Like the Root
Malka Heifetz Tussman
1974
You’ve grown
but not
grown up
You’re ripe
as earth is raw
where roots probe deep
Like all roots
you probe
in deep darkness
Translated by .
Marcia
Falk
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Creator Bio
Malka Heifetz Tussman
ca. 1896–1987
Born in Ukraine, Malka Heifetz Tussman immigrated to the United States in 1912. She lived in Wisconsin and California and became a Yiddish-language poet, loosely aligned with the introspectivists Jacob Glatstein and A. Leyeles. She taught in Yiddish secular schools and at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles. Her themes addressed Jewish women in history, the natural world, and love. Heifetz Tussman published six volumes of poetry and wrote for numerous Yiddish journals. She received the Manger Prize for Yiddish Letters in 1981.
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