GRADE, CHAIM

GRADE, CHAIM (1910–1982), Yiddish poet and novelist. Born in Vilna, Grade became that city's most articulate literary interpreter. After his father's early death, his mother ran a market stall in order to provide him a traditional education; he attended several yeshivot, including seven years under the famed scholar-rabbi, the Ḥazon Ish, becoming attracted to the musar movement . He made his literary debut in Dos Vort (1932), became a member of Yung Vilne (1934), and soon was one of its staunchest pillars. The group sought both to synthesize secular Yiddish culture with new currents in world literature, and to bring the impoverished Jewish home into contact with the progressive forces of contemporary society. Grade's poems appeared in leading Yiddish periodicals in Europe and the U.S. His first book, Yo ("Yes," 1936), was acclaimed by critics for its stylistic elegance and its affirmation of faith in a synthesis of traditional and modern currents. His long poem "Ezekiel" demonstrated his understanding of the tragic nature of human and especially Jewish existence. Extremely important in his early period was Geveyn fun Doyres ("Weeping of the Generations," 1936), which treats the issues of Jewish identity and national history. His long poem "Musernikes" ("Musarists," 1939), describes the spiritual struggles of yeshivah students torn between the Musar traditions and worldly temptations. During World War II, Grade found refuge in Russia and continued to write, his next collection of poems, Has ("Hate," 1943), appearing in Moscow and following Soviet directives. After the war he dedicated a series of poems, "Mit Dayn Guf af mayne Hent" ("With Your Body in My Hands") to his wife who perished in the Holocaust. In his volumes Doyres ("Generations," 1945), Pleytim ("Refugees," 1947), and Shayn fun Farloshene Shtern ("Light of Extinguished Stars," 1950), he mourned the victims of the Holocaust and describes the survivors. With this attempt at confronting the national Jewish tragedy, Grade became in a sense the national Jewish poet, as Bialik had been in his day. Grade's return to Vilna in 1946 was traumatic, as described in "Af di Khurbes" ("On Ruins," 1947), and he left for Poland but after the Kielce pogrom (July 1946) moved on to Paris, where he helped to revivify Yiddish cultural life among the surviving Jews, leading the Yiddish literary club. A collection of his poems from the years 1936 to 1939, Farvoksene Vegn ("Overgrown Paths," 1947) appeared. In 1948, he was sent to the U.S. as a delegate to the Jewish Culture Congress, settled in New York, and began his contributions to the (Tog-) Morgn Zhurnal, Tsukunft, Yidisher Kemfer, and Di Goldene Keyt. In 1950, he received a prize from the World Congress of Jewish Culture for Der Mames Tsavoe ("My Mother's Will," 1949), which includes some of the most outstanding lyrics in Yiddish, permeated with love and respect for his mother, who perished during the Holocaust. The dramatic dialogue "Mayn Krig mit Hersh Reseyner" (1951; Eng. trans. "My Quarrel with   Hersh Rasseyner"; Commentary, 1954; also in: I. Howe and E. Greenberg, A Treasury of Yiddish Stories (1954, 19892), 624–51) played an important role in Grade's artistic development. His mother is the central figure of his three-part Der Mames Shabosim (1955; Eng. trans. "My Mother's Sabbath Days," 1986), which describes his orphaned childhood in Vilna, his life as a refugee in Russia, and his return to postwar Vilna, decimated of its Jews and its Jewish institutions. Prewar Jewish Vilna comes to life in the collection Der Shulhoyf ("The Courtyard of the Synagogue," 1958), displaying some of the finest prose of the post-classical generation and including Der Brunem (Eng. trans. The Well, 1967). His novel, Di Agune ("The Abandoned Wife," 1961; Heb. trans. 1962; Eng. trans. 1974), depicts all segments of Jewish Vilna between the wars. Der Mentsh fun Fayer ("The Man of Fire," 1962) includes his poems on Israel and his elegy on martyred Soviet Yiddish writers. Two further volumes of poetry appeared: Oyf Mayn Veg tsu Dir ("On My Way to You," 1969) and Parmetene Erd ("Parchment Earth," 1968, with Heb. transl.). His poems in English translation appeared in J. Leftwich, The Golden Peacock (1961) and R. Whitman, Anthology of Modern Yiddish Poetry (1966). Grade was one of the rare interpreters of yeshivah life in modern Yiddish literature, recreating the daily life of the yeshivah student with photographic accuracy, objectivity, and affection, and illustrating it with such scenes as rabbis discussing talmudic law, as in the novel Tsemakh Atlas (2 vols. 1967–8; Eng. trans. The Yeshiva, 1976–7; Heb. trans. 1968). Following that novel, he published two more collections of stories: Di Kloyz un di Gas ("The Small Synagogue and the Street," 1974; partial Eng. trans. Rabbis and Wives, 1983) and Der Shtumer Minyan ("The Silent Minyan," 1976), which again attempted to reconstruct the atmosphere of prewar Vilna. Grade's postwar poetry expressed, above all, the traumatic experience of the Holocaust and focused on the question of his own survival, while his prose works continued to reconstruct Jewish Vilna and the specific features of mind and piety of Lithuanian Jewry. From the beginning, his works possessed a distinct philosophical dimension. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: LNYL, 2 (1958), 335–8; E. Schulman, Yung Vilne (1946); I. Biletzky, Essays on Yiddish Poetry and Prose (1969), 233–42. ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: J. Cammy, in: K. Sorrel (ed.), Yiddish Writing in the 20th Century (2003); P. Sanford, in: Yiddish, 8 (1992); 55–8; R. Wisse, in: New York Times (Nov. 14, 1982), 3/18. (Israel Ch. Biletzky / Joanna Lisek (2nd ed.)