearby abandoned stable, and abused him by preparing his execution every morning for about a week and cancelling it at the last moment. When the border guards finally let the family go, Goldberg's father was in a serious mental state. He eventually lost his ability to function normally and left Kaunas and his family to receive treatment, though it is unclear what his fate was and why he never returned to his family. Goldberg and her mother became very close and lived together until Leah Goldberg's death.

Goldberg's parents spoke several languages, though Hebrew was not one of them. However, Goldberg learned Hebrew at a very young age, as she received her elementary education in a Jewish Hebrew-language school. She began keeping a diary in Hebrew when she was 10 years old. Her first diaries still show limited fluency in Hebrew and the influence of Russian language, but she was determined to write in Hebrew and mastered the language within a short period of time. Even though she was fluent and literate in various European languages, Goldberg wrote her published works, as well as her personal notes, only in Hebrew. In 1926, when she was 15 years old, she wrote in her personal diary, "The unfavourable condition of the Hebrew writer is no secret to me [...] Writing in a different language than Hebrew is the same to me as not writing at all. And yet I want to be a writer [...] This is my only objective."

Goldberg received a PhD from the Universities of Berlin and Bonn in Semitic languages and German. Her dissertation on the Samaritan Targum was supervised by Paul E. Kahle. Her erudition and renown was such that a leading newspaper in Palestine excitedly reported her plans to immigrate to that country. In 1935, she settled in Tel Aviv, where she joined a group of Zionist Hebrew poets of Eastern-European origin known as Yachdav (Hebrew: יחדיו "together"). This group was led by Avraham Shlonsky and was characterised by adhering to Symbolism especially in its Russian Acmeist form, and rejecting the style of Hebrew poetry that was common among the older generation, particularly that of Haim Nachman Bialik.

She never married and lived with her mother, first in Tel Aviv and later in Jerusalem. Goldberg was a heavy smoker, and in her late years she became aware of the damage in this habit, as reflected in her poem "About the Damage of Smoking". In the spring of 1969, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. After removing one of her breasts, her physicians were optimistic. Goldberg went on a short visit to Switzerland, but returned in a bad physical condition, as the cancer spread through her body. She died on 15 January 1970. Goldberg received the Israel Prize posthumously, her mother took the prize in her name.

Literary career

Leah Goldberg (1964)

Goldberg worked as a high-school teacher and earned a living writing rhymed advertisements until she was hired as an editor by the Hebrew newspapers Davar and Al HaMishmar. She also worked as a children’s book editor at Sifriyat Po'alim publishing house, while also writing theatre reviews and literary columns. In 1954 she became a literature lecturer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, advancing to senior lecturer in 1957 and full professor in 1963, when she was appointed head of the university's Department of Comparative Literature.

Goldberg wrote Hebrew poetry, drama, and children's literature. Goldberg's books for children, among them Room for Rent and Miracles and Wonders (ניסים ונפלאות, nisim veniflaot), have become classics of Hebrew-language children's literature.

With exemplary knowledge of seven languages, Goldberg also translated numerous foreign literary works exclusively into Modern Hebrew from Russian, Lithuanian, German, Italian, French, and English. Of particular note is her magnum opus of translation, Tolstoy's epic novel War and Peace, as well as translations of Rilke, Thomas Mann, Chekhov, Akhmatova, Shakespeare, and Petrarch, plus many other works including reference books and works for children.

And This is the Light

In 1946, Goldberg published her only novel, And This is the Light (Hebrew: והוא האור, Vehu Ha'Or, "And he is the light"; "it is the light"; "this is the light"). The novel had a strong autobiographical basis, and has been received as shedding much light on the rest of her work.

The novel is set in the summer of 1931, with twenty-year-old protagonist Nora Krieger visiting her Lithuanian hometown while on holiday from her studies at a university in Berlin. Although she has planned to show how mature she has become, Nora instead experiences unrequited love, bad memories, and observation brought on by the limits imposed on her a classist and antisemitic society.

In 2011, The Toby Press released Barbara Harshav's English translation And This is the Light.

Room for Rent

In 1948, Goldberg wrote an Israeli children's short story and poem titled Room for Rent (Hebrew: דירה להשכיר, Dira Lehaskir, "Flat for Rent"), which is based on an Eastern European folktale and was first published in Hebrew in the periodical Mishmar LiYedelim.

In 1959, Room for Rent was republished as a children's book with illustrations by Shoshana Heiman - reportedly as a reaction to the Wadi Salib riots during which Israelis of Middle Eastern descent protested against racist government officials and discrimination.

In 1970, Room for Rent was again republished as a children's book with new illustrations by Shmuel Katz.

In the 1990s, Room for Rent was first translated into English by Bracha Kaplan as A Flat for Rent.

In 2016, Ilan Greenfield of Jerusalem-based Gefen Publishing House commissioned San Antonio native Jessica Setbon to retranslate Room for Rent into English; the new English version of Goldberg's children's book was released in 2017 along with Katz's illustrations.

The plot of Goldberg's short story takes place in a five storey house that is home to four animals: a Cornish Hen on the first floor, a Cuckoo on the second, a black Cat on the third, and a Squirrel on the fourth; Sir Reginald Mouse lived on the fifth and topmost floor, but had recently moved out.

The four remaining tenants, who also happen to be friends, decide to rent out the fifth room and wait for a new neighbor to move into it.

Four animals show up at the house and although they find the room nice, they offend the tenants with their reasons for not moving in: the hardworking Miss Ant dislikes Miss Hen for being fat and lazy; the motherly Mrs. Rabbit despises the Cuckoo for abandoning her sons in other birds' nests despite her visiting them daily; the white-skinned Snortimus Pig gets chased out for refusing to be neighbors with the black-furred Cat; and the musical Nightingale complains that the Squirrel is noisy whenever she cracks the pecans she shares with her friends.

Lastly, a kind Dove arrives at the house and inspects the room. When asked if she wants to stay, the Dove agrees for she wishes to be friends and neighbors with Miss Hen, the Cuckoo, the Cat, and the Squirrel despite their habits.

Considered a classic in Israeli literature, Room for Rent is read to children to teach them the timely message of tolerating diverse people's races, beliefs, and practices, and that friends come in all shapes and sizes.

On March 19, 2020, former Israeli president Reuven Rivlin uploaded a YouTube video of himself narrating Room for Rent.

Literary style and influences

Goldberg was widely read in Russian, German, and French poetry. Symbolism and Acmeism were strong influences on her style. Her poetry is notable for coherence and clarity, and for an emphasis on ideas over baroque forms. Nili Gold, Modern Hebrew Literature scholar and editor of the English translation of And This is the Light, has noted Goldberg's "high aestheticism, musicality, and unique merging of intellect and humanity".

Goldberg's poetics perceive the general in the specific: a drop of dew represents vast distances and the concrete reflects the abstract. Her poetry has been described as "a system of echoes and mild reverberations, voices and whispers," that recognizes the limitations of the poem and language. Her work is minor and modest, taking a majestic landscape like the Jerusalem hills and focusing on a stone, a thorn, one yellow butterfly, a single bird in the sky.

Unlike many of her contemporary peers, most notably Nathan Alterman, Goldberg avoided outright political poetry, and did not contribute occasional poetry to Hebrew periodicals with overt current-affairs discourse.

Acclaim and remembrance

Goldberg received in 1949 the Ruppin Prize (for the volume "Al Haprikhá") and, in 1970, the Israel Prize for literature.

The American Hebraist, Gabriel Preil, wrote a poem about Goldberg: "Leah's Absence".

In 2011, Goldberg was announced as one of four great Israeli poets who would appear on Israel's currency (together with Rachel Bluwstein, Shaul Tchernichovsky, and Natan Alterman).

A 100-shekel bill featuring the image of Leah Goldberg.

The design of the 100 new shekel banknote includes the portrait of Leah Goldberg and her poem In the land of my love the almond tree blossoms in microprint.

On May 29, 2013, Google commemorated what would have been Goldberg's 102nd birthday by uploading a Google Doodle in which the website's logo is made up of the characters and setting from her children's book Room for Rent.

Many of Goldberg's songs, including those written before the establishment of the State of Israel, have been composed and recorded over the years.

See also

• Hebrew literature
• Culture of Israel
• List of Israel Prize recipients
• List of Hebrew-language authors

Further reading

• And This Is the Light, translated by Barbara Harshav (Toby Press, 2011).
• Room for Rent, translated by Jessica Setbon (Gefen Publishing, 2017).
• With This Night, translated by Annie Kantar (University of Texas Press, 2011).
• The Selected Poetry and Drama of Leah Goldberg, translated by Rachel Tzvia Back (Toby Press, 2005).
• From Songs of Two Autumns (poem), translated by Annie Kantar.
• Leah Goldberg in the Lexicon of the Hebrew new literature on net לקסיקון הספרות העברית החדשה
• The Modern Hebrew Poem Itself (Wayne State University Press, 2003), ISBN 0-8143-2485-1
• The Shortest Journey (poem) in New Translations (English)
• On the Blossoming, translated by Miriam Billig Sivan (Garland Pub., 1992).
• "Re-reading It is the Light, Lea Goldberg's Only Novel," by Nili Gold (Prooftexts, Vol. 17, 1997).

External links

• Jewish Women's Archive page
• A documentary film about Lea Goldberg
• Ivrim Interviews with Goldberg friends and researchers
• Leah Goldberg's 102nd Birthday Google Doodle (may only be visible in Israel)