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In vowelized Hebrew. 253 x 199 cm. 332, (4) pages. Additional scans available upon request. Top edge dyed green. Capitals by Budko. Hinges exposed. Blank free endpapers detached. Book block a bit loose in the binding. Hayim Nahman Bialik (Chaim, Haim)(January 9, 1873 Ivnitsa, Volhynian Governorate, Russian Empire - July 4, 1934 Vienna, Austria). Poet, journalist, Children's writer, Translator. Bialik was a Jewish poet who wrote primarily in Hebrew but also in Yiddish. He was one of the pioneers of modern Hebrew poetry. He was part of the vanguard of Jewish thinkers who gave voice to the breath of new life in Jewish life. Although he died before Israel became a state, Bialik ultimately came to be recognized as Israel's national poet. Bialk was born to Itzik-Yosef Bialik, a scholar and businessman from Zhitomir, and his wife, Dinah-Priveh. He had older brother Sheftel (born in 1862) and sister Chenya-Ides (born in 1871), as well as a younger sister Blyuma (born in 1875). When Bialik was still a child, his father died. In his poems, Bialik romanticized the misery of his childhood, describing seven orphans left behind, though modern biographers believe there were fewer children, including grown step-siblings who did not need to be supported. From age 7 onwards Bialik was raised in Zhitomir by his Orthodox grandfather, Yankl-Moishe Bialik. In Zhitomir he received a traditional Jewish religious education, but also explored European literature. At age 15, inspired by an article he read, he convinced his grandfather to send him to the Volozhin Yeshiva in Lithuania, to study at a famous Talmudic academy under Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin, where he hoped he could continue his Jewish schooling while expanding his education to European literature as well. Attracted to the Jewish Enlightenment movement (Haskala), Bialik gradually drifted away from yeshiva life. There is a story in the biography of Rabbi Chaim Solevetchik that cites an anonymous student reputed to be him. The story goes that Rabbi Chaim, after expelling Bialik from the yeshiva for being involved in the Haskala movement, personally escorted his former student out. When asked "Why?" the rabbi replied that he spent the time convincing Bialik not to use his writing talents against the yeshiva world. Poems such as HaMatmid ("The Talmud student") written in 1898, reflect Bialik's great ambivalence toward that way of life: on the one hand admiration for the dedication and devotion of the yeshiva students to their studies, on the other hand a disdain for the narrowness of their world. At 18 he left for Odessa, the center of modern Jewish culture in the southern Russian Empire, drawn by such luminaries as Mendele Mocher Sforim and Ahad Ha'am. In Odessa, Bialik studied Russian and German language and literature and dreamed of enrolling in the Modern Orthodox Rabbinical Seminary in Berlin. Alone and penniless, he made his living teaching Hebrew. The 1892 publication of his first poem, El Hatzipor "To the Bird", which expresses a longing for Zion, in a booklet edited by Yehoshua Ravnitzky (1859-1944) (a future collaborator), eased Bialik's way into Jewish literary circles in Odessa. He joined the Hovevei Zion movement and befriended Ahad Ha'am, who had a great influence on his Zionist outlook. In 1892 Bialik heard news that the Volozhin Yeshiva had closed and returned home to Zhitomir to prevent his grandfather from discovering that he had discontinued his religious education. He arrived to find both his grandfather and his older brother close to death. . . . Seller Inventory # 011237
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