Free Love

Moyshe Nadir

1915

I do not believe in free love.
There is legal marriage, an institution based on ideas and pretenses.
A legally married wife you can divorce, but where will you run away from free love?
As for streetwalkers—they are like cheap cigars: they taste good only for the first few minutes.
Rather, we recommend those ladies who do not condone free love.
Honest, decent souls.
Women with a strong commitment to their husbands.
How many pleasant hours I have spent with such devoted wives and mothers!
Without any predetermined goals.
Without a program, without an agenda.
And I even got a gift of the legal husband’s Havana cigars.
They tasted so sinfully interesting, so excitingly calamitous!
Decent housewives! I give you my blessing, and at the same time I condemn frivolous free love!

Translated by
Vera
Szabó
.

Credits

Moshe Nadir, “Di fraye libe” [Free Love], Vilde royzn: Umshuldige aynfaln (New York: Literarishe Prese, 1915), p. 5.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 7.

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Creator Bio

Moyshe Nadir

1885–1943

Born Isaac Rayz in Narayev, Austro-Hungarian Empire (today Narayiv, Ukraine), Moyshe Nadir immigrated to New York City at the age of thirteen. Writing for satirical and comedic papers as a teenager under a variety of pseudonyms, he eventually settled on the pen name Moyshe Nadir. By 1915, he was a regular contributor to the monthly literary journal Literatur un lebn, writing alongside members of Di Yunge group such as Zishe Landau and Moyshe-Leyb Halpern and making a reputation as an irreverent and acerbic humorist. In the 1920s, he was one of several prominent American Yiddish writers to embrace the Communist cause, writing for its outlets including Frayhayt and traveling to the Soviet Union. Later in life, he publicly distanced himself from Soviet Communism.

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