Gabriel Preil (Hebrew: גבריאל פרייל; August 21, 1911 – June 5, 1993) was a modern Hebrew poet active in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

, who wrote in Hebrew and

Yiddish Yiddish, historically Judeo-German, is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated in 9th-century Central Europe, and provided the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with ...

. Preil translated

Robert Frost Robert Lee Frost (March26, 1874January29, 1963) was an American poet. Known for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American Colloquialism, colloquial speech, Frost frequently wrote about settings from rural life in New E ...

and

Walt Whitman Walter Whitman Jr. (; May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist, and journalist; he also wrote two novels. He is considered one of the most influential poets in American literature and world literature. Whitman incor ...

into Hebrew.

Biography

Gabriel (Yehoshua) Preil was born in

Tartu Tartu is the second largest city in Estonia after Tallinn. Tartu has a population of 97,759 (as of 2024). It is southeast of Tallinn and 245 kilometres (152 miles) northeast of Riga, Latvia. Tartu lies on the Emajõgi river, which connects the ...

Livonia Livonia, known in earlier records as Livland, is a historical region on the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea. It is named after the Livonians, who lived on the shores of present-day Latvia. By the end of the 13th century, the name was extende ...

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

in 1911, but he was raised in Krakės,

Kovno Kaunas (; ) is the second-largest city in Lithuania after Vilnius, the fourth largest List of cities in the Baltic states by population, city in the Baltic States and an important centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaun ...

until his father died. He then moved with his mother to the United States in 1922. Though primarily influenced by Yiddish poets of the Inzikh (Introspective) movement, Preil's influence extends to younger Israeli poets ( Dan Pagis nicknamed him "The Duke of New York") and Israelis were his primary audience. Preil lived with his mother and step-father in the Bronx, NY, until their deaths. In 1975, he received an honorary Doctorate of Hebrew Letters from

Hebrew Union College Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and remained in regular use as a first language until ...

. Preil died in

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

on June 5, 1993 while visiting on a book tour.

Poems

Many of Preil's poems focus on New York city, Maine, and his grandfather, a rabbi, who lived in Lithuania and wrote for ''

Ha-Melitz ''HaMelitz'' (Hebrew: ) was the first Hebrew newspaper in the Russian Empire. It was founded by Alexander Zederbaum in Odessa in 1860. History ''HaMelitz'' first appeared as a weekly, and it began to appear daily in 1886. From 1871, it was publis ...

''. One of his poems is dedicated to the Israeli poet

Leah Goldberg Leah Goldberg or Lea Goldberg (; May 29, 1911, Königsberg – January 15, 1970, Jerusalem) was a prolific Hebrew-language poet, author, playwright, literary translator, illustrater and painter, and comparative literary researcher. Her wri ...

: "Leah's Absence". Another references Abraham Mapu; others, Jacob Glatstein and

Mendele Mocher Sforim Mendele Mocher Sforim (, ; lit. "Mendele the book peddler"; January 2, 1836, Kapyl – December 8, 1917 .S. Odessa), born Sholem Yankev Abramovich (, ) or S. J. Abramowitch, was a Jewish author and one of the founders of modern Yiddish and Heb ...

. Yael Feldman wrote of Preil's Yiddish and American atmosphere, "One could say that Preil's life and art are a manifestation of two diametrically opposite movements: His physical biography led him further away from Israeli soil, but, through his artistic activity, he tenaciously bridged the distance and successfully approached the contemporary sources of his poetic medium. In order to do this, he had to cross two language barriers: Yiddish, his European mother tongue, which continued to be the language spoken at home throughout his life, and English, the language he acquired in his new home-country and which soon became a rich literary source for young Preil, the avid reader."

References

External links

Gabriel Preil's poems in English translation
at ''Poems Found in Translation'' * {{DEFAULTSORT:Preil, Gabriel Yehoshua 1911 births 1993 deaths American poets in Yiddish American people of Estonian-Jewish descent Estonian male poets Jewish American poets Writers from Tartu 20th-century Estonian poets 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American Jews Lithuanian emigrants to the United States Hebrew-language poets Burials at Har HaMenuchot Immigrants to the United States 20th-century Estonian Jews 20th-century Lithuanian Jews 20th-century Lithuanian poets

Biography

Poems

References

Further reading

External links