“I told them of the wonders of the Jerusalem of Lithuania”: A 1938 Letter to Chaim Grade

by ROBERTA NEWMAN

In September 2015, YIVO received the first 44,000 digital images of YIVO materials in the Lithuanian Central State Archives.

The materials now being digitized in Lithuania include the records of YIVO and other Jewish communal organizations, personal letters of Jewish cultural figures, plays, literary manuscripts, leaflets, flyers, schoolwork, and posters. The fragmentary documents mirror the range and diversity of the materials from prewar YIVO that made it safely to New York in the late 1940s and which are also in the process of being digitized.

These first items to be digitized in Lithuania are drawn from materials that under special arrangement with the Lithuanian government were shipped to YIVO in New York in the 1990s and catalogued by YIVO archivists before being returned to Lithuania.

One of the first items to catch our eye was this 1938 letter to Yiddish writer Chaim Grade, a leading member of the Yung Vilne (Young Vilna) literary group in Wilno (Vilna). The letter, from a friend in New York who had recently visited the city, attests to the ongoing transatlantic connections between Jews in Poland and North America. When YIVO was forced to relocate to New York a few years later, its refugee director, Max Weinreich, was able to mobilize the support and energies of Jewish scholars and activists who had deep cultural and personal ties to the world of European Jewry and to YIVO.

In this letter, the visitor, B. Tz. Hariton, relays friendly greetings back and forth between members of Yung Vilne in Poland and members of Di Yunge, a New York-based Yiddish literary group. Both groups were known for their modernist sensibilities, though members of the Di Yunge were a more than a generation older than their counterparts in Yung Vilne. Aaron Glanz-Leyeles, mentioned in this letter, was also a key figure in the Inzikhistn (Introspectivists), a group of Yiddish poets established in 1919.

September 29, 1938

Dear Comrade Reb Chaim Grade!

You will please forgive me a thousand times for not writing until now. It’s quite possible that by now you have forgotten even the existence of such a person in the world. But I hope that this short letter will remind you that such a person definitely exists, in a province near New York, with the assurance that I have not forgotten you.

Our conversation in the hotel and also when we were strolling through the Vilna streets and allies was very special for me. Ay! At times I miss you!...

It took me several weeks to rouse myself from my so-called “trip” (don’t read trip-er) and could put aside the work in my school. Today, I’ve come from New York, where I spent five days. On Saturday night, I met with a group from our “Yunge” (how long will they call themselves young?). I told them of the wonders of the Jerusalem of Lithuania. Every one of them asked how Grade, [Abraham] Sutzkever, [Elkhonen] Vogler, Rajzel Zychlinsky and others are doing. Go tell them, those big city suckers! Glantz [Aaron Glanz-Leyeles] talked with me a great deal about you and Sutzkever; he’s a big fan of yours.

Nu, permit me to cut this letter a little bit short. Write me a proper letter, about yourself and the other “boys.”

I assure you that I won’t remain in your debt. [He will write back.]

Tell Shmerke [Kaczerginski] that in the next few days I will write him a separate letter.

Warm regards to everyone, our older comrades [Zalmen] Reyzen, [Max] Weinreich, Zelig Kalmanovitch, and the entire Young Vilna group with their inspirations and those who inspired me…. Shulke Reyzen, [Dovid] Kaplan-Kaplanski, and all Vilna, in general.

More about me in the next letter.

In friendship,

Yours

B. Tz. Hariton [Schenectady]

In 2013, YIVO acquired Chaim Grade’s estate jointly with the National Library of Israel. His papers are currently being cataloged at YIVO and will eventually be digitized and made available online.

Roberta Newman is YIVO’s Director of Digital Initiatives.