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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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For poet Velvl Chernin, life is interwoven with the sword
אַז אַ פּאָעט באַטיטלט זײַן נײַ בוך „לעבן מיט אַ שװערד“ איז שׂכלדיק צו שטעלן צװײ פֿראַגעס: װעמענס לעבן, און װעלכע שװערד?
אין דער פּאָעזיע־קריטיק איז מען אָפֿט מאָל פֿאָרזיכטיק אַװעקצושטעלן אַ קלאָרן אונטערשײד צװישן דעם נאַראַטאָר פֿון די לידער, דאָס הײסט, דאָס קול, װאָס רעדט, און דעם פּאָעט אַלײן, דעם בעל־מחבר. דער נאַראַטאָר פֿון די לידער איז נישט גלאַט אַן אָפּשפּיגלונג פֿון דיכטער. (אַ באַרימטער בײַשפּיל: שעקספּירס סאָנעטן זײַנען נישט אַ פֿאַרצײכענונג פֿון זײַן ביאָגראַפֿיע, נאָר אַ נאַראַטיװ פֿון אַ פֿיקטיװן פּאַרשױן.)
מע קען אָבער אַ מאָל זײַן צו מדקדק וועגן דעם. אין דעם דאָזיקן בוך, איז קלאָר אַז דער הױפּט־נאַראַטאָר פֿון די לידער איז מער װײניקער דער זעלבער װאָס זײַן נאָמען געפֿינט זיך אױפֿן שער־בלאַט: װעלװל טשערנין, אַ באַקאַנטער פּאָעט, רעדאַקטאָר, אַרױסגעבער, און גרינדער פֿון זשורנאַל „ייִדישלאַנד“ װאָס װױנט כּמה יאָרן אין כּפֿר־אלדד, א קאָלאָניע אױפֿן מערבֿ־ברעג.
װי באַװוּסט איז ער אַ געבױרענער אינעם געוועזענעם סאָװעטן־פֿאַרבאַנד, געאַרבעט אין רעדאַקציע „סאָװעטיש הײמלאַנד,“ געװען (אומלעגאַל) דאָרטן אַקטיװ װי אַ ציוניסט, און דערנאָך עולה געװען אין 1990. דאָס דאָזיקע בוך איז זײַן זעכצנטע. קײן ביכל איז דאָס נישט; ס׳איז אַ װאָגיק באַנד פֿון 200 זײַטלעך. דער לעצטער אָפּטײל פֿון בוך נעמט אַרײַן געשליפֿענע, שאַרפֿע איבערזעצונגען פֿון פֿאַרשײדענע שפּראַכן, אַרײַנגערעכנט אוקראַיִניש, שפּאַניש, העברעיִש און רוסיש.
טשערנין, מיט אײן װאָרט, איז אַ פּאָעט אַ רעליגיעזער ציוניסט, אַ קאָלאָניסט אױפֿן מערבֿ־ברעג, און אַ כּלל־טוער אין דער ייִדישער ליטעראַרישער װעלט. ער פֿירט אױך אַן אינטערנאַצינאַל לעבן. אַ סך פֿון די דאָזיקע לידער טראָגן די נעמען פֿון אײראָפּעיִשע שטעט, און די באַציִונג צװישן אײראָפּע און ישׂראל, דורך די אױגן פֿון אַ רוסישן ייִד אַן עולה, גיט צו אַ פֿאַרשידן־מיניקײט צו דער זאַמלונג. אַזאַ, אין סך־הכּל, איז טשערנין, און אַזאַ איז דאָס „לעבן“ פֿון טיטל.
װאָס איז ער אױסן אין דעם בוך? מיט דעם דאַרף מען אָנקוקן די „שװערד“ פֿונעם טיטל. כאָטש מער װײניקער אַ דריטל פֿון בוך איז אָנגעשריבן געװאָרן נאָך פֿאַרן גורלדיקן ייִדישן יאָר תּשפּ״ג, און פֿאַרן כאַמאַס־אַטאַק פֿון זיבעטן אָקטאָבער, איז דער צענטער און אױסגאַנגפּונקט פֿונעם בוך, װי אַ גאַנצקײט, יענער אַטאַק, און װי אַזױ דער לירישער איך פֿונעם פּאָעט רעאַגירט דערױף.
לױט טשערנין איז דאָס לעבן איצט געקניפּט און געבונדן מיט דער שװערד. כאָטש ער פֿילט זיך געריסן, האַלט ער אױך אַז דאָס פּרוּװן פֿונאַנדערטײלן לעבן און שװער איז נאַיִװ.
און דו וועסט לעבן מיט דײַן שווערד, אויב דו וועסט לעבן.
אַלטערנאַטיוועס זײַנען וויזיעס, ניט מער.
ס׳איז צו געפֿערלעך צו אַ שלום חְנוניש שטרעבן.
דעם פֿאַקט דערווײַזן איז לעת־עתּה גאָר ניט שווער.
עס זײַנען קעגן דיר די הענט כּמעט פֿון אַלע.
עס מוז אויף אַלעמען זײַן דײַן ברוטאַלע האַנט.
די ווערטער זײַנען אַ נבֿואה אַ באַנאַלע,
וואָס ווערט מקוים, כאָטש דו קלאַפּסט זיך קאָפּ אין וואַנט.
בודאַפּעשט תּשפּ״ד
מע מוז זײַן ברוטאַל, לױט טשערנין. די שװערד װעט מען האַלטן נישט נאָר װי אַ דערװײַליקע נײטיקײט, נאָר אין אַ װיזיע פֿון אַחרית־הימים, װי ער רעכנט אױס אין זײַן ליד „גמר חתימה טובֿה“:
עס וואַרטן פֿאַרבלוטיקטע שווערדן
אויף ריינער ווי אמת נעילה
אין הימלען אויף ימען אויף ערדן
בלוט שפּריצט דורך און דורך די לידער. דאָס זײַנען אַװדאי די מחשבֿות פֿון אַ יחיד בימי מלחמה. דער ליריקער איז דאָך אַן אינדיװידועל, װיל מען הערן זײַנע געדאַנקען. אַ מלחמה־בוך אָן בלוט װאָלט נישט געװען אַקוראַט.
װידער קערט מען זיך צוריק צום טיטל. „לעבן מיט אַ שװערד“: איז נאָר פֿאַראַן אײן לעבן מיט אַ שװערד? װער געפֿינט זיך אױפֿן צװײטן עק שװערד?
מע זעט נישט און מע הערט נישט פֿון קרבנות, פֿון די פֿאַרשניטענע. דאָס װאָרט פּאַלעסטינער װערט דאָ נישט דערמאָנט, דאָס װאָרט „אַראַבער“ אױך נישט.
טשערנין קען מען פֿאַרגלײַכן מיט אַן אַנדער פּאָעט, אַ גדול פֿון אונדזער ליטעראַטור, װאָס האָט געהאַלטן פֿון ייִדישער סופּרעמאַטיע און פֿון אומגעצאַמטן כּוח פֿון ייִדישער שװערד פֿעסט אין דער האַנט קעגן גױשע שׂונאים. אורי צבֿי גרינבערג האָט אָבער בפֿירוש דערמאָנט די שׂונאים און געטײלט זיך מיט זײַן קלאָרער װיזיע פֿון דער װעלט. טשערנין בלײַבט אײַנגעשלאָסן אין זײַנע אײגענע בלוטיקע דלתּ אמות.
אַ ליריקער װאָס לאָזט אױס האַלב פֿון דער מלחמה באַגײט נישט נאָר אַ מאָראַלישע נאָר אױך אַן עסטעטישע עוולה. װעמען הרגעט די שװערד? פֿאַר װאָס זעט מען נישט די מתים אױף דער דאָזיקער קאַנװע פֿון קריג?
ס׳איז אַקוראַט און נײטיק אָנצורופֿן טשערנין בײַם נאָמען: אַ טאַלאַנטירטער פּאָעט, אַ געשיקטער איבערזעצער פֿון פֿיל שפּראַכן, אַ שטיצער און דערמעגלעכער פֿון דער הײַנטיקער ייִדישער ליטעראַטור — און אױך אַזאַ װאָס איז גרײט מקריבֿ צו זײַן יענעם.
עס שמעקט די לופֿט מיט הייסן שטויב,
וואָס בלײַבט דעם זיגער פֿון זײַן רויב.
איך האָב געזיגט. עס טוט מיר באַנג.
אַלץ ווערט צעשטערט. אַ שיינעם דאַנק.
דער דאָזיקער בולטער רמז אױף סוצקעװערס „װאָס װעט בלײַבן“ איז אױך אַן אָנװוּנק אױף דער מאָס פֿון דער טראַגעדיע װאָס דאָס ייִדישע פֿאָלק האָט אַדורכגעלעבט מיטן זיבעטן אָקטאָבער, און װאָס װערט דאָ פֿאַרטײַטשט פֿון טשערנין.
לױטן דאָזיקן פּאָעט איז דער מוסר־השׂכּל אַ בלוטיקער, אױף אײביק, כאָטש מיט ספֿקות און אינערלעכע קאָנפֿליקטן. ס׳איז אַ לירישער אַפּאָקאַליפּסיס אין אַ הערמעטישן קאַמער.
עס קען זײַן אַז מיט דעם שטעלט זיך פֿאָר די צוקונפֿט פֿון דער ייִדישער פּאָעזיע, בלוט און שװערד, בשעת אַלע אַלטערנאַטיװן װערן טאַקע צעשטערט. װעמען זאָל מען באַדאַנקען?
The post For poet Velvl Chernin, life is interwoven with the sword appeared first on The Forward.
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5 important questions for Abdul El-Sayed
Abdul El-Sayed’s narrow victory in the Michigan Democratic primary means he’s going to have to work hard to persuade skeptical liberal Michigan voters.
I’m not from Michigan, but I am liberal. And I am skeptical.
I appreciate El-Sayed’s political skills and his relentless focus on the health and economic disparities that undermine the American dream for so many.
But while many Jewish Michiganders supported El-Sayed, his narrow victory over Rep. Haley Stevens has many other Michigan Democratic voters worried. It’s “ridiculous” that Democratic Jews wouldn’t vote for El-Sayed based on his positions on Israel, former Rep. Andy Levin told the Forward, but I’m not sure El-Sayed’s views on Israel are the main concern.
“If he wants to be senator of a state that has such a large Jewish population,” Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, told JTA, “he must demonstrate an ability to stand with that community as we face the rise of antisemitism.”
Many of El-Sayed’s comments and actions during the primary cast that support into doubt. Here are the five questions I’d like to see Michiganders put to him:
You said, “Hurt people hurt people.” Do you also believe that enraged people hurt people?
After a man whose family members were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon attacked children at a West Bloomfield, Michigan synagogue, you said, “Hurt people hurt people.” You said you were explaining the act of terror, not excusing it. But we know too that incendiary rhetoric also foments violence. The Egyptian man who attacked Jews at a peaceful march in Boulder, Colorado, in June 2025 screamed anti-Israel political phrases and said he targeted the group because he believed they were “Zionists.” You have called Israel “evil” like Hamas, “bloodthirsty,” and you singled out AIPAC as uniquely nefarious and powerful among all influence groups in the country. Doesn’t such rhetoric endanger the lives of constituents you claim you want to protect? After extremists attempted to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in 2020, you accused President Donald Trump of inciting them via tweet. Will you cool your own rhetoric?
Is there any circumstance you would vote to send military aid to Israel?
Oct. 7, 2023 was supposed to be an all-out war. Hamas along with Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iran and the Houthis discussed striking Israel in unison, and could have. In such a scenario, as in the October 1973 war, Israel would have faced many thousands of casualties if not an existential threat as it quickly exhausted its defensive shield. Now imagine you were in the Senate during such a scenario. Would you have voted to send help to an ally? You said you supported sending military aid to Ukraine when it faced invasion. Why not Israel in a similar scenario?
How would you work toward a two-state solution?
You told CNN that every definition of a Jewish state “ends up in some articulation of illiberal values, every single one.” You told The New Yorker that you support a two-state solution with equal rights and self-determination for Israeli Jews and Palestinians — which is a mainstream liberal Zionist position. So explain: What’s so illiberal about a Jewish-majority state you support? And do you believe in it enough to work toward one?
Is money really the only reason politicians and others support Israel?
You accused Israel’s supporters in Congress of being motivated solely by money. Is there really no other possible reason? Until Israel’s post-Oct. 7 destruction of Gaza, a majority of Americans and the vast majority of American Jews supported Israel. Couldn’t congressional support reflect their constituents’ support or their own religious or political beliefs? Could they believe in Jewish self-determination, especially post-Holocaust? Or is support for a Jewish state only a function of Jewish money (see #1)?
Which do you care about more, the Jewish vote, or Hasan Piker?
The Twitch streamer Hasan Piker said Hamas is “a thousand times better” than Israel. He called a Jewish man a “bloodthirsty violent pig dog.” You defended your appearance with Piker by saying you needed to reach his three million followers. I get that: Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris helped tank their campaigns by refusing to engage young voters wherever they could. But you continued to campaign with Piker, and refused to disavow his extreme rhetoric, saying you wouldn’t be distracted by “cancel culture.” No one is asking you to cancel him. But why won’t you, at least, confront him on his rhetoric?
There is, as you and countless pundits have pointed out, a lot at stake in this election. Right now too many American Jews feel that one of those things is their own safety. Please answer these questions, Dr. El-Sayed.
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The post 5 important questions for Abdul El-Sayed appeared first on The Forward.
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Sing to me, Muse, of two Moshes and their Odysseys!
If you have read any one of the at least 60 English translations of Homer’s Odyssey or have seen Christopher Nolan’s new Odyssey movie, then you are probably aware that Odysseus leads a more active life than the average person. As if living through the Trojan War weren’t hard enough, he blinds the cyclops Polyphemus and gets cursed by Poseidon with epically bad weather. His men are regularly transformed into pigs, picked off by Laestrygonian giants, and drowned in storms. The nymph Calypso detains him on her island for seven years and forces him to be her lover, (although whether this counts as a hardship depends on your perspective). The man of twists and turns has seen a lot. But he probably never predicted his story would be translated into Yiddish. Or Ladino.
At first, the parallel lives of the two men who translated The Odyssey into Yiddish and Ladino sound like the makings of a sphinx’s riddle, or a cryptic prophecy from the Oracle at Delphi: both men would be called “Moshe”; both would be alive at the beginning of the Holocaust; only one would survive to the end. Their names were Moshe Leyb Pitshenik (1895 – 1941) of the Odiseye (אָדיסייע) and Moshe Ha-Elion (1925-2022) of La Odisea.
The two men never met, yet there are unexpected rhymes between the lives of the Moshes, as if their lives were composed in the same meter. Not even a photo survives of scholar, writer and translator Moshe Leyb Pitshenik, but the Congress for Jewish Culture records that he was born in Zlotshev, eastern Galicia, now Ukraine. He spent his whole life traveling various pathways to erudition. As a child, he attended a religious elementary school and a small synagogue study hall before working as a bank employee in Vienna. The corporate life must not have been for Pitshenik, for he soon moved back to Poland and enrolled in a teachers’ seminary. He spent the rest of his life as a teacher and director at the local Jewish high school in Loyvitsh (Łowicz), writing ferociously on the side.
His poems, articles, short stories, and translations appeared in publications in Krakow, Warsaw, Łodz, and Vilna. Occasionally he would publish under pen names like “A Zaytiker,” an outsider, and “Nekhed Mohel,” which translates to “the grandson of the mohel (ritual circumciser),” but sounds suspiciously like something else.
In 1937, he pulled off his translational tour de force: the Odiseye, so literally epic an achievement that he won an award from the Yiddish PEN Club, the Yiddish branch of the PEN international network with epicenters in Warsaw, Vilnius and New York City. In the book’s introduction, fellow poet and translator Shloyme Shaynberg gave Pitshenik a hearty mazal tov for “anchoring one of Homer’s magical ships on our shores.”
But the time to celebrate ran short. Just two years after the Odiseye’s publication, the Nazis invaded Poland, confining Pitshenik and thousands of other Jews in the Łowicz ghetto. He had been working on an original epic poem in ancient Greek at the time of the invasion. Had he been allowed to finish it, the poem would have been the first original ancient Greek epic to be published since the 5th century C.E. In 1941, he was led into the Kazimierz Forest and murdered, leaving the poem unfinished.
Pitshenik was already 30 years old when Moshe Ha-Elion, his Sephardic counterpart, was born in Thessaloniki in 1925. Like Pitshenik, Ha-Elion studied at a Jewish primary school before receiving a secular education, discovering The Iliad and The Odyssey in ancient Greek during junior high. Ha-Elion was 16 when the Nazis invaded Thessaloniki, he recounts in his oral history for the United States Holocaust Museum. Two years later, in 1943, Ha-Elion and his mother, sister, and grandparents boarded freight wagons believing that they would be resettled in Poland. But these wagons were headed for Auschwitz. On arrival, every member of Ha-Elion’s immediate family was sent to the gas chambers but him.
For the next 21 months, Ha-Elion labored in Auschwitz. Teaching became his lifeline: He gave Greek lessons to a Christian prisoner with special privileges in exchange for food. In 1945, as the Allies approached, the Nazis transferred Ha-Elion and thousands of other prisoners to concentration camps in Austria. The hunger, Ha-Elion recalled later in an interview with El Mundo, was so unbearable that he ate train coal to survive.
After the liberation of the camps, Ha-Elion entered mandatory Palestine on a refugee ship. He fought in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and earned a B.A. and an M.A. in Humanities at the University of Tel Aviv. Like Pitshenik, he spent the rest of his life stirring up a tornado of writing across genres: He wrote a memoir of his time in the camps, a book of autobiographical poems in Ladino entitled En Los Kampos de la Muerte, or In the Death Camps, and even music to accompany one of these poems, La Djovenika al Lager (The Young Girl in the Lager), about the murder of his sister Nina.
But it was not until the end of his life that Ha-Elion undertook his translation of The Odyssey. When Ha-Elion was 90, he and the Israeli poet Avner Peretz published a Hebrew and Ladino dual translation of The Odyssey. He even managed to keep the poem in dactylic hexameter, a line-for-line Ladino mirror of the ancient Greek epic.
There are strange reflections of each Moshe in the Odysseys that they translated. For Pitshenik, the story seems omen-like: In the poem’s first line, Pitshenik translates the first adjective to describe Odysseus, polútropon, as the Yiddish word farvoglt, or “far from home.” This is unusual. English translators usually style Odysseus as “cunning” or a “man of twists and turns” or just downright “complicated.” It is as if Pitshenik read the signs of his own coming displacement in Odysseus before he read them in himself. But the translation’s strange prescience deepens just a few words later. Odysseus, Pitshenik says, participated in the “khurboynes” of holy Troy. At the time Pitshenik wrote this, a “khurbn” meant a total, cataclysmic destruction. It was reserved to describe horrors like the destruction of the first and second Temples and pogroms in Russia during World War I. But Pitshenik could not have known then that the word “Khurbn” would one day be used as a metonym for the approaching Holocaust. In Pitshenik’s translation, far-from-home Odysseus would survive a “khurbn” and find his way back. But Pitshenik himself never did.
For Ha-Elion, The Odyssey is like another form of autobiography. Like Odysseus, he was flung far from home by war, and spent the rest of his life trying to find his way home — or some place that felt like it. If translation is the process of rendering something foreign into something familiar, then perhaps translation is an attempt at homecoming in itself. Pitshenik and Ha-Elion never returned to their homes again after the War. But in the Odiseye and La Odisea, a piece of home survives. And it sounds like this:
Kontame, Muza, del ombre astuto…
O Muze! Bazing mir di maysim fun farvogltn gvir…
Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns!
The post Sing to me, Muse, of two Moshes and their Odysseys! appeared first on The Forward.
