LA JOLLA, California — Holocaust survivor Primo Levi, recognized as one of the most distinguished writers of the Shoah, and Bertha Kling, a Belarus-born Bronx resident, who composed Yiddish songs and poetry in the early 20th century, will be the two featured poets for the “Poets of the Past” program on Tuesday evening, May 23, 7 p.m. in the Astor Judaica Library at the Lawrence Family JCC.
Register here: https://my.lfjcc.org/12907/12908
This free event, sponsored by the San Diego Center for Jewish Culture, the JCC Senior Department, and the Astor Judaica Library, is presented by the Jewish Poets-Jewish Voices Committee.
Primo Levi was born in Turin, Italy, in 1919 and educated at the University of Turin. Despite anti-Jewish laws, he graduated with honors in 1941, thanks to the help of a sympathetic professor. Using forged papers, he was able to find work as a chemist with a mining company in Milan. When he returned to Turin, after his father’s death the following year, he found his mother and sister in hiding. The three of them fled to Northern Italy where he joined a resistance group.
Following his arrest by the fascists, he was interned in an Italian prison camp. However, that soon came under Nazi control and he was sent to Auschwitz. Arriving at that notorious concentration camp in February, 1944, he worked in a rubber factory. His chemical skills and his determination helped sustain him until Auschwitz was liberated in January, 1945 by the Soviet Army. Levi returned to Italy, one of 700 survivors from the 7000 interned Italian Jews. He resumed his work as a chemist, later devoting himself entirely to his writing. He married Lucia Morpurgo, with whom he had two children. His death, possibly by suicide, was in 1987.
Bertha Kling was born in Novoredok, a shtetl in what is now Belarus. An orphan, she was raised by her grandparents. Together, they immigrated to the United States in 1899. Kling married a fellow Yiddish speaker and medical student, Yehkiel Kling. For half a century, their Bronx apartment became an informal social center for immigrant poets and intellectuals where she served as a big sister figure.
She sang Yiddish folk songs and wrote poetry described as “intimate speech which lay upon the heart…speech concerning simple, clear and familiar items.” Her poetry was also characterized as having “a strong moral compass, quietly articulated.” She was published in many literary periodicals and in three books of her own poetry. She died in 1978, in New York.
Leean Knetzer, retired librarian and English teacher, assisted in selecting the English versions of the Primo Levi poems. A chance encounter at a Torah High fundraiser resulted in the invaluable assistance of Paula Matthews, Italian professor in the Languages Department, Mesa College. She found all the selected poems in their original Italian and recruited Dr. Loredana Di Marino from the Department of Languages, Cultures and Literatures, USD and Dr. Clarissa Clo, Chair of the Department of European Studies, SDSU to join her as readers of the Italian poems. Two other Italian readers are my polyglot friend, Monique Kunewalder and the esteemed scientist and philanthropist, Dr. Andrew Viterbi. Dr. Viterbi’s first cousin was Primo Levi’s wife and Viterbi and Levi met on numerous occasions. Dr. Viterbi accepted our invitation to present the biographical introduction for Primo Levi’s poems.
The Yiddish readers of Bertha Kling’s poems will include Sylvia Rosenthal and Maty Feldman Bicis, both attended Yiddish schools in Mexico City and Janice Alper, Brooklyn-born Jewish educator. Choir director, Elisheva Edelstein, will be singing three of Kling’s songs.
English readers for the Kling poems will be Sandra Silverstein, JCC volunteer; Judith Rubenstein, Yiddish and Hebrew singer; and Jane Zeer, editor of Ohr Shalom’s monthly Davar. I will present the introductory biography for Bertha Kling.