Rose Kiok-Kirshenbaum

Arbeter Froyen

Vos shteyt ir fun vaytn, vos helft ir nit boyen

Dem templ fun frayhayt, fun mentshlekhn glik?

Helft undz trogn dem baner dem roytn,

Forverts, durkh shturem, durkh fintstere nekht!

Helft undz varhayt un likht tsu farshpreytn,

Tsvishn umvisnde, eltne knekht!

Helft undz di velt fun ir shmuts derheybn!

Ales opfern, vos undz iz lib;

Kemfn tsuzamen, vi mekhtike leybn

Far frayhayt, far glaykhhayt, far undzer printsip!

Nit eyn mol hobn shoyn nobele froyen,

Gemakht tsitern henker un tron,

Zey hobn getsaygt, az men ken zey fartroyen,

In biterstn shturem di heylike fon.

-Dovid Edelshtat

Women working

Women, suffering women

Women, who ache working the factories

Why exist as a bystander, why wouldn't you help work

The temple of freedom, of the people’s happiness?

support our left branch, represent the red flag

Worker women, suffering women

All togther through storms, through dark nights

Help us spread the truth

Between the unkowlagable, lonesome slave

Help the world from bad and lift up!

Everything we love, we sacrifice

We all fight so hard

For what we believe in

Many times the noble women

Belive the trembling men

The men proved they could be trusted

Through the communist flag

–Translated from Yiddish by Rose Kiok-Kirshenbaum

Working women

Suffering women

Women who work in factories

When you stand far away, fearful to work

Peoples happiness rely on the temple of freedom

Help us support that joy and represent the working

Worker women, suffering women

In community, through rough patches

Spreading the facts and information

Throughout those not knowledgeable people

Help us rebel from the bad

Sacrificing everything for what we love

Giving our all in the fight

For what we want and need

Not one time did the noble women

Trust the untrusting men

Until they proved they could be trusted

And through the red flag

-Translated from YIddish by Rose Kiok-Kirshenbaum

Translator’s Statement

David Edelstadt lived a short but powerful life (1866-1892). David Edelstadt was a Yiddish poet and activist born in Kaluga, Russia. He was a young poet who quickly gained a strong reputation for his work. David had a large amount of his poems published starting with work from the young age of 9. His first publishing was published in Kaluga, Russia. David Immigrated to the United States in 1882 to New York. He later found himself a home in Cincinnati, Ohio. In Ohio, David worked as a buttonhole maker where he continued to write poetry as a hobby. He was still publishing at the time, of course.

The poem of David Edelstadt’s that I chose to translate is called “Arbeter Froyen” (“Working Women”). After my first look at this poem, I was sure a woman wrote it. It was so radical for the time that it was published and it seemed like a progressive activist must have written it. Little did I know I was indeed wrong. I thought it was a cool poem because it talks about women in power, a topic I enjoy learning about and noticing in day-to-day life. I found this poem from a collection of Yiddish songs and poems recently published by the Workers Circle. This specific poem was published in a collection of Yiddish poems and songs called The Yosl And Chana Mlotek Collection. I really enjoyed looking through this collection because there were so many sections of endless poems and songs to explore.

When meeting with my translation mentor, we created a “literal” translation of the poem. While we did create a literal translation in effort to keep the meaning as true as possible, we did go over each line and talked about what they meant. I made sure that I knew what each line meant so I could keep the meaning as accurate as possible when creating different iterations of the poem. I wanted to do this because many lines were unclear and had things I didn’t know the meaning of at first. One example where I was unclear about the meaning was when it said “red banner”. I wasn’t sure what this meant but with the help of my translator and the internet, we decided that David was talking about the communist flag. I made sure to not change this but simplify it more in my versions of the poem to make it clearer for the reader.

The poem itself was written in four different stanzas and made up of an average of five lines per stanza. I had a couple challenges when translating “Arbeter Froyen.” One of the challenges was creating an explanation and getting the real topic across while keeping the tone and meaning of the poem. One specific part was in the last stanza when David talked about communism. I wasn’t sure how to translate that in any of my final drafts because it was simply just represented with a “red banner”. I chose to elaborate a little on it as you can see in my poem. I did this in the simplest way I saw so it didn’t mess with the tone of the poem and kept the meaning.

Throughout the translation process, one challenge that I had was keeping the text similar to the original translation while still making it easy and straightforward for the viewer to read and understand. I decided to create literal translations and because of this I had to keep as simple and straightforward as possible. In the end I am proud of how it turned out and I think I did a good job creating a literal translation that included descriptive words and imagery that supported it.

Before we started our own translations, we looked at some translators and their opinions on translation. This helped me get perspective and more personal, to be able to connect with my poem on a deeper level. One particular quote stood out to me from the text called, “Letter of Recommendation” by Carina del Valle Schorske. In the text, Carina says: “I used to be ashamed of my hand-me-down, stitched-together Spanish, but I’m learning (as Freud advises) to embrace my symptom.” I thought this was very powerful because growing up I had always learned about how my ancestors had to hide their culture in order to almost stay alive. I was told stories of how my grandparents wouldn't practice the traditional Jewish holidays all the time because of some intergenerational shame. I wonder if some of these poets wherever ashamed of their work or were told not to create Jewish art.

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Rose is an enthusiastic girl from Boston, Massachusetts. Rose enjoys exploring Boston and attending concerts with her friends in her free time. One of Roses' favorite things is making new foods, particularly smoothies. Rose is a very social butterfly and would love to spend a year in Central America!