Hear, O Israel

Edmond Fleg

1913

Jacob’s Vision

With his asses, male and female,
His woolly sheep and billy goats,
His oxen and his camels
Bearing wineskins on their backs,
With his wives and his handmaids,
His servants and his children,
Setting up and striking camp,
Jacob fled from Laban’s wrath.
As he neared his homeland, Canaan,
Terror filled his troubled soul;
With an army…
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Creator Bio

Edmond Fleg

1874–1963

Born in Geneva to a French family originally from Alsace, the writer Edmond Fleg grew up in an observant Jewish home. He moved to Paris at the age of eighteen to pursue a university education, soon abandoning religious observance. Stunned by his encounter with The Dreyfus Affair and stirred by his reading of Israel Zangwill’s (1864–1926) haunting short story “Chad Gadya!” in 1904, Fleg worked his way back to Judaism. The Boy Prophet (1926) and Why I Am Jewish (1927) evoke his journey of return. Although he wrote on other subjects, Jewish themes dominate his prolific writing, which encompassed a variety of genres, including poetry, essays, and theater. In 1948, Fleg and Jules Isaac (1877–1963) founded the Amitié judéo-chrétienne de France, a Christian and Jewish friendship group.

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