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In the Bronx, in Brooklyn and in New York City,
My cousins all have stores.
Seven cousins with seven stores, like commandments.
Business people with long lists of going bankrupt.
And my family-name…
I always thought
I had been here before.
Each year of my patched-up life
I mended the fabrics
of my decrepit, tattered world.
In memory I recognized faces and smiles,
even my father and mother…
“Reb Hersh,” I finally said, “as I sat here listening to you, I sometimes thought I was listening to myself. And since it’s harder to lie to yourself than to someone else, I will answer you as though…
When I crossed the ocean, I carried with me the habit of speaking to the shadows, and it became my way of life. I look up at the stars that were extinguished long ago. For me they still shine with the…
The street lamps of the Old Town began to flare out in preparation for the night. And soon the yellow gas-lights shone in the shop windows too, and outside the little…
I have a son, a little son,
a youngster mighty fine!
and when I look at him I feel
that all the world is mine.
But seldom do I see him when
he’s wide awake and bright.
I always find him sound…
Ai, the troubles of a greenhorn! A scholar in the subject of cloakmaking, as I am today, I had not yet become. And if in those days you had “unioned” me till you were blue in the face, I still would…
For Zishe LandauQuiet, quiet, no loud talk!Stand bent over, pale and dark,Crouched up in a ball of pain,Shut up—holding your breath in.Out of the deep nightHe’ll ride up on a white horseHeard by no…
Deep in the woods stands my tent,
No one will discover me,
Late at night and at first dawn,
I hear the revel of the spring
From the deep roots underneath,
To the moss-covered trunks,
From…
[The writings of the nineteenth-century maskilic writers] Perets Smolenskin and Yitsḥok Erter opened cracks in the faith of Hasidic young men [like Asch himself]. Their life of [Talmud] study without…