Blume Lempel (May 13, 1910–October 20, 1999) was a Yiddish-language writer.
Biography
editLempel was born in Khorostkiv, where she was educated at a cheder and a Hebrew elementary school.[1] Her father was a kosher butcher.[2] In 1929, she left Ukraine for Paris where she stayed until 1939, when she immigrated to New York.[3] During her time in France, she was involved in efforts to establish Yiddish literary culture in interwar Paris.[4] Lempel's writing career in America began in 1943 with a short story published in Der Tog.[5] She lived in Long Island, where she hid her literary career from her neighbors and went by the name Blanche.[6]
In 1947 she serialized a novel about the Occupation of Paris in Morgn Frayhayt, called Tsvishn tsvey veltn (Between Two Worlds).[7] The novel was an unusual treatment of the Occupation, featuring a romantic relationship between a Nazi and a Jewish woman.[8] In 1954, under the name Blanche Lempel, she published Storm Over Paris, a translation of the 1947 novel.[9] While not widely reviewed, it was positively received, with the Pasadena Independent describing it as having "some of the bitter elements of a great novel".[10]Lempel's stories were known for their treatment of controversial themes such as incest, abortion, and suicide.[11]
Binem Heller served as Lempel's literary editor and agent for her first volume of short stories, A rege fun emes, published in 1981.[12] She also established a friendship with Chava Rosenfarb in 1982, after Rosenfarb read one of Lempel's short stories in Di goldene keyt.[13] Their friendship ended in 1989, when Lempel falsely accused Rosenfarb of having been a kapo, after she read Rosenfarb's story Edgia's Revenge, a fictional first-person narrative from the perspective of a former kapo.[14]
In 1985, Lempel was the recipient of the Atran Prize for Yiddish Literature.[15]
Bibliography
editWorks in English
- Storm Over Paris. New York: Philosophical Library, 1954.
- Oedipus in Brooklyn and Other Stories. Translated by Ellen Cassidy and Yermiyahu Ahron Taub. Takoma Park: Mandel Vilar Press, 2022.
Short story collections:
- A rege fun emes. Tel Aviv: Y.L. Perets, 1981.
- Balade fun a holem. Tel Aviv: Yisroel-bukh, 1986.
References
edit- ^ Bark, Sandra, ed. (2003). Beautiful as the moon, radiant as the stars : Jewish women in Yiddish stories : an anthology. Grand Central Publishing. p. 301. ISBN 9780446510363.
- ^ Berger, Joseph (2022-02-06). "How Yiddish Scholars Are Rescuing Women's Novels From Obscurity". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2024-07-07.
- ^ Forman, Frieda, ed. (1994). Found treasures : stories by Yiddish women writers. Second Story Press. p. 359. ISBN 9780929005539.
- ^ Underwood, Nick (January 2023). "Women Writers and the Postwar Remaking of Yiddish Paris". Journal of Jewish Identities. 16 (1–2): 199–215. doi:10.1353/jji.2023.a898146. ISSN 1946-2522.
- ^ Handler, Troim Katz (February 27, 2009). "Blume Lempel". The Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women. Retrieved 2024-04-28.
- ^ Feldman, Jim; Wexler, Natalie (2017-01-20). "Dozens Gather In D.C To Celebrate New Yiddish Translation of Blume Lempel's Work". The Forward. Retrieved 2024-07-07.
- ^ Kagan, Berl (ed.). "Lempel, Blume (May 13, 1910–October 20, 1999)". Leksikon Fun Der Nayer Yidisher Literatur. Retrieved 2024-04-28.
- ^ Taub, Yermiyahu Ahron; Cassedy, Ellen (2015). "To Dive into the Self: The Svive of Blume Lempel". Women Writers of Yiddish Literature. McFarland. p. 107. ISBN 9780786468812.
- ^ Anderson, Phoebe C. (August 10, 1954). "No Pause For Beauty: Storm Over Paris by Blanche Lempel". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. p. 28.
- ^ "Books in Brief". Pasadena Independent. July 18, 1954. p. 86.
- ^ Kennedy, Daniel (2017-11-15). "Trauma Ballads: Blume Lempel's Oedipus in Brooklyn and Other Stories, translated by Ellen Cassedy and Yermiyahu Ahron Taub". Reading in Translation. Retrieved 2024-07-07.
- ^ Cassedy, Ellen; Taub, Yermiyahu Ahron (Fall 2018). "Modern in Autumn: The Belated Discovery of Blume Lempel". Pakn Treger (78).
- ^ Cassedy, Ellen (Spring 2019). ""I Feel a Connection to You"". Pakn Treger.
- ^ Morgentaler, Goldie (July 5, 2022). "Feminism, Creativity and Translation: Chava Rosenfarb Translates Jewish-Canadian Women Writers into Yiddish". In geveb. Retrieved 2024-07-07.
- ^ Jones, Faith (April 2007). "Yiddish Fiction in Translation: Blume Lempel. Introduced by Faith Jones". Bridges: A Jewish Feminist Journal. 12 (1): 96–97. doi:10.2979/BRI.2007.12.1.96. ISSN 1046-8358.