The Gates are No Longer Locked by Itzik Feffer
By Itzik Feffer from Geklibene Verk ,p.17 of book, p.20 of pdf(1929)
Translated by Aaron Castillo-White and R’ Zachary Golden; Edited by R’ Zachary Golden
Itzik Feffer
Photo of Itzik Feffer from Heymland (Homeland), 1944
Itzik Feffer (1900–1952) was a Yiddish poet, editor, political activist, and playwright. Born in Shpola, Ukraine, Itsik Fefer was 12 years old when he began to work at a printing shop. In 1917 he joined the Bund and became a trade union activist. He embraced Communism and by 1919, he was serving in the Red Army.
Feffer’s career as a poet began a year earlier in 1918 and in 1922 joined Vidervuks (New Growth) in Kiev, a group of young Yiddish literati whose mentor was Dovid Hofshteyn, another poet who, like Feffer, was murdered during the Night of the Murdered Poets.
Itzik’s was known for his literary credo, proste reyd (simple speech), a philosophy that blended romanticism with accessible language, easily identified with by the masses. He married his poetry with his proletarian and communist zeal, uniting his work with his politics, helping to serve as a propagandist for the communist party as it consolidated power in the Soviet Union.
By the late 1930s, Feffer was a well-known literary heavyweight in the Yiddish world. His lyrical poetry reached a popularity that saw some of it set to music.
In the late 1940s, Feffer, alongside many other Yiddish-speaking intellectuals, welcomed the establishment of a Jewish State. This support of Jewish national identity was their undoing. An increasingly paranoid Stalin saw traitors everywhere, among them the Jewish intelligentsia. Itsik Feffer was first arrested in 1948 with other leaders of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee.
He was murdered on the Night of the Murdered Poets on August 12, 1952.
Posthumously, his reputation has been somewhat diminished when declassified files in the 1990s showed that during the show trials of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, it was some of Feffer’s own testimony and writings that were central to the state’s prosecution.
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זיינען טויערן מער ניט פֿאַרשלאָסן
The Gates are No Longer Locked
,זיינען טויערן מער ניט פֿאַרשלאָסן
;ווי גענעכטיקט אַ דאָרט ניט געטאָגט
,האָט אַזוי דען מײַן זיידע געשאָסן
?האָט אַזוי דען מײַן טאַטע געיאָגט
,ערשט געווען דאָ און מאָרגן פֿאַרגעסן
;און קײַן סימען האָט דאָ ניט פֿאַרבליט
איך האָב ליב ווען ווינטעלעך טעסען
.מײַנע שטענדיקע דאָרשטיקע טריט
,האָט מײַן היים זיך אין ווערסטן פֿאַרלאָרן
,און מײַן גאַנג איז מיט אומרו פאַרדרייט
ווײַל דער וועג איז מיט טויזנטער יאָרן
.מיט טויזנטער יאָרן פֿאַרווייט
The gates are no longer locked,
Over there is perpetual wandering;
How then was my grandfather shot,
How then was my father hunted?
First it was here and tomorrow forgotten;
and no trace was here left behind;
I love when the winds hew
My constantly thirsty steps.
My home is lost in the distance,
And my path is consumed in angst,
For the road has been buried under
Thousands and thousands of years.