{"id":1056,"date":"2019-12-10T10:43:49","date_gmt":"2019-12-10T15:43:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/?p=1056"},"modified":"2019-12-10T10:43:49","modified_gmt":"2019-12-10T15:43:49","slug":"the-endless-road-of-the-self-malka-hiefetz-tussman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/fraser\/the-endless-road-of-the-self-malka-hiefetz-tussman\/","title":{"rendered":"“The Endless Road of ‘The Self:'” Malka Hiefetz Tussman"},"content":{"rendered":"

Seemingly in anticipation of the distress that might be felt at the \u201cJAP Baiting\u201d articles, the next piece in Lilith<\/em> #17 is a powerful and uplifting expos\u00e9 called \u201cMother Nature and Human Nature: The Poetry of Malka Heifetz Tussman.\u201d \"CoverThe author of this article is Marcia \u00a0<\/strong>Falk, a Jewish educator and poet born into the baby boomer or post World War II generation. Falk celebrates Tussman as a midcentury Yiddish literary figure, activist, mother, and mentor. Tussman, born in the 1890s in Ukraine, wrote poetry and short stories in four\u00a0languages including Russian, Hebrew, English, and Yiddish. Tussman only began to publish once she moved to Chicago in 1912. Falk first met Tussman at a Jewish arts festival in Berkeley, California, and afterwards began to translate Tussman\u2019s poetry into English. The two women became friends and often exchanged poetry, letters, and recipes. In the summer of 1973, Falk lived in Berkeley with Tussman as they feverishly worked to translate eighty Yiddish poems that were later published as a chapbook (\u201cAm I Also You?\u201d published by Tree Books, 1977). The two women recognized the importance of preserving Jewish women\u2019s literary legacy across time and place, embodying the very virtue of the intergenerationality that Jewish feminists in years to come would regard as necessary to the second-wave struggle.<\/p>\n

Tussman\u2019s poem \u201cI AM WOMAN\u201d is reprinted on the first page of this article, boldly claiming Jewish womanhood in a series of statements that begin with \u201cI am\u201d and that emphasize the Jewish woman\u2019s multifaceted nature. The poem begins \u201cI am the exalted Rachel \/ whose love lit the way for Rabbi Akiba\u201d (lines 1-2), grounding the piece around a traditional but celebratory view of Jewish women as Biblical and connected to male figures. Tussman moves through several verses declaring herself a \u201cbashful village girl\u201d excited by her brother\u2019s teacher (3), a \u201cpious girl\u201d (7) who observes Shabbat, an \u201cobedient bride\u201d (12), and the \u201crabbi\u2019s daughter\u201d (17). But to Tussman, all of these characterizations contain a certain strength and grace: while these positions of power are dictated by patriarchy, and are most certainly informed by Tussman\u2019s childhood as the daughter of a rabbi in a small Ukrainian shtetl, each of the verses end with a characterization of the sacrifices Jewish women have made that enable their communities and families to survive. \""IThere is a turning point in the poem where Tussman writes \u201cI am the mother \/ who, in great hardship, \/ raised sons to be righteous men\u201d (24-26). Here, the woman\u2019s power is not derived from the men in her life, but vice versa: part of her mightiness is the ability to raise \u201crighteous\u201d sons despite struggle. Their power originates in hers. After this line, the speaker of the poem declares herself an able rebel, a \u201cbarrier-breaker \/ who distributed Bread and Freedom \/ and freed love from the wedding canopy\u201d (29-31). \u201cBread and Freedom\u201d is a reference to Tussman\u2019s work in Chicago\u2019s anarchist-socialist political scene of the 1920s, where she advocated for economic justice and Marxism at the risk of deportation and arrest. This woman seems very different from the \u201cobedient bride\u201d who was exalted earlier in the poem, but is given equal weight, attention, and praise in Tussman\u2019s poem. Tussman begins by honoring traditional women who have worked within the patriarchy and finishes by paying tribute to activist women who engage in the different work of activism. While neither of these types of women seem more privileged or powerful than the other, it is important to note that by finishing the poem with the activist woman, Tussman creates a developmental arc that begins within patriarchal norms and ends outside of such norms.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cI AM WOMAN\u201d documents the development of a young Jewish woman of Tussman\u2019s ethnic background, the development of her sense of womanhood, and her reclamation of her own strength.<\/p>\n

\"Malka

Malka Tussman in LA, 1970s.<\/p><\/div>\n

Tussman concludes by writing \u201cI am all these and many more. \/ And everywhere, always, I am woman\u201d (43-44).\u00a0 Perhaps Falk chose this poem to speak to Tussman\u2019s importance within the context of Lilith<\/em> andmodern Jewish feminism. \u201cI AM WOMAN\u201d fiercely reminds its audience that Jewish women are anything and everything they wish to be: powerful, spiritual, sexual, intellectual, and faithful. Falk ends her article with a copy of a letter sent to her by Tussman in the spring of 1975, near the end of her life. Tussman signs the letter with a note on the purpose of her writing, exemplifying the spirit of community so often conjured by poetry of the Second Wave: \u201cAnd so my poetry is still travelling the endless road of \u2018the Self\u2019 to reach \u2018the You.\u2019 It knows no other road\u2026 Love, Malka.\u201d Tussman, and her letter to Falk, embodies the fullness of Jewish feminist literature that sought to bridge generations, reclaim and redefine Judaism for women, and elevate people experiencing struggle everywhere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seemingly in anticipation of the distress that might be felt at the \u201cJAP Baiting\u201d articles, the next piece in Lilith #17 is a powerful and uplifting expos\u00e9 called \u201cMother Nature and Human Nature: The Poetry of Malka Heifetz Tussman.\u201d The … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2252,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fraser"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2252"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1056"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1056\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1118,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1056\/revisions\/1118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}