About 30 years ago, a delegation of Milwaukee Jews visited then President of Israel Zalman Shazar. Shazar said he was delighted to see Jews from the city that was the home of — Yiddish poet Alter Esselin.
As Esselin’s son Joseph, 78 and now of Chicago, tells this story, these Milwaukee Jewish machers didn’t have much regard for Alter — who made his living as a carpenter — until they found out in this encounter that he had a reputation even in Israel. “When they came back, they had a different attitude toward my father,” Joseph said in a telephone interview.
Alter died in 1974, and secular Yiddish literature in general is a shadow of what it once was. But now the Internet is helping to keep the memory of Alter Esselin (1889-1974) and his work alive.
Thanks to Joseph and a technology-savvy friend of his, there is a web site devoted to the life and poetry of Alter Esselin — and to some works of his son, who though not a poet did follow his father into writing.
The site, www.esselin.com, contains a biography in English of Alter by Joseph, an audio record of a 1969 interview with him, critical comments on his work, a “family album” of pictures, information about ordering a book of his poetry and the texts of 80 Esselin poems in Yiddish and in English translations by Joseph.
It also includes an audio of an episode of the syndicated classical music radio program “The Romantic Hours” made about a year ago, on which Mona Golabek read translations of nine Esselin poems to music.
Joseph said his father, an immigrant from what is now Ukraine, wrote some 500 poems that he was willing to acknowledge. “He was a highly self-critical writer.” Of these, 300 appeared in the three books published during Alter’s lifetime (1927, 1948 and 1954).
Joseph worked with him over some 20 years to translate the 80 on the web site. “The reason I haven’t translated all of them is that the others presented problems beyond my grasp,” said Joseph.
“He used intricate rhyme schemes and made use of language in a richly metaphorical way that is sometimes just beyond a translator’s skill.” Joseph added that almost all his translations of his father’s works duplicate the meters and rhyme schemes of the Yiddish originals.
Joseph described his own career as that of a “hack writer … a typewriter for hire” who did free-lance writing, public relations work and ran his own advertising agency for a while. But he also has written four plays, of which at least two have been produced.
His part of the web site contains the text of only one of the plays so far, “Child of Destiny” — he is revising the others to bring them up-to-date — and a children’s story, “The Enchanted Pond.”
None of these would have appeared on the web had not Joseph during his retirement decided to work out at a nearby gym, where he met and became friends with Todd Agosto, one of the people in charge. “He is an astonishingly gifted fellow — an artist, a designer, knowledgeable about computers,” said Joseph.
Agosto originally set up the site in May 2000 as a kind of surprise present for Joseph. It was taken off-line for some work for a couple of months, but has recently been restored.
Joseph said the site has been receiving hits from all over the world, including Israel, Russia, Japan and Denmark. Moreover, the site is cross-linked with other Jewish and especially Yiddish language sites, like one called Mendele.
“The world of Yiddish on the Internet is astonishing,” Joseph said. “There are hundreds of web sites devoted to particular writers and periods. You could spend a whole day and night just scouring [and] there are all kinds of people communicating.”
But, of course, it particularly thrills him to discover that his father’s work is finding a new audience. He called it, “This phenomenon of having people read my father’s poetry that I never imagined possible.”
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