Mikhl Gordon

Shuttling between worlds—Yiddish and Hebrew, religious and secular—came naturally to Mikhl Gordon, the Vilna-born poet and songwriter. A proud maskil, he championed modern, secular ways of thinking and prodded religious Jews, especially Hasidim, to evolve with the times. Yet Gordon never abandoned Judaism, and his articles, poems, and songs reflected his deep engagement with traditional Judaism. For most of his life, Gordon’s fame rested on his music. Writing under a pseudonym, he expressed deep sympathy for married Jewish women saddled with large families and capricious husbands—an extraordinary act for a Jewish male writer at the time.