Creator Bio
Judah Leib Gordon
1831–1892
Judah (Yehudah) Leib Gordon, the most renowned Hebrew-language poet of the nineteenth century, was born and educated in Vilna. After working as a teacher, he moved to St. Petersburg in 1872 to serve as secretary of the Society for the Promotion of Culture among the Jews of Russia. A proponent of Jewish modernization and enhanced status for women, he was denounced for radicalism and briefly imprisoned. Once exonerated, he became the editor of the Hebrew paper Ha-melits, continuing to critique Orthodoxy through his writing. Though his mother tongue was Yiddish, he advocated for Jewish acceptance of Hebrew and Russian as a means of Jewish cultural rebirth and emancipation.
Entries in the Posen Library by This Creator
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Awake My People!
Awake, my people! How long will you slumber?
The night has passed, the sun shines bright.
Awake, lift up your eyes, look around you—
Acknowledge, I pray you, your time and your place. . . .
The…
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The Tip of the Yod
Hebrew woman, who knows your life?
You came in darkness and in darkness depart.
Your sorrows and joys, your hopes and desires
Were born within you and die in your heart.
Daughters of other nations
Ma…
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My Sister Ruḥamah
In honor of Jacob’s daughter who was raped by Ben ḤamorWhy should you weep my sister Ruḥamah,Why are you downcast, why does your spirit quiver,And why have your rosy cheeks wilted?Because raiders…