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    Zina: A Selection from Her Poems and Photographs
    Zina: A Selection from Her Poems and Photographs
    Zina: A Selection from Her Poems and Photographs
    Ebook231 pages1 hour

    Zina: A Selection from Her Poems and Photographs

    By Judith Weinshall Liberman

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    About this ebook

    This book affords English-speaking readers their first opportunity to read and enjoy the poetry of Zina Weinshall.



    Zina was born in Russia in 1900 and moved to Israel in 1920. Early on, she wrote her poetry in Russian, her mother tongue; later, after she had mastered the Hebrew language, she wrote her poems in Hebrew, the language of her adopted land. Through this translation of Zinas poetry into English, poems from both groups are now accessible to western readers.



    Seventy-eight of the poems in this book represent three separate collections of poems which Zina had printed as small books between 1929 and 1944 for distribution to family and friends. The poems have been left in their sequence as organized by Zina herself within each of the collections. Also included in this book is a poem Zina wrote after losing her son in war in 1948.



    In addition to Zinas poetry, readers will find a large collection of family photographs assembled by the editor, Zinas daughter, Judith Weinshall Liberman, and the editors comments about each photograph, both captivating and enlightening.



    The editors preface to the book, as well as her essays about the life and writings of Zina Weinshall, round out the picture, and help the reader gain insight into a unique poet.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisheriUniverse
    Release dateOct 3, 2013
    ISBN9781491701812
    Zina: A Selection from Her Poems and Photographs
    Author

    Judith Weinshall Liberman

    Born in Israel (then called “Palestine”), Judith Weinshall Liberman came to the United States in 1947 to pursue higher education after completing high school in her native city of Haifa. She earned four American university degrees, including a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School and an LL.M. from the University of Michigan Law School. While teaching law in Israel in 1955, she wrote a textbook on public international law in Hebrew for use by her students. After settling in the Boston area in 1956, she studied art and creative writing. Her art studies were at various art schools in the Boston area, including the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, the DeCordova Museum School, and the Massachusetts College of Art. She completed all course work for the M.F.A. degree in art education at Boston University School for the Arts and was certified by the State of Massachusetts as an art teacher. In the early 1960s, Ms. Liberman began creating some of her numerous series of artworks. She used a large variety of mediums in her art, including oils, acrylics, graphics, mixed media, wall hangings, sculpture, ceramics, and mosaics. She is primarily known for her artworks about the Holocaust. A book titled Holocaust Wall Hangings, based on one of her three series on the Holocaust, was published in 2002. Her art has been widely exhibited in museums and other public institutions in the United States and in Israel, and is represented in important museum collections as well as in the collections of scores of other public institutions. During her long career in visual art, Ms. Liberman wrote and published several books. Her children’s book The Bird’s Last Song (Addison-Wesley, 1976), which she wrote and illustrated, won a citation as one of the “fabulous books of the year.” Twenty years later, in 1996, she wrote and illustrated Ice Cream Snow, which was published as a children’s book in 2012. In 2007, Judith Weinshall Liberman published her autobiography, My Life into Art. Her interest in playwriting dates back to her college days in the late 1940s, when she wrote her first play. In the years that followed, she studied playwriting and wrote several plays. After reaching her eighties, Ms. Liberman devoted several years to writing plays and musicals. Looking Back, her first book of plays, was published in 2010. The play Good Old Abraham, included in that book, was performed by the Shades Repertory Theater under the direction of Samuel Harps at the historic Central Presbyterian Church in Haverstraw, New York, in the spring of 2010. Empathy, another play included in Looking Back, was used by Mr. Harps as the screenplay for a film. Her second book of plays, On Being an Artist, contained three plays and the libretto for one of her two musicals. Vincent’s Visit, one of the plays contained in that book, was staged by the Shades Repertory Theater under the direction of Samuel Harps in 2012. All four dramatic works in On Being an Artist deal with art as a creative process, a subject about which Judith Weinshall Liberman is eminently qualified to write. Ms. Liberman’s appetite for writing poems/lyrics was whetted by her work on her two musical plays, i.e., Good Old Abraham and To Be an Artist. Both musicals were based on her own plays. Ms. Liberman had written poetry on and off since her college days, but, although her own mother was a poet and had many poems published in her native Russia and in Israel, Judith Weinshall Liberman never anticipated that she herself would devote full time to writing poems and lyrics when she reached old age. In collaboration with her daughter, Laura Liberman, M.D., Judith Weinshall Liberman published the book Reflections: Poems, Lyrics, and Stories, in 2012. Each author contributed her own poems and other materials to that anthology. The present book, Passion, contains 150 poems and lyrics, all written by Judith Weinshall Liberman in 2012. Passion is the author’s ninth published book. Ms. Liberman’s archives can be found in the Fine Arts Department of the Boston Public Library and at the Smithsonian Archives of American Art.

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      Book preview

      Zina - Judith Weinshall Liberman

      Contents

      Preface

      PHOTOS A: Zina – Childhood to Motherhood (To 1927)

      ZINA’S POETRY:

      Palestinian Album (1929)

      OPENING:

      The gardener

      PROLOGUE:

      John is sitting in Mary’s boudoir (Miss Mary)

      THE SHFELA:

      A. To forget about cities

      B. The red pomegranate

      C. Earlier, winds came

      D. My heart suffers

      E. The zigzagging lights

      THE FUTURE:

      A. The future curls

      B. Here, the winters are short

      C. The day began

      THE LAND:

      A. In ancient Hellas (Hellas)

      B. We have incomprehensible heat waves (Khamsin)

      C. Silent streets (Summer)

      D. The pomegranates drop (Autumn)

      HAIFA:

      A. A boardwalk built (The Boardwalk)

      B. To stoop over the water (The Sea)

      C. The prophet Baba (The Prophet’s Tomb)

      D. The town square (Bazaar)

      E. Everything is very simple (The Technion)

      F. To the tune of a graceful violin (Cafe)

      OTHER CITIES:

      A. A town imprisoned (Acre)

      B. Grassy meadows (Nazareth)

      C. There is a world (Hadera)

      D. Dreary and parsimonious (Metullah)

      CLOSING:

      Of everything [Untitled]

      THE BIBLE:

      A. I heed the unhurried words (Ecclesiastes)

      B. The chatter of a braggart’s mouth (Proverbs)

      C. Look, Shulamith (The Song of Songs)

      PHOTOS B:

      Zina – Early Motherhood (The Late 1920s)

      ZINA’S POETRY:

      Twenty-Five Poems (1939)

      A. My whole world

      B. Against God and man

      C. Learn to master [Rondo]

      D. The waltz was sad

      E. Across my window

      F. Some say

      G. You will lower your gaze

      H. Love pursues

      I. The almond blossoms fell

      J. I am guilty

      K. Hate, like love

      L. My room is hidden [Apache song]

      M. When I heard

      N. Rachelle

      O. When from the deep skies

      P. The world is waiting

      Q. I read in books

      R. Forever curled

      S. To drop

      T. There was a time

      U. The sky is above

      V. I am sleepless

      W. Father is a guard [Lyric]

      X. In the desolation of space

      Y. Once upon a time

      PHOTOS C:

      Zina – The Outgoing Years (The 1930s)

      ZINA’S POETRY:

      The Beaded Necklace (1944)

      THE BEADED NECKLACE:

      A. Like a dried flower

      B. Your autumn days

      C. I am grateful

      D. Your words are like a sword

      E. I did not wish

      F. Yesterday

      G. Again he is rushing

      H. In my hand, your letter

      I. Again it will be evening

      J. You left my house

      K. There always was

      L. We love

      M. I had a garden [Ballad]

      N. There is an unforgettable tune

      O. There was once a bench [Ballad]

      P. For him, everything

      Q. A deserted field

      R. The stormy desert wind

      S. The wind

      T. I shall not mourn

      U. Of all the good

      ABOUT REASON:

      A. To grasp a long world

      B. What is Paradise for?

      C. A melody rings

      D. A word

      PHOTOS D:

      Zina – The Closing Years (The 1940s and Beyond)

      Zina’s Poem Unknown Soldier

      About the Poet

      About the Editor

      This book is dedicated with love

      to my family

      My son, Dr. David Liberman

      My daughter, Dr. Laura Liberman

      My grandchildren, Daniel, Nina, Cynthia, and Deborah

      and to the memory of

      My husband, Prof. Robert Liberman

      My father, Dr. Abraham Weinshall

      My brother, Saul Weinshall

      and to the memory of my mother

      Zina Weinshall

      (1900-1990)

      whose effect on the course of my life

      was far more profound

      than either one of us could have anticipated

      Judith Weinshall Liberman

      1%20PORTRAIT%20BY%20KOLEM%20BIAHLE%20%20detail%20copy.jpg

      A black-and-white photograph

      of a life-size full-color pastel portrait of

      Zina Weinshalll

      by artist

      Erich Colm-Bialla.

      Haifa, late 1930s.

      Collection of Yeshiva University Museum,

      New York.

      Preface

      by

      Judith Weinshall Liberman

      I surprised even myself when I conceived the idea of publishing, in English, some of my mother’s poetry.

      My mother’s name was Zina Weinshall. She immigrated to Israel (then called Palestine) from Russia with my father, Dr. Abraham Weinshall, in 1920, and she had three collections of her poetry printed in the form of small books between 1929 and 1944 for distribution to family and friends.

      The small book printed in 1929 contained poems which were written in Russian, her mother tongue. The two collections printed later - in 1939 and 1944, respectively – were written in Hebrew, the language of her adopted country.

      Although I could easily have read the poems contained in her two small books written in Hebrew (my own mother tongue), I did not read the poems contained in these books until I was past my 80th birthday and had myself become a poet.*

      Looking back, I believe the main reason I did not bother to read my mother’s poems all those years, although I possessed the small bound collections of poems she had printed, was that her poetry was the source of great pain to me when I was growing up. Since my mother not only wrote poetry but also recited it in public in the 1930s and 1940s, the decades of my youth, she had to practice her recitation, which she did for hours on end at our home, while pacing up and down the central corridor. It was the rule at our house that no sound might be made by anyone in the household while my mother was engaged in practicing her recitation, because any sound might interfere with her concentration. So the housekeeper, the cook, the nanny, my brother, and I, were not permitted to utter a word or make any other sound for all the hours my mother

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