In 2014, The Magnes acquired twelve works by the New York Times-

featured Ukrainian artist, Matvey Vaisberg, including the portraits of

eight Jewish writers. Vaisberg, the grandson of the Yiddish author,
Motl D. Gartsman (19091943), was born in 1958, and lives and
works in Kiev.
Several of the authors portrayed by Vaisberg were Yiddish writers
arrested by the Soviet regime and executed on August 12, 1952:
Itzik Feffer, Leib Kvitko, Peretz Markish, and David Hofstein. Other
portraits include prominent writers such as Sholem Aleichem,
Osip Mandelstam, Boris Pasternak, and Joseph Brodsky.
These unusual works, painted on cardboard in the late 1980s, and
based on archival photographic sources, reclaimed a suppressed
cultural heritage on the eve of the fall of the Soviet Union. The faces
of Yiddish and Russian Jewish writers emerge as spectral and partial
reections on the politics of identity in contemporary Ukraine.
FRANCESCO SPAGNOLO
CURATOR
ELI ROSENBLATT
MAGNES GRADUATE FELLOW (20132014)
Literary Minds
SOVIET JEWISH WRITERS PORTRAYED BY MATVEY VAISBERG
Iosif Brodski, 1989
GIFT OF INA ZHOLUDOVA, 2014.2.2
JOSEPH BRODSKY (19401996) was born into a Jewish
family in Leningrad. His father, Aleksandr Brodsky, and
his mother, Maria Volpert Brodsky, lived in communal
apartments, in poverty, marginalized by their Jewish status.
He drew on wide-ranging themes, from Mexican and
Caribbean literature to Latin poetry, and created powerful
narratives. In 1962, Brodsky began experiencing a series
of arrests and imprisonments, all while continu ing to
develop his oeuvre. In 1972, he left the Soviet Union and
arrived in Vienna, ostensibly en route to Israel. He spent the
remainder of his life in exile in the United States, balancing
prominence as a man of letters with the alienated longings
of the Russian emigre, The holiest thing we have, Brodsky
said in a 1983 interview, is, perhaps, not our icons, not
even our historyit is our language.
Osip Mandelstam, 1989
GIFT OF INA ZHOLUDOVA, 2014.2.3
OSIP MANDELSTAM (18911938) was born in Warsaw,
Poland, and grew up in St. Petersburg, Russia, where his
fathers standing merchant made life relatively free of
the anti-Semitism which was then pervasive. Mandelstam
renounced the symbolist style of his contemporaries.
Emphasizing thoughts, feelings, and observations,
he ranked as an Acmeist that rejected vagueness and
affectations in poetic language. In the 1920s, as the
Bolsheviks established their power, it became increasingly
difcult for Mandelstam to maintain himself as a poet. He
refused to conform to political aims, and instead cultivated
his autonomy as an artist. Mandelstams verbal harmony,
iconoclastic posture and eruptive attitude continually irked
Soviet authorities. Alienated from state-sponsored poets by
the 1920s, Mandelshtam went into exile in Armenia. After a
brief return to Moscow, he was exiled to Siberia in 1937 and
died of heart failure in 1938.
Boris Pasternak, 1989
GIFT OF INA ZHOLUDOVA, 2014.2.4
BORIS PASTERNAK (18901960) was the author of
numerous translations of stage plays by Johann Wolfgang
von Goethe, Friedrich Schiller, Pedro Caldern de la Barca,
and William Shakespeare into Russian. His cosmopolitan
upbringing, his association with Tolstoy and Scriabin,
and the rise of the Russian Revolution profoundly affected
his development. After studing with Jewish philosopher
Hermann Cohen, philosophy became a concern secondary
to poetry. His highly metaphorical writing style made his
early works somewhat opaque, while his later works are
variously interpreted as attacks on the Soviet regime and
celebrations of individuality and the human spirit. He
entered the spotlight by the relentless Soviet campaign
against his novel, Doctor Zhivago, which became an instant
sensation in Europe and the United States upon its release
in 1957. Pasternak was thereafter expelled by the Soviet
Writers Union and died in 1960.
This table is not broad enough to bear my chest
Upon its board or beyond the brink of anguish
To crook my elbow or just past that isthmus
Of so many miles of freshly ploughed Forgive.
(The Poetry of Boris Pasternak, 19171959, edited and translated by George Reavey)
Sholem Aleichem, 1989
GIFT OF INA ZHOLUDOVA, 2014.2.6
SHOLEM ALEICHEM (18591916, born Sholom
Rabinovitz), one of the most inuential Yiddish writers
of all times, created stories that continue to enjoy
worldwide popularity. In his ction, he drew upon
childhood experiences from his birthplace, Pereyaslav,
in provincial Ukraine, where he grew up in a middle-class
family. These memories were eventually utilized in the
creation of a ctional town, Kasrilevke, which has since
become the archetype of the shtetl, the Jewish village
upon which much East-European Jewish life was centered.
Some Soviet Yiddish critics read Sholem Aleichems
deeply humorous stories as an expression of the Jewish
petite bourgeoisie at the n de sicle, while others paid
closer attention to Sholem Aleichems mastery of spoken
Yiddish and unpretentious style. His legacy in the Soviet
Union endured even as the memory of the shtetl eclipsed
its historical reality. Sholem Aleichem died May 13th,
1916 in New York City. Attracting hundreds of thousands
of mourners, the funeral evolved into an unprecedented
display of unity among New Yorks Yiddish-speaking
population.

From Hodl
Well one such character turned up in our neck of the woods. In fact, I once
knew his father, a man who peddled cigarettes and was a beggar seven times
overBut thats a whole other story, and besides, if the Talmud tells us that
Rabbi Yochanan the peddler made a living patching shoes, a person can be
permitted a father who didnt make one peddle cigarettes! . . .
(Tevye the Dairyman and The Railroad Stories, 2011, trans. Hillel Halkin)
David Hofstein, 1988
GIFT OF INA ZHOLUDOVA, 2014.2.1
DOVID HOFSHTEYN (18891952) was born in
Korostyshev, Ukraine, attended a traditional kheyder school,
and acquired private tutors in Russian and Hebrew. He
began writing poems in Hebrew, Russian, and Ukrainian
as a child, and his boyhood experience in these languages
inuenced his Yiddish poetry. A communist, on the eve of
the Second World War he redened his identity according
to his vision for Soviet-Jewish culture in Yiddish. An activist
involved with the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee from 1942,
Hofshteyn was the rst of its leaders to be imprisoned
for anti-Soviet activities in September 1948 and was
executed on August 12th, 1952.
Procession (1919)
Today I, too, am a piece of clanging brass.
I leap across
hushed and velvet places,
I wake the weary,
and drown with my resounding laughter
the sighs of those who languish.
Not one step back!
(Irving Howe, Ruth R. Wisse, and Chone Shmeruk, The Penguin Book of
Modern Yiddish Verse, 1987, trans. Robert Friend)
[LABELS]



Matvey Semenovich Vaisberg (Kiev, Ukraine, 1958)
David Hofstein
1988
Tempera on cardboard
Gift of Ina Zholudova, 2014.2.1


Dovid Hofshteyn (18891952)
Born in Korostyshev, Ukraine, Dovid Hofshteyn attended a traditional kheyder school and
acquired private tutors in Russian and Hebrew. He began writing poems as a child in Hebrew,
Russian, and Ukrainian, and his boyhood experience in these languages influenced his Yiddish
poetry. A communist, on the eve of the Second World War he redefined his identity according to
his vision for Soviet-Jewish culture in Yiddish. An activist involved with the Jewish Anti-Fascist
Committee from 1942, Hofshteyn was the first of its leaders to be imprisoned for anti-Soviet
activities in September 1948 and was executed on August 12th, 1952.

,
,
'

!

Procession (1919)
Today I, too, am a piece of clanging brass.
I leap across
hushed and velvet places,
I wake the weary,
and drown with my resounding laughter
the sighs of those who languish.
Not one step back!
(Irving Howe, Ruth R. Wisse, and Chone Shmeruk, The Penguin Book of Modern Yiddish Verse,
1987, trans. Robert Friend)

__________________________________________________________________________

Perets Markish, 1989
GIFT OF INA ZHOLUDOVA, 2014.2.5
PERETS MARKISH (18951952) was born in Polonnoye,
Volhynia (Western Ukraine). After receiving a traditional
education and leaving home at a young age, he worked
at various jobs and was drafted into the Russian army
during the First World War. After his discharge from the
military, Markish allied himself with Warsaw poets Uri
Tsevi Grinberg and Melech Ravitch, who in the early 1920s
shaping the city into the center of Yiddish modernism.
Markishs most important achievement is his long poem,
Di kupe. Its disturbing imagery centers on a pile of corpses
laid out in the middle of the marketplace of a Ukrainian
shtetl after a pogrom. Markish was at the helm of the
Yiddish section of the Soviet Writers Union in 19391943,
and was the only Yiddish writer to receive the Order of
Lenin. He joined the Communist Party in 1942 and was a
member of the executive board of the Jewish Anti-Fascist
Committee. Markish was arrested in January of 1949 and,
after a lengthy imprisonment and a trial, he was sentenced
death and executed on August 12th, 1952.
The Mound
Ah, Mount Sinai! In the upturned bowl of sky, lick blue mud,
Humbly, humbly as a cat licks up its midnight prayers.
Into your face, the Sovereign Mound spits back the Ten
Commandments.
(trans. Leonard Wolf)
his long poem, Di kupe. Its disturbing imagery centers on a pile of corpses laid out in the middle
of the marketplace of a Ukrainian shtetl after a pogrom. Markish was at the helm of the Yiddish
section of the Soviet Writers Union in 1939-1943, and was the only Yiddish writer to receive the
Order of Lenin. He joined the Communist Party in 1942 and was a member of the executive
board of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. Markish was arrested in January of 1949 and, after
a lengthy imprisonment and a trial, he was sentenced death and executed on August 12th, 1952.


! ,
, , , ,
!

The Mound
Ah, Mount Sinai! In the upturned bowl of sky, lick blue mud,
Humbly, humbly as a cat licks up its midnight prayers.
Into your face, the Sovereign Mound spits back the Ten Commandments.
(trans. Leonard Wolf)

__________________________________________________________________________

Matvey Semenovich Vaisberg (b. 1958, Kiev, Ukraine)
Sholem Aleichem
1989
Tempera on cardboard
Gift of Ina Zholudova, 2014.2.6


Sholem Aleichem (18591916)
Sholem Aleichem (born Sholom Rabinovitz), one of the most influential Yiddish writers of all
times, created stories that continue to enjoy worldwide popularity. In his fiction, he drew upon
childhood experiences from his birthplace, Pereyaslav, in provincial Ukraine, where he grew up
in a middle-class family. These memories were eventually utilized in the creation of a fictional
town, Kasrilevke, which has since become the archetype of the shtetl, the Jewish village upon
which East-European Jewish life was centered. Some Soviet Yiddish critics read Sholem
Aleichems deeply humorous stories as an expression of the Jewish petite bourgeoisie at the fin
de siecle, while others paid closer attention to Sholem Aleichems mastery of spoken Yiddish
and unpretentious style. His legacy in the Soviet Union endured even as the memory of the shtetl
eclipsed its historical reality. Sholom Aleichem died May 13th, 1916 in New York City. Attracting
hundreds of thousands of mourners, the funeral evolved into an unprecedented display of unity
among New Yorks Yiddish-speaking population.

From Hodl
Itsik Fefer, 1989
GIFT OF INA ZHOLUDOVA, 2014.2.7
ITSIK FEFER (19001952) was born in Shpola, Ukraine,
and started working as a printing shop apprentice at age
twelve. In 1917 he joined the Socialist-Jewish Bund and
became an activist in the trade unions. A Communist from
1919, he served in the Red Army. He began producing
Yiddish poetry in 1918, and in 1922 joined Vidervuks
(New Growth), a Kiev-based group of young Yiddish
writers whose mentor was Dovid Hofshteyn. After
serving in the Red Army, Fefer began producing a body of
poetry known for a linguistic style drawn from colloquial
speech, and very different from the more intellectualized
production of his peers. Fefer was arrested in 1948, along
with other members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee.
He was executed on August, 12, 1952.
The sun has blessedly bronzed my body,
My life is all battles and songs of fame;
It really breaks me up to remember
That I carry some famous rabbis name.
(Penguin Book of Modern Yiddish Verse, 1987,
trans. John Hollander)
Leib Kvitko, 1988
GIFT OF INA ZHOLUDOVA, 2014.2.8
LEYB KVITKO (1890 or 18931952) a Yiddish and
Russian poet and storyteller, was born in Holoskovo,
near Odessa. Orphaned at an early age, he was raised
by his grandmother. At age 10 he began working as a
quilters apprentice and lived briey in Nikolaev, Odessa,
and Kherson. Encouraged by the Yiddish modernist
Dovid Bergelson, Kvitko was welcomed by the Kiev literary
community. His story, Tsvey khaveyrim (Two Friends,
1933), which highlighted Slavic-Jewish camaraderie, had the
largest number of editions in Yiddish and other languages
than any Soviet prose work in Yiddish, and his writings for
children were widely popular. He was arrested with other
members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, and was
executed on August 12th, 1952.
Esau
Esau,
Hairy Esau, blessed with fragrant elds;
To you I owe an ancient debt,
Debt deep within my marrow,
Buried in my innards shadows . . .
(Penguin Book of Modern Yiddish Verse, 1987,
trans. Allen Mandelbaum and Harold Rabinowitz)