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Converting to Judaism has defined my high school experience
This article was produced as part of JTA’s Teen Journalism Fellowship, a program that works with Jewish teens around the world to report on issues that affect their lives.
(JTA) — During the pandemic, my mom decided to start baking; my friend Reagan learned Osage, a Native American language; my brother taught himself how to skateboard.
I decided to channel my free time and energy into converting to Judaism.
Growing up in the Bible Belt, I was only ever exposed to Christian theology. Almost everyone around me was a Baptist. Although my parents intentionally raised my brother and me without a focus on religion, I grew up going to Christian preschool, Christian summer camps, and being surrounded by other Christians–just because there weren’t other options. While this wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, I always knew that Christianity wasn’t right for me.
At first, the idea of eternal life and an all-knowing God provided comfort, but as I got older I started to feel disconnected from Christianity. Concepts like the Holy Trinity never made sense to me, and by age 12 I thought I had given up on religion entirely.
I first started looking into Judaism towards the end of 2020. I’m not really sure what led me to this; I just stumbled upon it and found that its emphasis on making the ordinary holy, repairing the world, and the pursuit of knowledge was a perfect fit for my already existing beliefs. My parents were a little bit shocked but ultimately supportive when I told them that I wanted to convert. My mom’s main concern was that I would become the target of antisemitism. “I’m happy for you and try not to think about the what-ifs,” she said while driving me to the Jewish community center so that I could board the bus headed to the BBYO Jewish youth group’s International Convention.
In the spring of 2021, I emailed the rabbi at a local synagogue about my potential conversion. During our first conversation, he asked me if I’d heard about the custom of rabbis turning away potential candidates three times. I told him I had, but that if he turned me away I would just keep coming back. After the meeting, I signed up for conversion classes and started attending services regularly — and I wasn’t alone.
According to a 2021 Tablet survey, 43% of American rabbis are seeing more conversion candidates than before. The reasons for conversion are diverse. Some candidates fell down an internet rabbit hole that led to a passion for Judaism. Others took an ancestry test and wanted to reconnect with their Jewish heritage. Many were raised as Reform Jews but weren’t Jewish according to stricter halachic, or Jewish legal, standards and decided to convert under Conservative or Orthodox auspices. Despite the common stereotype that Jews by choice must be converting for the sake of marriage, many rabbis said that converts are less likely than ever to be converting for a Jewish partner.
After meeting with a rabbi about the potential conversion, candidates are expected to learn everything they can about Judaism. In my case, that meant 21 weeks of hour-long, weekly conversion classes in addition to independent study on Jewish mysticism, traditions, and ideas. Candidates are also expected to become active members of their local Jewish community and attend services regularly.
Once the candidate and the rabbi feel they are ready to convert, a beit din, or a court usually made up of three rabbis, is assembled. They will conduct an interview, asking the candidate about what brought them to Judaism and basic questions about what was taught during conversion classes. When the beit din has guaranteed that the candidate genuinely wants to convert, the candidate immerses in the mikveh, a pool used for ritual purification. After submerging in the mikveh, the convert is considered to be officially Jewish and is typically called up for an aliyah, ascending the platform where the Torah is read.
According to Rabbi Darah Lerner, who served in Bangor, Maine before her retirement last year, the main difference between teens converting alone and teens converting with their family is the parental approval that’s needed, but otherwise the process is very similar. “I treated them pretty much as I did with adults,” she said. For me, the only parental approval needed was my mom telling my rabbi that she and my dad were fine with me starting the conversion process. She also noted that it was easier for teens to integrate into the Jewish community because people were excited to see young people interested in Judaism.
A mikveh, like this one at Mayyim Hayyim outside of Boston, is a ritual pool where Jews by choice immerse as part of the conversion process. (Courtesy Mayyim Hayyim)
She said that the Jewish community gave the teens a place where they could ask questions and not be shut down. “If they have a pushback, or a curiosity, or a problem we allow them to ask it and we give them real answers or resources,” she said.
“I feel extremely privileged when youth come to me with these questions and these desires,” Rabbi Rachael Jackson, from Hendersonville, North Carolina. Jackson has worked with three teens in the conversion process over the past two years. Like Lerner, she doesn’t require teens to wait until they turn 18 to begin the conversion process. However, it’s not unusual for rabbis to recommend that teens wait until they turn 18 to begin their conversion.
My conversion process has defined my high school experience. I’ve been able to connect with other Jews at my school through BBYO, which has helped me find a community at school and meet people who I might not have met otherwise. Although it’s made me feel farther from the Christian community I was once a part of, Judaism has given me spiritual fulfillment, a love for Israel, and a sense of community — both in my synagogue and my BBYO chapter.
Others who have gone through the process feel much the same way. “I wouldn’t even recognize myself,” said Haven Lail, 17, from Hickory, North Carolina. “My whole personality is based on being Jewish. That’s what I love.” Adopted into a Jewish family at age 12, Lail felt drawn to Judaism because of the loving and accepting community she found.
Raised as a nondenominational Christian, Lail attended church regularly with her biological parents, but not for the religious aspect. “It was all hellfire and brimstone,” she said. Neglected by her birth parents, she only went to church because she knew there would be food there.
Lail started the conversion process at age 12 through a Hebrew high school, and four years later, she submerged in the mikveh and signed a certificate finalizing her conversion. The process was simple, but she was shocked that so few Jews knew about the conversion process. “It was a little weird,” she said.
The Talmud says that because “the Jewish people were themselves strangers, they are not in a position to demean a convert because he is a stranger in their midst.” However, it isn’t uncommon for converts to feel alienated from the rest of the Jewish community. “There’s this fear of going to college and still being othered because you still won’t quite fit in with the people who have been raised Jewish,” said one high school senior from North Carolina.
He was shocked by how alienated he felt after making his conversion public, and wanted to stay anonymous because he worries that once people find out that he converted, they’ll see him differently. “I didn’t ever really explain it to anybody except for the people really close to me,” he said. But after his rabbi called him up for an aliyah — a blessing recited during the reading of the Torah — one woman from the congregation began to bring it up to him every time she saw him. “People don’t realize that it can be a touchy thing and very, very othering,” he said.
I usually don’t mind personal questions about my conversion, but asking someone why they converted or pointing out that someone is a convert is frowned upon by Jewish law. I used to feel like everyone could tell that I wasn’t raised Jewish, but after one of my BBYO advisors thought that my conversion was just a rumor and couldn’t believe that it was true, I realized that wasn’t the case.
All of my friends and peers who were raised Jewish have memories of Jewish summer camps, Shabbat dinners with family, and a lifetime of other experiences. I often struggle with not feeling “Jewish enough” or like I missed out, especially because so many Jewish customs revolve around the home and family. My parents will often come with me to Shabbat services, but don’t participate in Jewish customs or celebrate Jewish holidays with me. “Anything that is a ritual in the home, they don’t really have the ability to have that autonomy,” said Rabbi Rachael Jackson of Agudas Israel Congregation in Hendersonville, North Carolina.
Grace Hamilton, a student at Muskingum University in New Concord, Ohio, has struggled with imposter syndrome during her conversion. Ever since she started college, she’s been questioning her place in the Jewish community and hasn’t been practicing Judaism as much as she used to. “I haven’t prayed in a really long time,” she said. She used to tell herself that once she finalized her conversion she would finally feel Jewish enough, but after a conversation with her rabbi, she realized that wasn’t the case.
According to Rabbi Rochelle Tulik at Temple B’rith Kodesh in Rochester, New York, many converts feel like they will never be Jewish enough. “That, no matter how hard they try, how many books they read or put on their shelves, no matter how often they come to services, or how many menorahs they light, somehow they’ll be caught,” she said in a Rosh Hashanah sermon she named “You Are Not an Imposter.”
Despite the struggles that many converts face, others like Rabbi Natasha Mann, who now serves as a rabbi at New London Synagogue in England, immediately felt at home within the Jewish community. “I felt like people were excited to have me there and wanted to hear what I had to say,” she said. After a family member mentioned that she might have Jewish ancestry, Mann began exploring out of curiosity. “I started looking into it, just because I felt that it was another piece of the puzzle,” she said.
Coming from an interreligious and intercultural family, she wanted to explore another aspect of her heritage, but ended up connecting with Judaism in a way that she hadn’t connected with any other religion. After two years of study, she decided to officially start her conversion process.
The Jewish community gave Mann a place where her ideas were taken seriously and she could have religious discussions, even as a teen. “I don’t know what my life would have looked like if I hadn’t found somewhere to really express and delve into that,” she said. “And luckily, I never have to.”
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The post Converting to Judaism has defined my high school experience appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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This 90-year-old Jewish performer and promoter is the Zelig of folk music
Harry Tuft was in a taxi with Judy Collins, who had her guitar with her. The cab driver looked back and asked if the two of them were folk singers. They replied in the affirmative.
“Folk music is dead,” the cab driver asserted.
“We kind of chuckled a little and said, ‘Oh, really, how come?’” Tuft recalled.
“Did you see Ed Sullivan last night?”
The passengers replied that they hadn’t.
“There was a group on there called The Beatles. Folk music is dead.”
To paraphrase Mark Twain, the reports of the death of folk music were an exaggeration.
“That was a time when, really, we didn’t know what was going to happen,” Tuft said during a recent Zoom interview from his home in Denver.
“I think it’s thanks to groups like Peter, Paul and Mary and maybe somebody like Joan Baez and Judy Collins and John Denver — people who were popular enough and smart enough to appeal to a larger segment of the population. They really kept folk music alive.”
The genre lived on, also, thanks to the efforts of the now-90-year-old Tuft, who was more than a bit player in the folk music revival during the 1960s. He founded the Denver Folklore Center in 1962 and, with others in 1979, founded the Swallow Hill Music Association, which presents concerts, teaches music classes for all ages and offers outreach programs. In 2012, Tuft was inducted into the Colorado Music Hall of Fame.
Tuft was also a link in the chain that led to Bob Dylan meeting the Beatles. He also may be the only nonagenarian who released an album this year.
“Friends, Lovers & Other Strangers” includes songs by artists like Bob Dylan and Paul Simon, as well as ones by some of Tuft’s friends. It also includes a cover of the Nat King Cole Trio’s “Nature Boy.”
“I grew up in Philadelphia listening to pop music of the day on radio stations WPEN and WIBG, and R&B stations at night,” Tuft writes in the album’s liner notes. “This song was popular across the board.”
Tuft’s paternal grandfather, Dr. Jacob L. Manasses, was the founder of Bushkill Farms Camp, a Jewish boys camp in the Pocono mountains. Tuft went to Indian Lake, another Jewish camp in the Poconos. A counselor at his camp played the ukulele. Tuft, who played piano and clarinet, soon acquired a ukulele. “I found out there was such a thing as a baritone uke and it turns out that the tuning of the baritone is the same as the four highest strings of the guitar, so I was already two-thirds of the way to a guitar,” he said. “It was very customary in those days for Jewish kids somewhere in their college years to go to Europe so I bought a Chimes guitar and carried it with me.”
Tuft intended to become a doctor like his father and paternal grandfather. But his grades weren’t good enough to get into medical school. Instead, he graduated from Dartmouth in 1957 with a degree in philosophy. He went to graduate school for architecture at the University of Pennsylvania with thoughts of being a city planner.
“But music won out,” said Tuft.
While at Dartmouth, Tuft met Pete Seeger at a folk club. Seeger met with the club members in the afternoon and performed that night.
“He was really intent on getting us as a group to go out into the community and see if we could find people who had songs to offer. He arrived in a blue Plymouth station wagon with his kids on a mattress in the back. His wife, Toshi, set up a display in the hall and sold Pete’s Folkways Records after the concert. Here was this icon, this important person in my musical life in the moment, and he was just getting along,” he said.
“He requested a large log, and did a song called ‘Didn’t Old John (Cross the Water).’ It included a place to swing the axe. Unfortunately, the podium was very slick and Seeger ended up chasing the log all over the ‘stage.’”
After graduating from Dartmouth, Tuft joined the growing folk music scene that was centered around the Gilded Cage in Philadelphia. There, he met his lifelong friend Dick Weissman, a banjoist and guitarist who was in the Journeymen with John Phillips, who would go on to found the Mamas and the Papas.
Tuft eventually ventured out to Colorado, where he auditioned at The Exodus, a Denver folk club.
Tuft was told about the owner: “If he was going to hire you he would be critical and if he was not he would be nice to you. And he was nice to me, so I knew that I wasn’t going to get a job there.
“I had a repertoire that was out of the ordinary, and I was never really attracted to the ‘quote’ popular folk songs,” Tuft said. “As a matter of fact, when it came to trying to make a living playing in the bars what they wanted to hear were the popular songs by the Kingston Trio or Peter, Paul and Mary or the Brothers Four, and I didn’t know those songs.”
“I’m a sucker for a story, I’m a balladeer. I love ballads. Quite often, I do ballads of 10, 12, 14 verses because I like the form so much.”
The Exodus owner said that he thought someone could make a part-time living opening a folklore center like Izzy Young’s Folklore Center in Greenwich Village. “I sometimes joke and say that he was right. I opened a full-time folklore center in order to make a part-time living.”
Tuft also sold records, instruments, strings and accessories and it was the strings and accessories that paid the rent.
The shop became a way station for up-and-coming folk musicians traveling between Chicago and the West Coast. When Bob Dylan made his first cross-country tour and played in Denver, he had his mail forwarded to Tuft’s store.
“Even then, he had an attitude about him,” Tuft recalled. “The following summer I saw him at the Kettle of Fish in the Village, and he grudgingly acknowledged that we had met.”
After a visit to Chicago’s Old Town School of Folk Music, he started a school for Denver musicians and soon branched out into promotion. His first job was for Joan Baez who sold out a 2,400 seat house in March 1964.
Baez was involved with Dylan at that time and wanted to get him to meet The Beatles, who were playing Red Rocks on August 26. Baez was scheduled to play at the venue a couple days earlier, so a plan was hatched for her to come out a few days early so that she could meet the lads and arrange for them to meet Dylan in New York, where The Beatles were going after Denver.
The day before The Beatles’ show, Tuft and Baez went to see A Hard Day’s Night. The musicians met before The Beatles show and Tuft recalled that Baez and the band members were deferential to one another. Except for Ringo, who wasn’t interested and was reading a comic book.
Tuft also brought the Mamas and the Papas to Denver’s Municipal Auditorium Theater with 7,600 seats in 1966. Richard “Dick” Lamm, a friend and lawyer, fronted him $5,000 for the guarantee. Lamm later admitted that he had absolutely no idea who the Mamas and the Papas were. “That showed the amount of trust he had in me,” Tuft said. “And he said he was nervous until a week before the concert until they were on the cover of Life magazine.” Lamm used his profits to fund his first run for the Denver statehouse.
Later, John Denver offered his services for a benefit Tuft organized and helped raise more than $40,000 for Lamm’s successful run for governor.
Folk music endures, Tuft said, “because the best of folk music involves music. And the best of music is melodic. And whatever it is in our physical makeup that involves not just the heartbeat, which is our basic rhythm, but something about our voice, maybe, and the way we speak and our desire to communicate that all put together leads to somebody creating a song about something that happened, and if the kernel of it, either the music or the words, or both are such that people like it and repeat it and you get musical history, and history of countries and our country in particular, of the songs.”
Tuft is already putting together his next album — a double album of cowboy and western songs, traditional on one side and contemporary on the other.
“I’m a song addict,” Tuft said. “And I like to think that I have pretty decent taste in songs. Nothing pleases me more than to be able to find a new song, make it my own, and pass it on and open it up to whatever audience I’m able to bring together.”
The post This 90-year-old Jewish performer and promoter is the Zelig of folk music appeared first on The Forward.
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Israel has a lot riding on Nvidia, whose CEO resigned today
Jensen Huang, who co-founded Nvidia and has run it for 33 years, resigned as chief executive on Thursday, ending a tenure that turned a maker of video-game chips into the engine of the artificial intelligence boom. The decision followed revelations of an affair with a businesswoman whom U.S. intelligence officials suspect of being a Chinese spy, and allegations of a second relationship, with an executive who reports to him.
Colette Kress, Nvidia’s chief financial officer, will serve as interim chief executive while the board searches for a permanent successor.
The turmoil is a Silicon Valley story with a significantIsraeli subplot. Nvidia employs roughly 6,000 people in Israel, including on 18 floors of office space in a Tel Aviv skyscraper. Israel is home to the company’s largest R&D hub outside of the U.S. As well, Huang has been the driving force behind a plan to build a giant new campus in the country’s north. Huang has courted Israel for years, and the open question now is what happens to that commitment without him.
Nvidia’s Israeli business traces back to 2019, when it agreed to buy Mellanox, an Israeli chip company, for $6.9 billion. Mellanox made the technology that lets thousands of chips in a data center work together as one machine. That technology is now central to how AI data centers are built.
Huang kept Mellanox in Israel, along with its patents and its sales. The Israeli teams’ work is now woven into Nvidia’s newest products, and includes building a chip meant to rein in AI tools that act on their own.
In the second quarter of 2026 alone, Nvidia’s Israeli operation booked $17.5 billion in sales, nearly a fifth of the company’s worldwide revenue and more than four times the sales of Teva Pharmaceuticals, the multinational Israeli drugmaker. Analysts credit Nvidia with largely driving a 13% jump in Israeli tax revenue, and its workforce there has roughly doubled since Oct. 7, 2023.
A personal stake
Huang’s attachment to Israel is not purely commercial. On Oct. 7, Avinatan Or, a chip engineer at Nvidia’s Israeli operation, was captured at the Nova music festival along with his then-girlfriend, Noa Argamani, in a video seen around the world. She was rescued eight months later. Or remained a hostage for 738 days.
Nvidia colleagues held vigils with his mother, Ditza, and Huang stayed in touch with the family throughout. When Or was freed in Oct. 2025, Huang wrote to employees that “Avinatan has come home.” Huang later hosted Or and Argamani at the company’s headquarters in California. This March, as the war with Iran broke out, Huang told Israeli employees that he was “very worried” about them.
Huang has called Israel a “second home” for Nvidia.
That attachment is intended to last. In December, Nvidia announced plans for a campus in Kiryat Tivon, near Haifa, reportedly second in size only to its Silicon Valley headquarters. Construction is set to begin next year, and the offices are expected to open by 2031, with room for up to 10,000 employees.
What lies ahead
The next CEO has become a question in Israel, too. Kress, 59, has been Nvidia’s finance chief since 2013. The board says it will look both inside and outside the company for a permanent chief executive.
Haaretz speculated Thursday that two Israeli executives could be potential candidates. Both men studied at the Technion in Haifa. Michael Kagan, who was born in St. Petersburg, Russia and moved to Israel with his family after high school, co-founded Mellanox in 1999 and has been Nvidia’s chief technology officer for six years. Johny Srouji, born in Haifa to an Arab Christian family, joined Apple in 2008 and now leads its hardware work, including the chips inside its products.
Nothing so far suggests Nvidia’s plans in Israel will change. The Israeli teams work on products the company depends on, and the new campus has long been in the works.
Nvidia’s stock has fallen by about a third since early October, a loss of more than $1.5 trillion in market value, and the company is due to report earnings on Nov. 17. The numbers will matter in Israel. So will something they can’t show: whether Nvidia’s affection for the country outlasts its last CEO.
The post Israel has a lot riding on Nvidia, whose CEO resigned today appeared first on The Forward.
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I. B. Singer predicted the war between Fascism and Communism
יצחק באַשעװיס איז אַרײַן אין דער ייִדישער ליטעראַטור אין 1925, װען ער איז געװען בלויז 21 יאָר אַלט. אַז ער איז באַרימט געװאָרן אין אַמעריקע, האָט ער ניט געלאָזט איבערדרוקן אָדער איבערזעצן זײַנע פֿריִערדיקע װערק, װאָס זײַנען דערשינען אין ייִדישע צײַטשריפֿטן אין פּױלן.
לעצטנס האָט מען זײ אָבער אָפּגעזוכט און איבערגעזעצט אױף ענגליש אונטערן קעפּל „אױפֿן עולם־התּועה“. די דאָזיקע אױסגאַבע איז אַ קאָלעקטיװער אױפֿטו פֿון אַ גאַנצער גרופּע רעדאַקטאָרן און איבערזעצער, אַרײַנגערעכנט דניאל קענעדי, יאַן שװאַרץ, ראָזע װאַלדמאַן, אַגניעשקאַ לעגוטקאָ און אַנדערע.
אין זײַנע דערצײלונגען פֿון יענער תּקופֿה מאָלט באַשעװיס אַ ברײטן לײַװנט פֿון ייִדישע צרות אין דער נײַ־אױפֿגעקומענער פּױלישער רעפּובליק. כּמעט אַלע העלדן זײַנע זײַנען יורדים, װאָס שלאָגן זיך מיט די ביטערע עקאָנאָמישע באַדינגונגען און פֿאַלן נאָך טיפֿער אין יסורים און נױט.
גימפּל בעדנער, דער העלד פֿון „אױף דער עלטער“, איז אַ מאָל געװען אַ װאַסערטרעגער, אָבער איצט האָט ער מער ניט קײן כּוח פֿאַר אַזאַ אַרבעט. די אײנציקע שטיצע זײַנע קומט פֿון זײַנע טעכטער, װאָס האַלטן אַ שאַנדהױז. קײן סך אָרט איז דאָרט ניטאָ, מוז ער נעבעך ליגן אין דעם אײגענעם בעט, װוּ זײַן טאָכטער „באַדינט אירע געסט“.
דוד סװירסקי, דער העלד אין „צוריקװעגס“, קערט זיך אום קײן פּױלן פֿון ארץ־ישׂראל. אַן אַמאָליקער ציוניסט, איז ער אַנטױשט געװאָרן אינעם ציוניסטישן חלום און מיד פֿון זוכן „עבֿודה“ בײַ די חלוצישע ייִשובֿים. אָבער קײן מזל אין דער אַלטער הײם האָט ער ניט. זײַן פֿאָטער שיקט אים אַװעק, און מיר געזעגענען זיך מיט אים װען ער לאָזט זיך זוכן גליקן בײַ זײַן מאַמעס משפּחה אין אַ פֿאַרװאָרפֿענעם שטעטל.
באַשעװיס מאָלט אַ רײַכע פּאַנאָראַמע פֿון ייִדישן פּױלן נאָך דער ערשטער װעלט־מלחמה. אים זײַנען גוט באַקאַנט סײַ די אָרעמע ייִדישע גאַסן פֿון װאַרשע סײַ די װײַטע פֿאַרװאָרלאָזטע שטעטלעך. ער לאָזט דעם לײענער ממש שמעקן דעם ריח פֿונעם ביטערן דלות און ייִאוש. עס איז ניטאָ קײן נס װאָס קען ראַטעװען זײַנע העלדן פֿונעם ביטערן גורל.
די אַלטע סטאַבילע װעלט אונטער דער שליטה פֿון די מעכטיקע אימפּעריעס, דער רוסישער און דער עסטרײַך־אונגאַרישער, ליגט אין חורבֿות. די נײַע פּױלישע מלוכה איז שװאַך און אָרעם און זאָגט ניט צו קײן צוקונפֿט פֿאַר ייִדן.
אין די װערק פֿונעם װאַרשעװער פּעריאָד פֿון 1925 ביז 1935 דערקענט מען בפֿירוש די השפּעה פֿון י. ל. פּרץ, סײַ אין די פּרטימדיקע, נאַטוראַליסטישע שילדערונגען פֿון די שטעטלעך און סײַ אין די פֿיגורן פֿון כּלערלײ מערקװירדיקע פּערסאָנאַזשן: מקובלים, משׂכּילים, חסידים, ציוניסטן, אַפּיקורסים און סתּם ייִדן פֿון אַ גאַנץ יאָר.
דאָס זאַמלבוך נעמט אויך אַרײַן אינטערװיוען מיט ייִדישע מחברים, װאָס באַשעװיס האָט געמאַכט פֿאַר דער װאַרשעװער צײַטונג „ליטעראַרישע בלעטער“.
הלל צײטלין באַגריסט באַשעװיסן אין זײַן דירה, װוּ ער לערנט חסידות מיט זײַנע תּלמידים. ער האַלט, אַז מחוץ פּרץ, אַנ־סקי און דער נסתּר האָט די ייִדישע ליטעראַטור ניט קײן אמתע דערגרײכונגען. צײטלין באַדױערט, אַז ער מוז ציִען פּרנסה פֿון דער ליטעראַרישער אַרבעט און באַקלאָגט זיך, אַז ער קען קױם קריגן אַ פּאָר גראָשן פֿאַר זײַנע װערק. אָבער פֿאַר לערנען נעמט ער ניט קײן געלט.
מלך ראַװיטש זעט אױס מער װי אַ דײַטש אײדער אַ ייִד, שרײַבט באַשעװיס. אַנשטאָט צו באַגריסן באַשעוויסן מיט אַ „שלום־עליכם“ װײַזט ראַװיטש אױפֿן זײגער, װײַל באַשעװיס איז אַ פּאָר מינוט שפּעט. נאָך אײדער באַשעװיס שטעלט אַ פֿראַגע, הײבט ראַװיטש אָן צו דערצײלן װעגן זײַן ליטעראַרישן װעג. ער גיט באַשעװיסן אַ גאַנצע דרשה װעגן זײַן „אידעאַליסטישן“ צוגאַנג צו ליטעראַטור: די אידײ איז דער עיקר, זי איז די „נשמה“ פֿון אַ קונסטװערק. פֿאַר ראַװיטשן זײַנען די װיכטיקסטע ייִדישע דיכטער פּרץ מאַרקיש און ה. לײװיק.
דער סאַמע לעבעדיקסטער שמועס האָט באַשעװיס מיט פּרץ מאַרקיש. ער כאַפּט מאַרקישן ממש אַ פּאָר שעה פֿאַר זײַן צוריקפֿאָרן קײן סאָװעטן־פֿאַרבאַנד אין יולי 1926. מאַרקיש איז אױפֿגערעגט, מסתּמא ווײַל ער מוז צוריקפֿאָרן, און „שרײַט“ זײַנע ענטפֿערס צו באַשעװיסעס פֿראַגעס.
ליטעראַטור איז פֿאַר מאַרקישן די „לעבעדיקע אָרגאַנישע ענערגיע“ װאָס פֿליסט פֿונעם יחיד צו דעם כּלל און צוריק. ליטעראַטור האָט ניט קײן צװעק, זי איז אַן אײביקער פּראָצעס פֿון װערן.
מאַרקיש טענהט, אַז די רעװאָלוציעס, מלחמות און פּאָגראָמען צװינגען מענטשן צו קערן זײערע פּנימער צו דעם רעאַלן לעבן. און איצט, האַלט ער, קומט די ייִדישע ליטעראַטור נענטער צו אָט דער נאַקעטער װירקלעכקײט.
עטלעכע חדשים נאָך מאַרקישעס אָפּפֿאָרן קײן סאָװעטן־פֿאַרבאַנד האָט זיך ישׂראל יהושע זינגער, באַשעװיסעס עלטערער ברודער, אומגעקערט קיין אַמעריקע פֿון אַ צװײ־חדשימדיקער רײַזע איבער „נײַ־רוסלאַנד“.
לױט זײַן אײַנדרוק, האָט די סאָװעטישע קונסט אָנגעװױרן דעם גײַסט פֿונעם ראַדיקאַלן אַװאַנגאַרד און האָט זיך אומגעקערט צום טראַדיציאָנעלן רעאַליזם. די דאָזיקע טענדענץ איז זינגערן געװען צום האַרצן װײַל ער איז אַלײן געװען אַן אָנהענגער פֿונעם רעאַליסטישן סטיל.
צום באַדױערן האָט דער איבערזעצער דאָ געמאַכט אַ פּאָר גרײַזן אין די נעמען פֿון סאָװעטישע שרײַבער: דער מחבר פֿון „גאַלאָפּ“ הײסט עזרא פֿינינבערג און ניט Feinberg, און איציק קיפּניס איז ניט קײן E. Kipnis. דערצו איז דער ענגלישער אױסלײג פֿון ייִדישע נעמען ניט אױסגעהאַלטן: איזי כאַריקס נאָמען שרײַבט מען סײַ Kharik סײַ Charik.
באַשעװיס האָט פֿאָרמולירט זײַן אײגענעם עסטעטישן אַני־מאמין אינעם עסײ „צו דער פֿראַגע װעגן דיכטונג און פּאָליטיק“, װאָס איז אַרױס אינעם קלײנעם ליטעראַרישן זשורנאַל „גלאָבוס“ אין 1932.
דאָס איז אַ װיכטיקער דאָקומענט אין דער געשיכטע פֿון דער ייִדישער ליטעראַטור, און עס קומט אַ ייִשר־כּוח די רעדאַקטאָרן און דער איבערזעצערין װעראַ סאַבאָ פֿאַר מאַכן דעם דאָזיקן מקור צוטריטלעך אױף ענגליש.
„דער גײַסט פֿון פּאָליטיק האָט אפֿשר נאָך קײן מאָל נישט אַזױ אַרומגעכאַפּט דעם מענטש װי הײַנט. […] די מלחמה צװישן װעלט־פּראָלעטאַריאַט און דעם פֿאַשיזם דערנענטערט זיך. אידעיִש איז די אַרמײ פֿון דער צוקונפֿטיקער װעלטשלאַכט שױן מאָביליזירט.“ אַזױ שטעלט באַשעװיס זײַן דיאַגנאָז דער תּקופֿה, װאָס װעט זיך ענדיקן מיטן חורבן.
באַשעװיס שרײַבט מיט לײַדנשאַפֿט און קלאָרקײט. ער איז אַ שאַרפֿער קריטיקער פֿון ראַדיקאַלע פּאָליטיקער, סײַ די רעכטע פֿאַשיסטן סײַ די לינקע קאָמוניסטן. סײַ די, סײַ יענע „צײלן שױן זײערע סטאַדעס און מ׳באַשטימט יעדן זײַן אָנטײל אין דעם צוקונפֿטיקן בלוטבאָד.“ די פּאָליטיקער פֿאָדערן, אַז אַ שרײַבער זאָל ענטפֿערן אױף דער פֿראַגע: „מיט װעמען גײסטו? פֿאַר װעמען ביסטו?“
אָבער דער קינסטלער, האַלט באַשעװיס, איז בטבֿע אַנדערש פֿון דעם פּאָליטיקער. דאָס איז „דער מענטשן, פֿאַר װעלכן די פֿלײש־אַריטמעטיק פֿון פּאָליטיקער איז פֿרעמד און עקלדיק“.
אַלע עכטע קינסטלער האָבן „אײן בשותּפֿותדיקע אײגנשאַפֿט: זײ האָבן אָפֿענע אױגן צו זען, װי אומגליקלעך דער מענטש איז. דערין באַשטײט זײער טאַלאַנט.“
ער איז געװען בטבֿע אַ פּעסימיסט, װאָס האָט ניט געגלױבט אין גליקלעכע חלומות. די סאַמע געלונגענע פּערסאָנאַזשן זײַנע האָבן ניט קײן מזל אין לעבן, סײַ אין פּױלן פֿאַרן חורבן און סײַ שפּעטער אין אַמעריקע. זײַנע ווערטער אין אָט דעם אַרטיקל דינען טאַקע ווי אַ שליסל צו באַשעװיסעס קינסטלערישן װעלטבאַנעם.
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