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Cedars of Lebanon: Testament of a Jewish Intellectual: II
- Abstract
MENAHEM BORAISHA’s autobiographical essay on his career as a poet falls into two parts, the first of which we presented last month. In it he discusses his own stubborn clinging to traditional Jewish values, as against the newer “cult” of the individual practiced by his fellow writers. Here, in the last half of the essay, Boraisha describes a second obstacle between himself and his contemporaries, the “cult of art.” Of particular interest are Boraisha’s reference to Judah Halevi as the ideal Jewish poet writing in an “alien” milieu; and his oblique criticism of his own mentor, Judah Leib Peretz, for exploiting figures from the past to create the illusion of integrated faith. Both selections (in my translation from the Yiddish) are printed with the permission of the author’s widow and literary executor, Mrs. Sarah Boraisha.-JACOB SLOAN
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