Nine Yiddish Writers
One day his face is bright, his walk light, his head erect. Just stop him a while and you will know the reason. A critic in Hungary has praised his work, a publisher in Germany is preparing a new edition of his songs, or perhaps a letter from an admirer has offered some incense. On the next day his face is a sombre cloud, his eyes dull, his head and shoulders drooping a critic wrote favorably of another Jewish poet, a publisher undertook the publication of one of his colleague's songs. That and nothing more. *** Yiddish literature has just struck root. Its stem is hardly visible above ground. The destiny fate prepared for it no one can tell with absolute certainty. Every literary plant needs the firm soil of nationality for its roots, and the sunshine and moisture of national culture for its nourishment, and these elements are very uncertain with the Jewish people in spite of the fact that an intense wave of the national spirit has been agitating its most important centers in Europe and America.
However, if Jewish literature is destined to live and grow, Rosenfeld will undoubtedly occupy in it the rank of a classic. For Rosenfeld possesses the es-
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