Jizchok Leib Perez war ein jiddischsprachiger Schriftsteller aus Polen, der allerdings auch auf Polnisch und Hebräisch schrieb.
Im seinerzeitigen Polen wurde sein Name als Icchok Lejbusz Perec wiedergegeben, darüber hinaus gibt es bedingt durch Transkriptionen, Transliterationen oder Anpassungen an die in anderen Diasporen übliche Vornamenschreibungen viele weitere Namensformen: Jizchak Leib Perez, Isaak Leib Perez, Jizchok Lejb Perez, Itzhok Lejb Perez, Isaak Leib Peretz usw. Als Feuilletonist benutzte er die Pseudonyme Luzifer, Lez und Ben Tamar.
Neben Mendele Moicher Sforim und Scholem Alejchem gehört Perez zu den Begründern der modernen jiddischen Literatur sowie der jüdischen Belletristik überhaupt. Er gilt „als einer der bedeutendsten psychologisierenden Dichter der Weltliteratur und gleichzeitig als der hervorragendste jiddische Dramatiker“.Perez verfasste sein literarisches Werk in polnischer, hebräischer und in jiddischer Sprache. Sein Frühwerk ist noch ganz in der jüdischen Emanzipation und Aufklärung verhaftet. Nach der gescheiterten Revolution von 1905 thematisierte er in realistischen Novellen die Lebensprobleme der chassidischen Juden in Osteuropa. In seinem Spätwerk trat diese Resignation immer mehr in den Hintergrund, zugunsten seiner symbolhaften Dramen, in denen die Mystik einen sehr großen Stellenwert einnahm. Wikipedia
“Ghetto is impotence. Cultural cross-fertilization is the only possibility for human development.”
Vegn vos Firn op fun Yidishkeit, 1911. S. Liptzin. Peretz. Yivo, 1947, p. 378.
Kontext: We should get out of the ghetto, but we should get out as Jews, with our own spiritual treasures. We should interchange, give and take, but not beg. Ghetto is impotence. Cultural cross-fertilization is the only possibility for human development.
“You are lighting a fire beneath the open sky, while your own family in your own house is freezing.”
Bildung, 1890. Alle Verk, xii. 20ff. S. Liptzin. Peretz. Yivo, 1947, pp. 334–8.
Kontext: [About loyalty to Judaism] Don't assume, Jewish intellectuals, that you are doing your duty by working... for so-called Humanity.... You are lighting a fire beneath the open sky, while your own family in your own house is freezing.
Mekubolim, 1906. Alle Verk, vi. 53.
Kontext: There are melodies that must have words... and melodies that sing themselves without words. The latter are of a higher grade. But these, too, depend on a voice and lips,... hence are not yet altogether pure, not yet genuine spirit. Genuine melody sings itself without a voice. It sings inside, within the heart, in man's very entrails!
Vegn vos Firn op fun Yidishkeit, 1911. S. Liptzin. Peretz. Yivo, 1947, p. 372.
Kontext: They are all so-called Christian nations, but... this superimposed religion... does not penetrate into the core of their souls. It has no relation to their daily experience... It is a key to open a heaven after death and not a key with which to force open the portals of this life.
“The Hebrew language… is the only glue which holds together our scattered bones.”
Bildung, 1890. Alle Verk, xii. 14.
Kontext: The Hebrew language... is the only glue which holds together our scattered bones. It also holds together the rings in the chain of time.... It binds us to those who built pyramids, to those who shed their blood on the ramparts of Jerusalem, and to those who, at the burning stakes, cried Shema Yisrael!
Advice to the Estranged. S. Liptzin. Peretz. Yivo, 1947, p. 348.
Kontext: A Jew waits for Messiah to come and redeem the world from fear and pain, from the cataclysmic conflicts between rich and poor. All shall enjoy the earth. This means, in popular imagination, that bread and clothes shall grow, ready-made, on trees. Do you have more winged ideals?
“There are melodies that must have words… and melodies that sing themselves without words.”
Mekubolim, 1906. Alle Verk, vi. 53.
Kontext: There are melodies that must have words... and melodies that sing themselves without words. The latter are of a higher grade. But these, too, depend on a voice and lips,... hence are not yet altogether pure, not yet genuine spirit. Genuine melody sings itself without a voice. It sings inside, within the heart, in man's very entrails!
Hofnung un Shrek, 1906. S. Liptzin. Peretz. Yivo, 1947, p. 279.
Kontext: I fear you. As victors, you may become the bureaucracy: doling out to each his bit as in a poorhouse, assigning to each his task as in a prison. And you will exterminate the creator of new worlds,—the free human will, and stop up the purest well of human happiness—the power of the one to face thousands, to stand up to peoples and generations.
Drei Matones, 1904–15. S. Liptzin. Peretz. Yivo, 1947, p. 187.
A Gilgul fun a Nign, 1901. Alle Verk, vi. 33.
Vegn Geshichte, 1890. Alle Verk, xii. 35.
"I Am a Rainworm", 1900, translated by J. Robbins, (J. Leftwich. Golden Peacock. Sci-Art, 1939, p. 83).
Der Dichter, 1910. S. Liptzin. Peretz. Yivo, 1947, p. 325.
“The voice is on the borderline between the physical and the spiritual.”
Mekubolim, 1906. Alle Verk, vi. 53.
“We are like fish
In this vast sea.
And Satan fishes
For you and me.”
"Monish" (translated in J. Leftwich. Golden Peacock. Sci-Art, 1939, p. 56.), 1888.
"Manginot HaZman". HaAsif, 1886, p. 729f.
“Purim is the birthday of the first Schutz-Jude, the first Jewish toady to foreign royalty.”
Purim, 1896. Alle Verk, xii. 137. quoted in M. Samuel. Prince of the Ghetto. Alfred A. Knopf, 1948, p. 123.
“Ugliness is the greatest of all sins.”
Quoted by M. Samuel, Prince of the Ghetto, 146.
“Jews are likened to sand: tiny grains, dry and scattered, each separate from the other.”
Reb Nohemkes Myses, 1904, p. 200.
“A heap of bricks is not yet a house.”
A Gilgul fun a Nign, 1901. Alle Verk, 35; S. Liptzin. Peretz. Yivo, 1947, p. 239.
“According to the generation is the music thereof.”
A Gilgul fun a Nign, 1901. Alle Verk, vi. 73.
Vegn vos Firn op fun Yidishkeit, 1911. S. Liptzin. Peretz. Yivo, 1947, p. 372.
Hofnung un Shrek, 1906. Alle Verk, xiii. 9.
Der Dichter, 1910. Alle Verk, x. 11; S. Liptzin. Peretz. Yivo, 1947, p. 310.
“We take a drink only for the sake of the benediction.”
Quoted by M. Samuel, Prince of the Ghetto, 179.
“Not all Hasidim are hasidim.”
Torah, 1906. Alle Verk, iv. 75.
“He who provides life provides also a living.”
Yohanan Melamed's Maaselech. Alle Verk, vi. 181.
