Paper Bridges: Selected Poems of Kadya Molodowsky

Introduction

INTRODUCTION MAJOR THEMES AND CONFLICTS Kadya Molodowsky (1894—1975) published six major books of poetry in Yiddish, including the children's poems for which she is best known today, as well as fiction, plays, and essays. She participated in nearly every aspect ofYiddish literary culture that existed in her lifetime, first in Poland, where she lived until 1935, when she emigrated, and then in America, where she lived until her death. Before her emigration, Molodowsky taught young children in the Yiddish schools of Warsaw. In New York City, she supported herself by writing for the Yiddish press and founded a literary journal, Svive (Surroundings), which she edited for nearly thirty years. In 1971, she was awarded the Itzik Manger Prize, the most prestigious award in the world of Yiddish letters, for her achievement in poetry. Molodowsky was one of the few Yiddish women poets able to sustain and develop her writing throughout her life. She published continuously from 1927 until 1974. All her books, both poetry and prose, reflect the cultural and historical changes that their author experienced. But the poetry in particular evinces the often contradictory influences of the cultures among which Molodowsky lived—the Russian symbolists, the Yiddish modernists (and through them, modern American and European poetry), the Hebrew Bible, rabbinic writings, Yiddish prayers for women, social 17 ...