Maneh-leib, the Shoemaker-poet

A Pen-Portrait on the Occasion of His Fiftieth Birthday

Maneh-Leib Brahinsky, to add the now discarded surname, was born fifty years ago into a poverty-stricken, but honest and respectable family, in the South-Russian town of Niezhin. At the ripe age of eleven he was apprenticed to a shoemaker who had a habit of speaking in verse. True, his “poetry” may not have been exactly of the parlor variety, but the rhymes were not lost on the boy. At fifteen, a full-fledged shoemaker, Maneh-Leib’s father made him take over his former master’s shop. But the youngster did not remain an “exploiter of labor” for long. He met a friend who was a revolutionary and up in arms against the Czar’s government. Before long, forgetting his “class interests”, Maneh-Leib became the recognized labor leader of Niezhin, and landed in jail soon afterwards. There he had, for the first time in his life, all the leisure he wanted, and gave vent to the songs pent up within him.

After his release, in 1905, Maneh-Leib came to New York where he at once found employment in a shoe factory. He earned a good livelihood, sent for his parents, married, had children and, through it all, never neglected his poetry. During the last twenty-eight years, Maneh-Leib has composed over two thousand long and short poems, ballads and songs, and there is hardly a Yiddish publication in the world but has printed, at one time or another, some of his poems. A number of them have been collected and published in book form.

SINGER OF THE HEARTH

More than any other Yiddish poet, Maneh-Leib is a singer of the hearth, of home-fires, an interpreter of one’s innermost feelings. His lyrics are warm., earnest and spontaneous. They impress one with their easy, flowing rythm, their natural melody, their unpremeditated music. Maneh-Leib’s lyricism is gentle, individualistic, his longer ballads-most of them with an unmistakable Slavic touch-are masterpicces of moods and unances. Their subconscious sadness breathes a longing for release from the heavy yoke of life. For, with all his popularity, Maneh-Leib until very recenty had to work at his trade to keep body and soul together . In this he shares the lot fo practically all th free lance Yiddish writers in America.

And Maneh-Leib sings on. Varied as his poems are, they all have one theme in comnon-the deep-rooted loneliness of the human heart, the longing of the soul. Many of hsi shorter pieces are like prayers, others like genuine folk-songs possessing that indefinable finesse and finish that only a master’s pen could impart. It is quite natural, then, to find in Maneh-Leib’s poeps an unbounded ove for children who to him are not merely “living poems” because “all the rest are dead”, on the contrary, his affection for the young of today is intensified by the knownledge that some day they will grow up to be good men and women.

THE MAN AND HIS CREATIONS

Maneh-Leib, the man, is very much like his creations. What with the hard life of toil, he does not look his age. Tall, handsome-his is an outstanding personality commarnding attention. Of a retiring disposition, shy, almost naive, he awakens in one th desire to be in his company, to hear him talk-softly, liberately, gently, without head or anger, but persistetly defending his point of view in an argument. The best “outline” of Maneh-Leib adn his lifework is contained in hsi recently published autobiographical poem, however inadequately in may be rendered into English verse by the present wrter.

I AM

I am Manch-Leib, and a household word-From Brownsville to Kieff they know it; With shoemarkers, I am a shoemaker, too; With poets-a recognized poet.

A toiting apprentice, at work all day lone, On a moon-silvered night-in my youth it was all.

To my heart, like a prayer, desceuded a song, From my hand dropped theshoemaker’s awl.

it was my firstmuse thatso graciously came. With a kiss on the lips for teh sheomaker young. Andd the sweet trepidation ran all through my frame. That loosens the chords of a long-muted tuugue.

And my tougue then became like a crystalclear well, And my song thundered torth withunearthly refrain. And the world opened wide for my eyes to behold. And sweet seemed my squalor, my toil, and my pain.

The shoemaker lads, the who worked by my side. Were carried away by my melody’s flow, My songs were like balm to their painladen hearts. but why I was singing-the boys did not known.

And, prompted by boredom, by soul-racking work, They m9cked me and better to show it. They dubbed me forever the cobbler of rhyines, The awl-wieldin shoemaker-poet.

Good-bye, then, dear comrades, and fare you all well. The last and the sole are no longer for me,- The muse in my heart, in my bosom-sweet song- I’m going to the poets, a poet to be!

And when to the poets I bashfull came, A songster still fresh from his nest, They met me with kindness and friendly acclaim. And made me there room with th best.

O poets, O singers, as free as the birds, Now soaring, now earthbound and pale, We sang of new beauty in glamorous words. Unheeded, like mendicants’ wail.

We sang with elation, in winged creation, We wrought transformation with sadnes and mirth; in wild exultation disdaining starvation, And many of us have departed this earth.

And God, who in mercy neglects not a worm, Did none of His bounty the poet allow, And, barefoot and poor, to my work I returned, To toil for my bread in the sweat of my brow.

And thank you, O Muse, for the gift that you granted, Though your temples dispense but intangible bread, Bent every my workbeuch, I’II serve you,unsullied, Till the day I am lying, unsinging an dead.

And my name shall resound far and wide in the world, From Brownsville to Kieff, and farther they’ll know it,-And happy I am I’m no rhyming apprentice, But a shoemaker-singer and poet!