Blume Lempel

Blume Lempel (1907–October 20, 1999) was a Yiddish language writer. She was born in Galicia, lived in Paris between 1929 and 1939, and immigrated to New York with her husband and two children in 1939.

"Neighbors Over the Fence"
Translated by: Ellen Cassedy and Yermiyahu Ahron Taub
 * “Life, my dear, is a garden full of all kinds of plants,” Mrs. Zagretti said. “People, too, are plants that must be cultivated if they are to reach their highest potential.”


 * dancing around the tree as if it were a pagan god.


 * "Anyone who says that figs from a can are as good as figs from a tree isn’t worthy of a real, natural fruit — a fruit grown without chemicals or artificial fertilizer, a fruit as God created it." (Mrs. Zagretti)


 * The friendship has never crossed over the fence...The garden was the intermediary that brought them together. As the garden blossomed, so did the friendship — but never did it cross their thresholds.


 * “A house without a picture, my mother used to say, is like a heart without a god,” Mrs. Zagretti says. “When I pray to God, I need a picture in front of my eyes.” “We Jews carry God in our hearts,” Betty replies with an edge in her voice.


 * "I understand people, maybe not with my brains but with something my ancestors planted in me." (Mrs. Zagretti)


 * “You must understand,” she [Mrs. Zagretti] says, “the fly was a kind of soul mate for me. Whenever I came home it flew to greet me. It followed me from room to room. At night when I got into bed it would circle around the night light. Around and around and around — it must have hatched in late summer so that its life was just beginning when all the others of its species had already died. I could feel the tragedy of being left all alone in the world — all ties severed and paths overgrown, all friends and relations annihilated without a trace, condemned by fate to live out its one and only life in anguish . . .” Betty wants to say that she knows many people who were orphaned and left alone in the world not because of a mistake in the calendar but because of the calculated, brutal, organized murder of a people.

Letters to Chava Rosenfarb (1982-1988)
Translated from Yiddish by Ellen Cassedy and Yermiyahu Ahron Taub


 * in a certain sense maybe I am a recluse. For me it’s enough to write a story and have it appear in a journal. Beyond that, being in public scares me. bl


 * At times I feel very pessimistic—for whom are we writing? Then I think of you—you, who give so much and receive so little, who go on with your work—and in Yiddish! Who am I to complain? bl
 * About Chava Rosenfarb


 * How wonderful to have a friend who reads, who understands, who offers a critical word that hits the nail on the head.


 * the garden rewards me for my efforts. Red and yellow roses lift their faces to me, and the grass is green. Everything wants to live and to thrive. It’s a Jewish garden, with a little of this and a little of that. Everything comes together harmoniously.


 * The unwritten letters are the most interesting; they come spontaneously, straight from the heart, and swim away with all the unwritten stories, the uninvented poems.


 * Don’t worry that at the moment you’re not writing. Live a little! Nothing will be lost—it will come back to you with interest when you’re back at your desk

Chava Rosenfarb, Letters (1982-1988)
Translated from Yiddish by Ellen Cassedy and Yermiyahu Ahron Taub


 * I salute you as a writer and urge you to write and write, for the good of Yiddish literature. Because your intellect, your fresh words and images, the flights of your creativity, are original, contemporary, and I would say zaftik [juicy]! We need you!


 * I’m glad you’ve undertaken to have your work translated into English. It’s important both for you and for Yiddish literature. The world should see what we’re made of, and know that we’re no less modern than other literatures.


 * Everything you write is not only well written, but also interesting and easy to read. These qualities don’t always go together, but in your work they do.


 * How well you know people, how clearly you see them inside and out! How romantic, visionary, and thoughtful you are—you know daily life so well, you see it so splendidly, and you describe it with both a poetic tongue and a realistic flair for detail.


 * I admire the beauty and concision of your language. You are so economical and careful not to waste a word! And most important: the precision with which you analyze the human soul, women’s souls, your own soul.


 * I’ve always felt in your writing a kind of clinging to life and to the scraps of beauty that are buried here and there.


 * I admire your language and your flights of fancy. Some of your metaphors are truly astounding. You are absolutely unique. I would recognize anything of yours blindfolded. In your hand, realism is always transmuted into poetry. Even in translation, your language sings out.