Rivka Basman Ben-Hayim
Native name
רבקה באסמאן
BornRivka Basman
(1925-02-20)20 February 1925
Vilkmergė, Lithuania
Died22 March 2023(2023-03-22) (aged 98)
Herzliya, Israel
OccupationPoet, teacher
LanguageYiddish
SpouseShmuel Ben-Hayim

Rivka Basman Ben-Hayim (Yiddish: רבקה באסמאן; 20 February 1925 – 22 March 2023) was a Lithuanian-born Israeli Yiddish poet and educator. She was the recipient of the Itzik Manger Prize in 1984.[1][2] Basman was also awarded the Chaim Zhitlowsky Prize in 1998.[1][2]

Early life

Rivka Basman was born in Vilkmergė, Lithuania on 20 February 1925,[3] to parents Yekhezkel and Tsipora (née Heyman).[1] While in school, she and her friends were excited to read the poems and stories of Kadya Molodowsky, a Yiddish woman writer.[1] Basman's father and her younger brother Arele were killed by the Germans in the Baltic.[4] During World War II, Basman spent about two years in the Vilna ghetto.[1] After that she was sent to the Kaiserwald concentration camp in Riga.[1]

Basman started writing poetry at Kaiserwald in order to cheer up fellow inmates.[2] When the camp was liquidated, she saved her poems by smuggling them out in her mouth.[2] After liberation, Basman lived in Belgrade from 1945 to 1947. While there she married Shmuel "Mula" Ben-Hayim[1] and with him engaged in smuggling Jews out of Europe and past the British naval blockade to enter Mandate Palestine.[2]

Education

In 1947 Basman made aliyah and then joined Kibbutz HaMa'apil.[2] She received her teaching diploma from the Teachers' Seminary in Tel Aviv.[5] She also studied literature while in New York at Columbia University.[5] At her kibbutz she taught children and also joined the Yiddish poets' group Yung Yisroel ("Young Israel")[2] While on the kibbutz she wrote and published her first volume of poetry, Toybn baym brunem (Doves at the Well), in 1959.[2]

Writing career

During the years 1963 to 1965, her husband became the cultural attaché from Israel to the Soviet Union.[1][4] Basman taught the children of the diplomats in Moscow during her time there.[1] She also met with Russian Yiddish authors.[1]

Basman Ben-Hayim wrote her poems mostly in Yiddish.[1] Since that time many of her poems have been translated into Hebrew.[1] While he was living, her husband did the design and all of the illustrations for her books.[1] After his death, she took his family name and added it in with hers.[1]

Basman Ben-Hayim continued to write poetry and was the head of the Union of Yiddish Writers located in Tel Aviv.[6]

Personal life and death

Basman Ben-Hayim resided in Herzliya Pituah.[6] She died in Herzliya, Israel on March 22, 2023, at the age of 98.[7]

Awards

Basman Ben-Hayim was the recipient of the Itzik Manger Prize in 1984.[1][2] Basman was also awarded the Chaim Zhitlowsky Prize in 1998.[1][2] Other prizes and awards include the Arie Shamri prize in 1980; the Fischman prize in 1983; the prize awarded by the chairman of the World Zionist Federation in 1989; the David Hofstein prize in 1992; The Beit Sholem Aleichem (Polack) prize in 1994; the Leib Malakh prize awarded by Beit Leivick in 1995; and the Mendele prize of the city of Tel Aviv-Yafo in 1997.[1]

Books of poetry

  • Toybn baym brunem (Doves at the Well, 1959)[1]
  • Bleter fun vegn (Leaves of the Paths, 1967)[1][8]
  • Likhtike shteyner (Radiant Stones, 1972)[1][9]
  • Tseshotene kreln (Scattered Beads, 1982)[1][10]
  • Onrirn di tsayt (To Touch Time, 1988)[1]
  • Di shtilkayt brent (The Silence Burns, 1992)[1]
  • Di erd gedenkt (The Earth Remembers, 1998)[1]
  • Di draytsnte sho (The Thirteenth Hour, 2000)[1]
  • Af a strune fun regn (On a Strand of Rain, 2002)[1]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 Newman, Zelda Kahan (1 March 2009). "Rivka Basman Ben-Hayim". Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia. Jewish Women's Archive. Retrieved 3 June 2016.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 "Rivka Basman Ben-Hayim". Jewish Women's Archive. 2 June 2016. Archived from the original on 11 July 2016. Retrieved 2 June 2016.
  3. ↑ "Yiddish Leksikon: RIVKE (RIVKA) BASMAN [BEN-HAYIM]". 9 November 2014.
  4. 1 2 lyrikzeitung (21 March 2015). "Rivka Basman 90". Lyrikzeitung & Poetry News (in German). Retrieved 3 June 2016.
  5. 1 2 "translationBlue Lyra Review". Blue Lyra Review. 31 March 2016. Retrieved 3 June 2016.
  6. 1 2 Newman, Zelda Kahan; College/SUNY, Lehman (30 April 2010). "My Desert is Hotter: The Poetry of Rivke Basman Ben-Hayim". Women in Judaism. 6 (2). ISSN 1209-9392. Retrieved 3 June 2016.
  7. ↑ "Yiddish poet Rivka Basman Ben-Hayim has died at 98". Forward (in Yiddish). Retrieved 23 March 2023.
  8. ↑ Basman, Rivka (1967). Bleṭer fun ṿegn (in Yiddish). Tel-Aviv: Yisroel-bukh.
  9. ↑ Basman, Rivka (1972). Likhṭiḳe shṭeyner lider (in Yiddish). Tel-Aviv: Yisroel-bukh.
  10. ↑ Basman, Rivka (1982). Tseshoṭene ḳreln (in Yiddish). Tel-Aviv: Yisroel-bukh.
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