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Herman Gold
- Syracuse University Press
- Chapter
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• 168 Herman Gold I just, but really just, only four days ago, sat at my desk and read in a letter concerning a remark that was made about me: “Herman Gold smiled into his beard and drank another glass—‘L’khaim! L’khaim tovim, arukhim v’l’sholem!’ (To life! To a good, long life and to peace!) and we enjoyed ourselves immensely.” The letter was from my friend and colleague, Sh. Erdberg, with whom Herman Gold was often a guest and through whom he almost always sent cordial greetings to me. When the letter arrived, Herman Gold was 1,500 miles from me in the north. I, almost at the farthest southern corner of the United States. Still, I felt he was literally like a living presence near me. He stood so lifelike before me, in his threadbare but always clean jacket, and I could see that one of his eyes was squinting and the other laughing and that his red lips smiled and that his thick, heavy beard embraced his full, healthy, red face, tilted a little to one side, as if mocking me. And I could even hear how he said, accompanied by his characteristic laughter, “Say, boyele, good, it’s good for you there. As it is written: ‘kapoystmrim ’ (date palms) and ‘al sfas hayam’ (on the seashore). Say peasant, are they real palms, all those brooms you see through your window?” And here I sit, still at my desk, reading the newspaper the mailman just brought me, and before my eye can see correctly, I spring up—“Oy gevald! It can’t be! Herman Gold? Brought to his eternal rest? That hunk that hung around with us? When? And how did this happen?” Great surprise and deep wounds always arise from such an unexpected message. Even though we already know so well what we can Herman Gold | 169 expect and even though we are, to our sorrow, so rich in this kind of sad experience. With his writing, his attire, his way with people, his speech, his gestures , his actions, the sharp contrasts and contradictions of his character, Herman Gold was the opposite of the whole generation of writers with whom he had arrived. Yet he was also an integral part of it and, in a certain sense perhaps, the most visible expression of the generation, at least in the eyes of his milieu. That generation of writers, with whom Herman Gold arrived, could blossom and grow only in the Jewish American soil and climate and the local surroundings. The local surroundings gave that generation so much, yet it felt foreign here. Perhaps because its roots, physical and spiritual, were somewhere else, and perhaps because the environment, for which this generation had so much to thank, was essentially foreign to it—to its ideas and aspirations, artistic, aesthetic, and ethical. Such alienation must give rise to mutual hatred and contempt. Herman Gold was with his whole being the clearest expression of the contempt that the writers of his generation had for their surroundings. Often to such an extent that he became repugnant even to his colleagues. Indeed, perhaps because they saw themselves in him. Because Herman Gold was the crooked mirror in which his generation saw itself. Not the way it wanted to see itself, but the way it was seen in the eyes of its milieu: strange in its ways, impractical in its deeds, unintelligible and even senseless in its speech. Consequently, there was both a closeness and a great distance between Herman Gold and his generation. And also, consequently, so many contradictory opinions among his generation about the person and the writer Herman Gold. I personally don’t know what kind of niche Herman Gold carved out for himself in the edifice of our literature. I do know, though, that with his departure the Yiddish literary landscape here has been robbed of the most visible, most colorful, most interesting character that came out of it. Already on his first appearance—different from everyone else. Different face, attire, gestures, speech, and deeds. Sometimes a face like a caricature of a young moon. His pointed chin jutting out. His forehead jutting [3.235.243.45] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 01:02 GMT) 170 | From Our Springtime out. His mouth fallen and sunken in. Later on a thick, wild beard made his face fuller and rounder and the contours gentler. But his eyes were the same. Always half squinting and always laughing. The “funny man...