How Christian
Jacob Glatstein
Translated by A.Z. Foreman
How Christian, so to speak, can I become?
How much Christian could I be?
How much mercy1 was ever up to me?
And what can I forgive?
Sure I can maybe toss out a soft crumb
Or two, on the account of one small life.
But then what in regard to that divine extermination?
Can I forgive on their behalf?2 Did they
Grant such dispensation?
And is it my place to betray
The burning bush of death?
All the face-slappers slapped both cheeks of mine.
No Cossack ever gave a Mishnah-Jew3 a chance
To even turn the other cheek.
How much Jew in me can be Christianed4 out, so to speak?
A smidgen. That much pity
You can beg out of me
For children of my blood-bathed crime-leprous5 enemy.
So here you go: a smidgen of sympathy.
Take it. Dole it out. No loss.
But do not shadow down6 my heart
With an oh-so-merciful cross.
1 - The word ?????? rakhm�nes here translated variously as "pity, mercy" encompasses both the idea of (divine) mercy alongside feelings of human pity.
2 - The word ????? h�ter means permission, and has rabbinical connotations involving Jewish law.
3 - Mishnah Jew: a simple Jew. One who has studied the Hebrew Mishnah but hasn't gone on to study the Aramaic Talmud. Proverbial for "a simple man."
4 - The verb ???????? opshm�dn means "to convert (a Jew) to Christianity, to Christianize" from ???? shmadn "to baptize (a Jew)," ultimately from a Hebrew etymon which originally meant "destroy." The reflexive opshmadn zikh � which is the form used here � is intransitive and means "to convert, to become Christian." This lexical root is associated with forced conversion, coercion, subordination, capitulation and self-erasure in the face of Gentile society. (The use of derivatives of ??? to refer to conversion also has a long history in medieval Hebrew, preceding that of Yiddish. The medieval Hebrew term ??????? "converts, conversos" goes back to at least the ninth century. Modern Hebrew has ???????? le�amed "to coerce into converting to Christianity," and ?????? lehi�tamed "to commit apostasy" alongside other derivations e.g. ??????????? leha�mid "to obliterate, to exterminate" where the root's earlier semantics are more transparent.)
The negative connotations of opshmadn and shmadn are quite at variance with the words in non-Jewish languages used to translate them, and from the more neutral Yiddish terms of Germanic coin which may be used in their place in scholarly or otherwise analytic contexts. One might complain (as indeed a great many did complain) that the Yiddish writer Sholem Asch had ?????????? opgeshmad the Yiddish language by dealing with Christian subjects in his work (his novel ??? ???? ???? ???? The Man From Nazareth about the life of Jesus landed him in especially hot water.) Some Hasidim may deem secular Jews to have been opgeshmad. A more connotatively apposite translation of this verb would require coinages like "Church-whipped" "fallen to Christ" or the like. But this seemed out of joint.
5 - ???????? mets�yredik literally means "leprous, leper-like." But it has tradition-laden resonances. The Hebrew etymon mets�yre is a denominal derivation from ???? tsoraas, traditionally translated as "leprosy" though it can apply to places and clothing, nor merely humans. It is mentioned in e.g. Leviticus 13-14. Tsoraes in Jewish tradition is a sickness understood to result from some sort of grave infraction (often that of ???? ??? loshn hore, harming someone by speaking ill of them.) The implication is that Christians have made themselves unclean, diseased themselves, with their actions.
6 � there is some wordplay here in the Yiddish. Glatstein's text has ?????????? farsh�tn "to cover with shadows" where one might have expected ?????????? farsh�tn "to harm, to injure."
The Original:
Jacob Glatstein
Translated by A.Z. Foreman
How Christian, so to speak, can I become?
How much Christian could I be?
How much mercy1 was ever up to me?
And what can I forgive?
Sure I can maybe toss out a soft crumb
Or two, on the account of one small life.
But then what in regard to that divine extermination?
Can I forgive on their behalf?2 Did they
Grant such dispensation?
And is it my place to betray
The burning bush of death?
All the face-slappers slapped both cheeks of mine.
No Cossack ever gave a Mishnah-Jew3 a chance
To even turn the other cheek.
How much Jew in me can be Christianed4 out, so to speak?
A smidgen. That much pity
You can beg out of me
For children of my blood-bathed crime-leprous5 enemy.
So here you go: a smidgen of sympathy.
Take it. Dole it out. No loss.
But do not shadow down6 my heart
With an oh-so-merciful cross.
1 - The word ?????? rakhm�nes here translated variously as "pity, mercy" encompasses both the idea of (divine) mercy alongside feelings of human pity.
2 - The word ????? h�ter means permission, and has rabbinical connotations involving Jewish law.
3 - Mishnah Jew: a simple Jew. One who has studied the Hebrew Mishnah but hasn't gone on to study the Aramaic Talmud. Proverbial for "a simple man."
4 - The verb ???????? opshm�dn means "to convert (a Jew) to Christianity, to Christianize" from ???? shmadn "to baptize (a Jew)," ultimately from a Hebrew etymon which originally meant "destroy." The reflexive opshmadn zikh � which is the form used here � is intransitive and means "to convert, to become Christian." This lexical root is associated with forced conversion, coercion, subordination, capitulation and self-erasure in the face of Gentile society. (The use of derivatives of ??? to refer to conversion also has a long history in medieval Hebrew, preceding that of Yiddish. The medieval Hebrew term ??????? "converts, conversos" goes back to at least the ninth century. Modern Hebrew has ???????? le�amed "to coerce into converting to Christianity," and ?????? lehi�tamed "to commit apostasy" alongside other derivations e.g. ??????????? leha�mid "to obliterate, to exterminate" where the root's earlier semantics are more transparent.)
The negative connotations of opshmadn and shmadn are quite at variance with the words in non-Jewish languages used to translate them, and from the more neutral Yiddish terms of Germanic coin which may be used in their place in scholarly or otherwise analytic contexts. One might complain (as indeed a great many did complain) that the Yiddish writer Sholem Asch had ?????????? opgeshmad the Yiddish language by dealing with Christian subjects in his work (his novel ??? ???? ???? ???? The Man From Nazareth about the life of Jesus landed him in especially hot water.) Some Hasidim may deem secular Jews to have been opgeshmad. A more connotatively apposite translation of this verb would require coinages like "Church-whipped" "fallen to Christ" or the like. But this seemed out of joint.
5 - ???????? mets�yredik literally means "leprous, leper-like." But it has tradition-laden resonances. The Hebrew etymon mets�yre is a denominal derivation from ???? tsoraas, traditionally translated as "leprosy" though it can apply to places and clothing, nor merely humans. It is mentioned in e.g. Leviticus 13-14. Tsoraes in Jewish tradition is a sickness understood to result from some sort of grave infraction (often that of ???? ??? loshn hore, harming someone by speaking ill of them.) The implication is that Christians have made themselves unclean, diseased themselves, with their actions.
6 � there is some wordplay here in the Yiddish. Glatstein's text has ?????????? farsh�tn "to cover with shadows" where one might have expected ?????????? farsh�tn "to harm, to injure."
The Original:
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