Creator Bio
Aaron Zeitlin
1898–1973
A poet, writer, playwright, essayist, and editor Aaron Zeitlin (Arn Tseytlin) was the eldest son of Hillel Zeitlin and the brother of Elkhonen Zeitlin (1902–1942). Born in Homel (then Russian Gomel, now in Belarus), Zeitlin lived in Warsaw between 1907 and 1938. Beginning to write lyrical poetry as a child, Zeitlin was most prolific in interwar Warsaw. He participated in the debate over the role of Yiddish literature, attacking the politicization of Yiddish literature and developing an aesthetic of combining historical events with existential and mystical themes. He was the chair of the Yiddish PEN club from 1930 to 1934, and founded, with the help of Isaac Bashevis Singer, the literary monthly Globus. Zeitlin happened to be in New York at the outbreak of World War II. He was powerless to save the family he had left behind. He continued to write and teach in New York City. His postwar writing was preoccupied with the Holocaust and parapsychology.
Entries in the Posen Library by This Creator
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Fliglman on the Left
Warsaw, October 17, 1932
Dear friend S. Niger,
When we speak about left and right, we should, first of all, enclose both words in thick quotation marks, and then we have to remember that true left…
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After Havdaleh
“ . . . And all those who are on the left side go and wander in the world and seek to dress themselves in the body.”—From Zohar Beraishit
When the Havdoleh candle is extinguished,
In Gehenna, the…
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Yosef de la Reina
A mountain in the desert.
On the desert mountain—
Nine,
Nine tall men.
There must be something here—
The Nine want something here—
And the tenth man?
He stands at the head of them…
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Self-Portrait
When the cool, colorful, gentile Sundays come,
both sit—Valenti, the watchman from my courtyard
and his pock-marked, redmouthed, piggish old lady
back-to-back on a wooden bench.
Both of them gaze…
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Bottoms
To be or not to be—that’s not the question.
Sense or nonsense—that’s my obsession.
For too long, Divine reckoning
has shredded human thinking.
The sum total of justice is a round number:
bright…
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A Trip in the Opposite Direction
It’s one in the morning. I’m writing this poem
in a train station.
What does poetry have to do with trains?
I came here unexpectedly
traveling the wrong way.
Telling the story is risky:
I was…
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The Nest Disappears
(Written at the end of 1939 in Havana—with thoughts about Poland)
Our poor nest eternally atremble
in the wind.
What will happen now, in bloody storm,
mayn kind?
Now, in bloody storm . . . ?
The…
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Summer 1937
For my child, today, it is so easy
to make the awful discovery, that people kill
and are killed: both things and people
speak the language of the red angel.
My child asks me: Why are people being…
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Donna Donna
On a wagon, bound for market
There’s a calf with a mournful eye
High above her, there’s a swallow
Winging swiftly through the sky
How the winds are laughing
They laugh with all their might
Laugh…
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To Be a Jew
Being a Jew means running forever to God
even if you are His betrayer,
means expecting to hear any day,
even if you are a nay sayer,
the blare of Messiah’s horn;
means, even if you wish to,
you…