THE POET OF ZIONISM
Naptali Herz Imber is known to all Jews of any education as the man who has written in the old Hebrew language the poems that best express the hope of Zion and that best serve as an inspiring battle cry in the struggle for a new Jerusalem. Zangwill has translated into English the Hebrew "Wacht Am Rhein," the most popular of Imber's poems, which is called The Watch on the Jordan. It is in four stanzas, the first of which is:
Like the crash of the thunder
Which splitteth asunder
The flame of the cloud,
On our ears ever falling,
A voice is heard calling
From Zion aloud;
"Let your spirits' desires
For the land of your sires
Eternally burn
From the foe to deliver
Our own holy river,
To Jordan return."
Where the soft flowing stream
Murmurs low as in dream,
There set we our watch.
Our watchword, "The sword,
Of our land and our Lord,"
By the Jordan then set we our watch.
Mr. Imber is a peculiar character and is said to be the original of the poet Pinchas in Zangwill's Children of the Ghetto.
At a Russian-Jewish café on Canal Street he may often be found. Not long ago I met him there and discovered that the dignified Hebrew poet had as a man many of the more humorous and less impressive peculiarities of the character in Mr. Zangwill's book. It is difficult to take him seriously. He was sitting opposite an old "magid," or wandering preacher, whose specialty is to attack America, and he consented to tell about his work and to confide some of his ideas.
"I am the origin of the Zionistic movement," he said. "It is not generally known, but I am. Many years ago I went to Jerusalem, saw the misery of the people, felt the spirit of the place and determined to bring my scattered people again together. For twelve years I struggled to put the Zionistic movement on foot, and now that I have started it I will let others carry it on and get the glory. For long I was not recognized, but when my Hebrew poems were published our whole race were made enthusiastic for Zion.
"If you wish to know what the spirit and purpose of my Hebrew poems is I will tell you. For two thousand years Hebrew poetry has been nothing but lamentations—nothing but literature expressing the spirit of Jeremiah. There have been no love songs, no wine songs, no songs of joy, nothing pagan. There have been no poets, only critics in rhyme. Now what I did in my Hebrew verses was to do away with lamentations. We have had enough of lamentations. I introduced the spirit of love and wine, the pagan spirit. My theme, indeed, is Zion. I am an individualist. It is the only 'ist' I believe in, and I want my nation to be individual, too. I want them to be joyously themselves, and so I am a Zionist. Therefore I did away with critical poetry and with lamentations and led my people on to an individual and a joyous life."
Altho Mr. Imber's best work is in Hebrew poetry, he is yet a very voluminous writer on science, economics, medicine, mysticism, history and many other subjects.
"I have written on everything," said the poet, "everything. I know almost nothing about the subjects on which I write. I don't believe in reading. I believe in knowing myself. In that way we learn to know others. Psychology is the only science. All others are fakes, and I can fake as well as anybody. Why read, or why seek amusement in the theatres or elsewhere, when one can sit in a café and talk to a man like that?"
He pointed in the old "magid" opposite him.
"Whenever I want to amuse myself," he said, "I talk to a man like that, and I cannot amuse myself without learning more about psychology."
With the exception of his poems most of the poet's work was written in the English language.
"I began to write English late in life," he said. "Israel Zangwill helped me to begin. He said he would correct what I wrote, but I wrote so much that Mr. Zangwill stopped reading it and told me to go ahead on my own hook. So I did. I have written infinitely in English, some of which has been published—Music of the Psalms; Education and the Talmud, which was issued by the United States government in the report of the commissioner of education; many articles on mysticism and other subjects in the magazine Ariel; The Mystery of the Golden Calf, The Music of the Ghetto, and many other works on the cabalistic mysticism. I have also written, Who Was Crucified? wherein I prove that it was not Jesus. If I kept on all day I could not tell you the names of all I have written. I have published many articles in the Jewish-American papers satirizing the rabbis, who consequently hate me. Much of my work, indeed, is satirical. The world needs cleaning up a little, particularly the rabbis. Put the reformed and orthodox rabbis together and some good might come of them. I am not afraid of these people, whom I call silk-chimney rabbis, because they wear tall hats instead of knowing the Talmud. It was my own invention—'silk-chimney rabbis.'"
Mr. Imber is evidently very fond of this phrase, for he repeated it many times. Indeed, he does not seem to be a very pious Jew. He himself admits it, for he said:
"I do not think they will say 'Kaddish' for my soul when I am dead. And yet I am not a skeptic, exactly. I have a principle, Zionism. And beyond Zionism I have another great interest. I have now perfected Zionism, so I am free to pass on to Mysticism, in which I am deeply at work. The mystics are all bluffers. I am a mystic, but my mysticism is simple and plain. My aim is to present a perfectly simple view of occultism. It is difficult to persuade Americans to become mystics. They care nothing for Hegel and Kant. Their philosophy I call Barnumism."
NAPTALI HERZ IMBER
Mr. Imber has largely given up writing Hebrew now, but lately he wrote a Hebrew poem comprising 200 closely printed pages. He did it, he said, to spite a man who said the poet had forgotten Hebrew because of his penchant for English.
Not long ago Mr. Imber wrote a Last Confession in Hebrew. He was very sick in a St. Louis hospital with blood poisoning, and thought he was going to die. They wanted him to confess his sins. So he did it, in Hebrew verse, which he translated to me, evidently on the spur of the moment, thus:
When my day will come
To wander in distress,
Call the priest to my room,
My sins to confess.
The sins which I have committed
With deliberation,
They will by the Lord be omitted,
Who promised us salvation.
The evils I have done,
Not conscious of the action,
Have passed away and gone
Without satisfaction.
I see near me the green table:
The gamblers play aloud,
And I am sick and unable
To mix up with the crowd.
There are still beautiful roses,
With aroma blessed;
There are still handsome maidens,
Whose lips I have not pressed.
This has me affected,
I am full of remorse,
That of late I have neglected
The girl and the roses.
Written on what the poet thought was his deathbed, this satirical poem is almost as heroic as The Watch on the Jordan.
Mr. Imber has also written many original poems in English, which, however, he fears will not live. Many of them are satirical poems about American life and politics. When in Denver before the Spanish war he wrote some verses beginning:
Our flag will soon be planted
In a land where we do not want it.
It was, the poet said, through the simple, clear character of his mystical attainments that he was able to predict the results of the war with Spain.
Mr. Imber looks upon America as the "land of the bluff" and as such admires it. But he disapproves of our reform movements. He thinks the recent attempt to reform the east side was due to the desire of the rich to divert attention from their own vices. He doesn't approve of reform any way.
"We have been trying to reform human nature," he said, "for 2,000 years, and have not done it yet. The only way to make a man good is to remove his stomach, for so long as he is hungry he will steal, and so long as he has other desires he will commit other wicked actions. Moses and Jesus were smart men and knew that evil could not be rooted out, and so they tolerated it."
Mr. Imber has recently made his last will and testament. It is in Hebrew prose and runs thus in English:
"To the rabbis I leave what I don't know; it will help them to a longer life. To my enemies I leave my rheumatism. Between the Republican and Democratic parties I divide the boodle which they have not yet touched. To the Jewish editors I leave my broken pen, so that they can write slowly and avoid mistakes. My books—those intended for beginners—I leave to the eight professors, so that they can learn to read. As an executor there shall be appointed a man who knows Barnum's philosophy through and through. Written on my deathbed. Witness, Mr. Pluto of the Underground and his Famulus, the doctor. As an afterthought I leave to my publishers the last bill unpaid by me. They can frame it and keep it as an amulet to ward away that class of authors."
"Is it sarcastic?" asked Mr. Imber, chuckling delightedly.
Some time ago Mr. Imber sent the news of his own death to the various Hebrew and Yiddish publications. Many long obituaries—"very fine ones," said the poet—appeared.
"In that way," said Mr. Imber, "I learned who were my enemies. It had one evil consequence, however. When I afterward asked the editor to publish one of my articles he said:
"'You are officially dead, and as such cannot rush into print.'
"That reply really gave me a grievous moment," said the poet, with a shrewd, Voltairian smile.