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The Canadian Jewish News, Thursday, June 3, 1982 - Page 5
Opinion
Canadian author pays tribute to life of Abraham M, Klein in newly published volume
By SHARON DRACHE
Tontny dear friend, Abe Klein: In whose soul there is Poetry In whose mind there is Truth In whose heart there is Lo^ Who helped me so much with my thoughts And immortalized thenrrwith a golden '/ pen . ......
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This eloquent tribute to Abraham Moses Klein, one of Canada's foremost poets, was not written by a fellow poet. The author was Samuel Bronfman, the $eagram Distillers president, for whom Klein served as public relations consultant and speech writer. It's oneofthemany surprises revealed in Usher Caplan's new biography, Like One That Dreanicd: A Portrait' of A. M. Klein (McGraw-Hill Ryerson. $24.95).
Klein, who died in 1972 at the age of 63, had a remarkably active public life. No garret versifier closeted with his muse, he was a practicing Montreal lawyer, editor of the Canadian Jewish Chronicle from 1938 to 1955, a dabbler in federal politics on behalf of the CCF. a novelist, and a frequent contributor to other leading Jewish periodicals as well as the Canadian Forum and the prestigious Poetry Chicago magazine.
As a result of all his endeavors, Klein suffered several severe emotional breakdown in the 1950s. And in the words of Leon ' Edcl, the Montreal-born Henry James biographer, who has written the book's foreward: "Klein conducted a five-ring circus . ; . He was caught up in more conflicts than ariy human should ever carry."
Caplan, also a native Montrealer. has done a splendid job of tracing Klein's life from early childhood. He has woven together urtpubHshed manuscripts and Klein's personal papers which Were acquired by the Public Archives in Ottawa in 1973. Eighty black-and-white photos flesh out the text and help make the book come alive. Throughout there's a sense of "being there" with Klein.
Caplan writes vividly about Klein being introduced by David Lewis, the politician,, to the young up-and-coming Montreal poet, Irving Layton:
"Layton. a bright but already obstreperous young man. had been e.xpelled from Baron Byng in his last year and needed preparing for his final examinations. At Lewis' request, Klein agreed to coach Layton in I^atin poetry at no charge."
Layton recalls their first meeting in Fletcher's Field: ^'Sitting on a bench, hearing Klein roll off the Virgiiian hexameters in a beautiful rotund voice that rose above the roaring traffic. I think it was then thait I •realized how very, very lovely and very moving, the 'sound* of poetry : could be ... .Klein's zeal and enthusiasm, his forceful delivery, his genuijne love of language, of poetry, ioll came through to me at the time. And 1 think that was: most fortunate for me."
Layton goes one step further: "I;doubt very miich that I would have become a poet if there had not been somebody like Klein in Montreal!at the time,"
In 1949, Klein ran unsuccessfiilly on the CCF ticket in Cartier (Montreal's Jewish riding). The political battlei as the Liberals swept the country (bringing Loiiis St. Laurent to victory), was particularly dirty in Cartier: Here, incumbent Liberal Maurice Hartt tried his best to disparage Klein, calling him an anti-Zionist. There's a.photograph of Hartt's poster toraise the reader's wrath. Klein was a dedicated Zionist, as was his loyal friend, David Lewis, who had urged Klein to run in Cartier.
In 1939, Sam Bronfman invited Klein to work for him personally as public relations advisor. The timing coincided with Bronfman's election to the Canadian Jewish Congress presidency (a.term which lasted 23 years). So, Klein wrote extensively for Bronfman on Jewish affairs, in addition to being his hired writer for. Seagrams- For . the first time since they were delivered^ large excerpts of public . messages and speeches written by Klein for Bronfman are recorded.       •  . - .
Klein called Bronfman "the maestro." Caplan postulates: "In addition to the financial rewards which at times must have meant a great deal, Klein derived a certain amount of genuine satisfaction from his workwith Bronfman. He insfinctively shared the great concerns of Congress and appreciated the important role that a person of Bronfman's stature was likely to play not only in Canada, but in the broader arena of international Jewish affairs."
The other job Klein had. though only for a short time (1940r43), was also thanks to Sam Bronfman. Klein was a. first lecturer on modcfn poetry at McGill University. Bronfman's generous gifts to the university enabled him to specify that part of his contribution be earmarked for Klein's salary. Itis to Bronfman's credit that he.was able-to land the appointment.
"Klein hadn't aPh.D., he had been away from the university for a long time, and besides. 'Mac,' (short for MacMillan, head of the English department) didn't much. ; fancy Klein's poetry," writes Caplan. ..
For Jewish readers, Klein's . role at Congress will take on new focus. ,
In the fall of 1949, the late Saul Hayes sent Klein on a fact-finding mission to Israel and North Africa. Klein was to report on the status of the Jewish refugee and, when he returned, was to deliver a series of speeches at fund raising rallies across the country.
He wrote a column for the Chronicle about the trip, called "Notebook of a Journey." This column was to form the basis of his only published novel. The Second Scrol1 (1950), a novel^^ow recognized as the -CanadiarrcIasSl^ anjd of all Klein's/b'ooks, the most widely-read.
His /speech/ to the Canadian Jewish Congrtess inTdronto, on Oct. 24, 1'949, upon
A. M. Klein
his return, wasoneof the.most famous of his : career.
Caplan interprets: "He played mercilessly on the heartstrings of his listener^i.. His poetic phrases, his vivid images, hlis humor, the dramatic range of his voice, his sheer vitality, all produced an overwhelming effect. He was 'burning,' one friend recalled."
This speech survives as one of the few recordings of Klein's voice.
Klein endeayored through his writings "to render: the spirit of one culture into the language of another." He achieved his literary goal in his many translatiDnsrfrom-Hebrcw. Yiddish and Aramaic into English, and a!.so with his most celebrated collection of poetry. The Rocking Chair (1948), for which he won the Governor-General's Award for poetry. In this collection, Klein immortalized Montreal as if it were his beloved Jerusalem. He also captured the French-Canadian voice, making it sing.in a manner rarely equalled before or since.
In 1954, Klein suffered his first severe breakdown. While it is common knowledge that Klein slipped into a "mysterious silence" during the final years of his life, the details of this exemplary community leader's and literary genius' life have never been so fully documented. Perhaps the most interesting fact about Klein's refusal to write throughout the 1960s and 1970s was his one Written communication each year; a birthday greeting to Sam Bronfman!; But then equally interesting is the fact thai Klein remained on the Seagrams payroll to the day he died. ...
Klein's poemsWere collected and introduced by poet Miriam VVaddington and published by McGraw-Hill Ryerson in 1974. Now thesamepublisher has given readers a '■. companion book. Caplan failed to cite Waddington in his extensive list of thapk yoliis. This omission is an unfortunate oversight, as Waddington was actively promoting Klein and she was responsible for much of the spadework in Klein research.
Similarly missing is a bibliography of .source material for articles by researchers such as Waddington, Tom Marshall and David Rome, to name a few, which Caplan has obviously read.
Still, in spiteoftheomissions, Caplan has
paid   fine   tribute  to   Klein. Caplan's
biography ha$ helped Klein speak again.
'introducing  him  to  new  readers and
. providing\some hidden jewels for Klein's
faithful following.
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Here are a few excerpts from Klein's poems(from The Collected Poems of A. M. Klein— McGraw-'HillrRyerson).
HEIRLOOM
My father bequeathed me no wide estates; No keys and ledgers were my heritage; -Only some holy books with yahrzeit dates Writ mournfully upon a blank front page—
Books of the Baal Shem Tov, and of his wonders;
Pamphlets upon the devil and his crew; Prayers against   road demons, witches; thunders;
And sundry other tomes for a good Jew.
LOOKOUT: MOUNT ROYAL
Remembering boyhood, it is always here the boy in blouse and kneepantson the road trailing his stick over the hopscotched sun; .or here; upon the suddenly moving hill; or at the tt.tned tap _its cold: mandarin ' mustaches; . ~ -
or at the lookout, finally breathing easy, standing still.
SOPHIST
When will there be another such brain?: Neverr unless he rise again, _ Unless Reb Simcha rise once more To jiggle syllogistic lore.
One placed a. pin upon a page Of Talmud print, whereat the sage Declared what holy word was writ : Two hundred pages-under it!
That skull replete" with pilpul tricks'"^ \ Has long returned to its matrix,.. ( ;\ Where worms split hair, where Death \
confutes . \. ^
Thehope the all-too-hopeful moots. A:.
But I think that in Paradise \ Reb Simcha, with his twinkling eyeSi \ Interprets, in some song-spared nook; | To God. the meaning of His book. i
The Jews of Argentina
JeMish 'cowboy' way of life
By SHELDON KIRSHNER _ (Eighth of aseries]
MOISESVILLE, Argentina —
I knew I was. far from the hustle and biistle of Buenos Aires when, ha|f asleep in a stranger's house on a bright Saturday, morning, r heard the crowing of what seemed like a;i aggrieved rooster.
Hours earlier, near the crack of dawn, I had.arrived in IVf oisesville — one of the fiJrst Jewish fann settlements cum-co-operatives built hy Baron Maurice de Hirsch and his Jewish Colonization Association in Argen-'tina..:-
Primarily established in five of Argentina's 22 provinces, the colonies gained fame through the talents of a son of Moisesville, Alberto Gerchunoff, a prominent journalist who ' wrote Los Gauchbs Jiidios (The Jewish Cowboys) in 1910. /
In Los Gauchos Judios, he traced the lives of East European Jews who had settled in the province of Entre Rios. The first work of literary value to be written in Spanish by a Jew in modern times, it was an enormous success in Argentina and throughout much of Latin America. -
Seven decadek after its appearance, and ISO years since the baron's death, the colonies he described with such loving caire still exist --in remote places like Baron Hirsch, Dora, Montefiore, Mauricio and, of course, Moisesville.
But changes have come to the colonies.
They've become more like towns or villages than lonely agricultural outposts on the pampa (the savanna which characterizes much of central Argentina). Unlike in the past, farmers live in towns and commute to their outlying fields. Sorrie are even absentee landowners.
And there has been a population shift, perhaps the most important development, explained Alberto Szwarc, an educator who was born in Moisesville 35 years ago and Who now lives and works in Buenos Aires.
Sixty years ago, he said, up to half of all Argentine Jews-lived in the colonies. The figure today is 5%.
Something else has happened, Szwarc ' said in an interview, "There aren't any more colonies left where the whole population, is Jewish. Look at Moisesville. Today 800 of its 2,500 residents are Jewish."
Talk to others and the same picture emerges. ,
Carlos Polak. a Buenos Aires lawyer, was born in Carios Casares. These diays, it is all but bereft of Jews, "You can't even make a minyan," he said.
Emilio Perina, who also practices law in the capital, grew up in the Entre Rios colony of San Antonio. Recently, he visited it, only to discover that no more Jews remained. "I Wept." he confided, recalling the halcyon San Antonio his parents founded..
the .trend appears hiexprable: With the passage of time, fewer young Jews adopt the colorful but hard lifestyle their parents . and grandparents promoted.
There are air sorts of reasons for this deyeloprnent, two ofWhich predominate.
The settlers encouraged their children to study, and the children took their advice. After university, they went to the cities. In the 1940s and 1950s, the .government . lowe.reid farm prices in a bid to boost industrialization, and settlers sold their land.
Inevitably, Catholics have replaced Jews.
in the colonies.
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Leon Gutman, the son of colonists, made
Arminio Seiferheld ... shows off Jewish school
it possible for me to visit Moisesville, which is about 500kilometreshorthwestof Buenos-Aires. A foreign affairs analyst with La Nacion of Buenos Aires^Gutman told me his niece, Marta Kurdobrin, planned to go to Moisesville to see her parents and that 1 was welcome to accompany her and sleep at their house over the weekend.
I flew from Buenos Aires to Rosario, where Miarta and her boyfriend met me at the airport, and then we caught a bus. At 1 a.m., we started our 4-hour journey. Noe, her father, met us in a village whose name I've fbrgotten. He and a companion, a fresh-faced boy, drove us the rest of the way to Moisesville, a distjance of 60 kilometres. By 6.30, we were in' Moisesville, which is smack in the middle of the undulating pampa. The Kurdobrin's ranch style house — the nicest in town, as I would discover — looked very inviting.
Weary. I retired to bed, waking up a few hours later to the insistent crowing of an indignant rooster.
Marta was,still asleep, but her -parents were already up. Having washed and dressed, I wandered into the garden, graced by rubber and banana trees, and sat down on a white lounge chair. Marta's mother greeted me warmlv. an hospitable
woman of Austrian extraction. She laid on a fine breakfast.
Noe, 76, showed up after I had eaten, having already tended to his chores in the field. He seemed like a shy, reserved man; He said I was the first Canadian — Jew or Gentile to pay a visit to Moisesville, a claim 1 cannot verify...
He had brought along his friend, Mauricio Gelburt, 76, and we began to talk about their.lineage.
Kurdobrin's Tather, having escaped military service in the Russian empire, came to.Argentina in 1884. Gelburt's father emigrated from Warsaw in 1905;. "He started by buying and .selling cattle, then became a butcher/'said Gelburt. -
A stocky man, Gelburt unfurled an old deed showing his father's rights, to land obtained by the Jewish Colonization Association. The yellowed document recalling another era spoke volumes ...
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Baron de Hirsch, a wealthy entrepreneur whose range also extended to Brazil and Canada, believed that Argentina would be an ideal haven for oppressed Russian Jewry. Enchanted by tiie idea of Jews returning to the soil, he created the Jewish Colonization Association in 1891-
TheArgentine government welcomed the scheme because it sought immigrants to populate the sparsely inhabited countryside. However, not ail Argentines were pleased. Domingo Sarmiento.. the ex-rpresi-. dent, produced anti-semitic polerriics in a vain attempt to stem, the tide of immigration. .    . :
At the beginning, the settlers found Argentina an inhospitable country. American scholar Robert Weisbrot has written that 40% went back or opted for a different country. Around the outskirts of Moises-.ville, a VisitOir sees the forlorn hulks of abandoned houses, telitale symbols of dreams which turned sour. .
The settlers who endured formed the Cooperative movement, a model of its kind in Argentina. Its objective was to provide colony members with tools and goods, to market products jointly and to procure credit so as to facilitate production.
The first Jewish co-operaitive was called Lucienville and it was founded in 1900. Moisesville sprung up a few years later.
In the main, the settlers grew cereals, sorghum, alfalfa, com and cotton and raised cattle and manufactured cheese. To their credit, they introduced the sunflower seed
Dairy farmer Aaron Jeifetz stands amid his herd with children of field hands. [Sheldon Kirshner photo]
Founded in 1977
Shadow of Yamit lurks among people living in growing Golan Heights town
By CARL ALPERT
KATZRIN —
This city, located in the heart of the Golan, was founded in 1977 with a view to settling here a population of 20,000 people, making it the capital of the Heights. There are already. 2,000 inhabitants, but one cannot walk the streets of Katzrin nor talk to its people without constantly thinking of the . fate of Yamit, which had been established with similar hopes arid ambitions.
Adoption of the Golan annexation law has set_most local fears at rest. Everyone with whom we spoke in Katzrin was heavy-hearted at the fate of Yamit, but abselutely confident it would not be repeated here.
Therejs no unemployment hi Katzrin; to the contrary there are job openings aplenty
■ New families move hi weekly. There is an
■ average of five. bhths a monj|h. New industries are being set np^ New homes are going npylhe streets are clean. Everything in Katzrin breathes a spirit of growth and progress. "This is the future," might well be the slogan. .
The city is stiU far from being a metropolis, and. road traffic is relatively light. Ilierefore, one is surprised to find a graceful bridge for pedestrian crossing, astride a broad, bat quiet street, with hardly a car In sight. A case of misplanning?
X^"Not at all," a local citizen told us.;
"A^^ording. to the master plan new, neigfi,borhoods will shortly be added, and this sleepy road will eventually become the main highway through town. We're getting ready early...."
Similar planning goes intothe selection of new residents. The city must provide all its , own needs, and priority. approval to move here is given to those able to fill vital niches in the economy. ^
The list is varied, and changes from month to month, but recently town fathers, were looking for a bank clerk, a filling
■ station attendant, an. office secretary, a dentist, a draftsman, a truck driver,, a
-gar<lener, a bookkeeper, a sewing machine operator, and many more.
This is not a town with a.single social class. The housemaids and the garbage collectors are local residents as well. .
Good jobs attract families
As might be expected of a city with a master plan, there-^re pedestrian promenades, lined^ith welhtended gardens. The houses -are . attractiv^ and well kept. Industry is zoned outsitle the residential area, biit even the worksliops and factories areneat-.\- . \.
What kind of industry takes roots in Katzrin? One plant prciduces giiitats. another, makes electrjc-''motors and still another bottles,^ mineral water; Ceramic crafts and electronic components offer employment no less than the carpentry shop; the laundry and the garage. My wife
bought an elegantly designed knitted sweater, before the Tel Aviv boutique's label wassewn in.
Cultural.life and education? This i.s still a
young town, and thelocal school has classes only through the. eighth grade. The high : ^ school begins.ne.xt year; There are weekly films, a bingo evening, visiting musical ensembles, and lots of activity groups: tennis, sewing, sculpture classes, folk-dancing, gymnastics, bridge, photog-. raphy....
The city is located 900 feet above sea level. It is within 30 minutes ride of the Hermon ski run. Buses leave from here for Tiberias. Rosh Pina, Kiryat Shmoneh and Haifa. Wc drove in leisurely fashion from here to Haifa in well under two hours. •
Why do people, come here? The quality of life, the friendly neighbors, the inexpensive housing, the good jobs,, the excellent climate, the feeling that one is part of an-^ exhilarating and creative movement... not just pumping away on the daily treadmill.
Jews are not newcomers to. the area. Archeologists have uncovered the ruins of more than .20 ancient synagogues--'on>the Golan Heights, two of themin Kartzrin.. s:
X \ The shadow of Yamit w9uld not go away,, ^ and we continued to inq'uire[. The answers were unanimous, but Ofah Yairi, principal of the school.put it dranritically: Evacuation of Katzrin and return ofthe..Qolan Heights is absolutely unthinkable. If the^-Golan-is—r returned to Syria, then eventually Israel would have to yield up Lake Tiberias, the Galilee and all the kibbutzim, all the way to Haifa.
A convincing answer, and new population continues to stream northward*
_ to Argentina, and it has since become the: principal source of edible oil in the nation.
As Aiaron Jeifetz, a Moisesville dairy 'farmer pomted.out, life is much easier for the descendants pfithe pioneers, who had to cope with scorching summers without Uie benefit of airK:onditioning, poor housing, an irregular supply of food, the occasional Indian raidj a language and a culture totally at odds with theirs and bureaucratic problems caused by the Jewish Colonira-tion Association.
A sturdy, suntanned man who comes from a long line of Russian farmers,.he drove me around his 1,3()0 hectares spread, his Chevy sedan raising huge dust cloiids as we rode over rutted dirt tracks deep in the pampa, dotted with grazing cattle arid an occasional group of horses frolicking in knee-high grass.
Like the majority of his contemporaries; Jeifetz no longer roughs it out in the field. His tenant farmers do the backbreaking physicallabor and he superviises their work. "We share the profits," he said in Yiddish, . a language he knows quite well. .
The era of the. Jewish cowboy,, he laughed, is over. The only genuine gaucho I encountered during my trip to Moisesville and environs was a Catholic,- who looked the part from head to toe, and who offered me mate, the traditional Argentine tea drink.
Moisesville's  co-operative,   of which . Jeifetz is a member in good standing, is still dominated by Jews, but this will not be the case in the future.
"Our doors were always, open to everyone." Jeifetz said, observing that several members of the board were of Italian Catholic stock. As Jews move off the land. Catholics replace them. f
In Moisesville, relations between Jews and Catholics haiV{e always been good —- so much so that intermarriage is quite common and Yiddish is spokeii by older Italian farmers and elderiy Catholic fieldhands.
"We helped the Catholics here huild their church," he disclosed,"This shows that there is co-existence. We have never .had a problem." *a
"The priest often visits our synagogues." said Marta Zinger, who revealed that she is related to novelist I. B. Singer.
It would appear that the currents and eddies of Argentine anti-semitisrii, which have so often troubled the Jewish commiinr ity, have not reached the portals of Moisesville.
Indeed, the live-ahd-let-Iive atmosphere prevailing here is such that annual Purim parties attract many Catholics. I was in Moisesville for this year's festivities, held in the peeling Jewish cotnmunlty. centre, and at least half of the celebrants were not Jewish, Eva Rosenthal, a Hebrew teacher, informed nie.
Resembling a cross between an Israeli moshaiv arid a. Canadian prairie town, Moisesville is ah outpost of Jewis.h culture on the pampa.
there is a musty .library, filled with dusty Yiddish, book's. and hung with framed sombre photographs of Baron de Hirsch. Twoof thefour synagogues are in use, and, the Kadima community centre remains popular with all residents of Mpisesville.
On one of its street corners, you'll find a Jewish bank, a.Star of David affixed to its: white ahd.beige walls.,■
The local jewish.school has 140.pupils'(20 from outlying areas) and 12 teachers, according to teacher Belkys Ballhorn. The Jewish cemetery lies" opposite a cow pasture, and Alberto Gerchunoff's father is buried there. .
All of MoLsesville's Jews, save for one Moroccan, the kosher butcher, are of Ashkcnazic origin. The last European Jews who settled down here came from.Germany, before and after World War II.
Virtually everyone 1 spoke to agreed that Moisesville is an ideal locale for bringing up children. "It's pretty a?id quiet," said Beikys Ballhorn. "It was beautiful, really beautiful, to live in Moisesville," exclaimed Marta :Kurdobrin, who is finishing her university studies in Rosario. ''We had complete freedom as children."
But, in common; with many of her' counterparts, she has no intention of living, there. ■
"After the dge of 18, you don't have anywhere to go in Moisesville," she said. "There's not even a cinema or a social club. Just a swimming pool. Everyone of my age is gone. Yes^ it's sad. But that's life." "My parents."' she added, "pushed me to study. They wanted me to have a profession." She hopes to teach English; . Benjamin Teitclbaum, a doctor in his late 20s, sounded a similar theme. Teitelbaum, who lives in Buenos Aires, said: "What would 1 do in Moisesville?"* So did Marta Zinger."Theyoung want to study and work in the city." Frida Gelburt, a merry grandmotherly figure, put her finger on the problem. ''Parents don't want their-children to be workers." ■
Aliya has been a secondary cause of Moisesville's decline as a Jewish centre.
Jeifetz told me that 500 to 600 Jewish families from Moisesville live in Israel today. "Proportionately, no other town or -city in the world has given as many.:: immigrants to Israel." Two 'Israeli ambas- . sadors, he disclosed^ were bom and brfed here;-
Whether they like it or not, the Jews of Moisesville and of other colonies are thelast -of a breed.
Alberto Szwarc said that the trend is for Je.\^s to leave the land but to keep it in their possession, partly for sentimental reasons, ajid partly for financial reasons.
Even:Jeifetz, who;looks like tbe.arche-^; typical farmer, concured with this sober assessment; His own children, he freely admitted, have forsaken Moisesville and live in Buenos Aires.
The Jewish gaucho seems doomed to extinction.
NEXT: Argentina and Israel.