From Our Springtime: Literary Memoirs and Portraits of Yiddish New York

Foreword

• xxv Foreword With eleven of the twelve articles, longer and shorter, that make up the first part of this book, I simply want to give my intimate impressions of the life and work of these poets and writers of my generation who were personally close and dear to me. Of course, in writing about them, their time, their activities, their disputes, their outlook on life, and their approach to word art, I will also have to mention other poets and writers who arrived with us during those same years, from 1905 to 1915. That was truly the springtime of the new Yiddish literature in America, with the fragrant buds, the colorful blossoms, the restlessness, the pain, the dreams, the longing, the expectations, and the hopefulness of young growth that one feels every spring. If only certain names are mentioned, that doesn’t mean that others were deliberately omitted. Nor does it mean that only the ones I mention are important enough to include. I will be writing only about those with whom I was intimate and whom I knew well enough that I could do right by them and their writing. If I was not close to someone during those years, I must not write about him, no matter who it was. I regret that in this book there will be no accounts about David Kazanski, A. Raboy, and—long years to him—Joseph Rolnik. For that I blame lack of strength and time. Finally, I want to express my deep thanks to my friend the painter B. Kopman for drawing the title page for this book; to the Reuben Iceland Anniversary Committee, its chairman Dr. A. Mukduni, and his secretary David Friedman, who made it possible for this book to be published; and to my friend Herman Felzen, my brothers Khaym Pesakh and Moyshe Yankev, my sister-in-law Molly Iceland, and my fellow countrywoman xxvi | Foreword and old friend, Rokhl Bernknopf. Without their help, this book could not have been published. R. I. From Our Springtime ...