Yiddish Poet Avrom Sutzkever, Creator of a Golden Chain

The Yiddish Poet Avrom Sutzkever, Creator of a Golden Chain

Avrom Sutzkever, 1913-2010.

July 15th, 2013, marked the 100th anniversary of Avrom (Abraham) Sutzkever’s birth. His centrality for 20th-century Yiddish literature and Jewish culture cannot be overstated. Throughout the twists and turns of Sutzkever’s biography, he remained committed to publishing Yiddish poetry and bore witness to the atrocities of history when the occasion called for it. Born near Vilna, Lithuania in 1913, he was part of the Yung-Vilne cultural movement and published his first book of poems in 1937. Sutzkever spent part of the war in the Vilna Ghetto, smuggling weapons into the ghetto and smuggling weapons out of it. He immigrated to Palestine with his family in 1947. In the new state of Israel, he continued to be a force for Yiddish culture, primarily through founding and editing the literary journal Di Goldene Keyt (The Golden Chain). Sutzkever died in 2010, having seen nearly a century pass before his eyes. As he told a reporter after the war, “If I didn’t write, I wouldn’t live.”

Links about Sutzkever for further reading online:

Biography from the YIVO Encyclopedia (includes a bibliography for suggested reading)
From the Yiddish Book Center: Voices from the Holocaust, about Sutzkever’s literary activity during the war
From the Yiddish Book Center: Several short videos about Sutzkever’s life and work
Di Goldene Keyt and Chagall – Sutzkever edited this highly regarded Yiddish cultural journal for its entire existence, from 1949-1995. This link from U-Penn includes illustrations from Marc Chagall and a hand-written Yiddish letter from the artist to Sutzkever
Short bio of Sutzkever and a translated excerpt at The Poetry Foundation
“Golden Link” (January 28, 2010), a retrospective by Zackary Sholem Berger the week after Sutzkever’s death, Tablet Magazine
“The Elegist” (February 1, 2010), a reflection on Sutzkever’s life by Prof. Jeremy Dauber, The New Republic
Three poems by Sutzkever from the Penguin Book of Yiddish verse, republished on Tablet (includes link to PDF of Yiddish originals)
Sutzkever’s Facebook page, an open group for anyone wishing to find out more about his poetry

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By Hannah Pressman|2018-09-06T10:59:23-07:00July 15th, 2013|Categories: Arts & Culture|Tags: Holocaust, Israel, Poetry, Yiddish|0 Comments

About the Author: Hannah Pressman

Dr. Hannah Pressman writes about modern Jewish culture, religion, and identity. A lifelong lover of languages and literatures, she earned her Ph.D. in modern Hebrew literature from New York University. She is co-editor of Choosing Yiddish: New Frontiers of Language and Culture (2012). Her writing has appeared in Tablet, the Forward, Lilith, eSefarad, and My Jewish Learning. Dr. Pressman is the former Communications Director and Graduate Fellowship Coordinator at the Stroum Center for Jewish Studies. She is currently at work on a memoir about her Sephardic family history, connected to explorations of contemporary American Jewish identity.