Letter by the renowned Yiddish writer Itzik Manger

Letter by the renowned Yiddish writer Itzik Manger

'The fact that I returned to writing in Yiddish makes me happy' - an interesting letter in the handwriting and signature of the great Yiddish writer Itzik Manger. The letter was sent to his friend in 1941 and well reflects his mood in those days. Yiddish.

In Manger's letter written to 'Frid', he expresses his concern for his family who are not sure they are alive, and writes that the fact that he returned to writing in Yiddish gives him great joy. He also criticizes the journalists and writes that they 'hate intellectuals as a devout Jew hates a pig.' He also expresses his disappointment at the fact that he sent three poems he wrote to an American newspaper and the newspaper refrained from publishing them, asking him to send him the list of Jewish writers in America, and writes: "Where there is life in writing there is the true pleasure of life."

Isaac (Itzik) Manger [1901-1969] Yiddish poet, playwright and author. Born in Czernowitz to a father who was a drinker. During World War I, he fled to Romania, where in 1918 he began to write poetry in Yiddish, and soon approached the high level of Yiddish-speaking intelligence such as Jacob Sternberg, and began writing in the Yiddish daily press in Czernowitz. Manger Conducted lectures and became a charismatic and affectionate figure who swept the audience. In 1929, Manger published his first book of poems, 'Staren Ofin Dach' (Stars on the Roof), in Bucharest, in which he mixed innovative and old literary traditions. In that year he started to publish his small journal, "Lone Words." By the 1930s, Manger was already well-known among the Jewish communities in Eastern Europe and the United States, and his work peaked in those years. In particular, he published as an artist in the old and new combination of his works using anachronistic use of contemporary German culture with well-known biblical figures and so on. During the Holocaust he fled to London, and then in 1951 settled in New York. At the end of 1968 he immigrated to Eretz Israel. Prior to his death, a literary award was established in his name: the Itzik Manger Prize for literary works in Yiddish, distributed from 1969 to 1999. 

[3] p. Attached the Hebrew translation of the letter. Good condition.