Jiří Mordechai Langer

Rating: 4.33
Rating: 4.33

Jiří Mordechai Langer Poems

The poem
that I chose for you
is simple,
as are all my singing poems.
...

Jiří Mordechai Langer Biography

Jiří (Georgo) Mordechai Langer was a Hebrew poet, scholar and essayist, journalist and teacher. Early Life Langer had been born to the assimilated Jewish family and attended Czech schools. However, already in his early years he felt attracted to Judaism and studied Talmud and Kaballah with his friend from school: Alfred Fuchs. At the age of 19 he decided to leave his family home and went alone to Belz to join the hasidic court of Yisakhar Dov Rokeaḥ. Later this journey and his experience in the hassidic shtetl he had described in the book 9 gates to hasidic misteries (cz. "Devět bran"). At the outbreak of World War I he was drafted to the Austro-Hungarian army, but refused to obey military orders because of his religious beliefs. For refusing to obey orders he was imprisoned in military jail. After being released he came back to the Rokeah's court upon its exile to Hungary during the war years. In this time he deepened his studies of Torah, Talmud, Midrash, and Kabbalah and lived the hasidic life together with the community. With the end of World War I Jiří Langer left the hasidic court and decided to move to Vienna, where he studied at the Hebrew Pedagogic Academy. This was also a time when his philosophy turned into the direction of religious Zionism. Later he came back to Prague, where he joined the work of Zionist institutions and worked as teacher of Jewish religion in Czech schools. This was also a time when he developed his friendship with Franz Kafka and Max Brod. He was the brother of František Langer.)

The Best Poem Of Jiří Mordechai Langer

On The Margins Of A Poem

The poem
that I chose for you
is simple,
as are all my singing poems.

It has the trace of a veil,
a little balsam,
and a taste of the honey
of lies.

There is also
the coming end of summer
when heat scorches the meadow
and the quick waters
of the river
cease to flow.


Anonymous Submission

Jiří Mordechai Langer Comments

Eben Shapiro 24 November 2007

'eccentric rabbis'? That is a very inappropriate and condescending thing to say. Langer would, I am sure, be the first to disagree with your description. Belz was a selfed contained 'empire' of the soul, as any reader of 'Nine Gates' can clearly see. Eccentricity is a subjective term, only able to be viewed from without. If one comes upon a group of people standing in a circle with their backs toward the outsider, one may take the view that this group is eccentric, but until one is part of the circle one will never know what the group is doing and seeing. Belz was a part of a world that ceased to exist after the Great War (1914-1918) and the subsequent decimation of Eastern European Judaism. Certainly anyone who promotes the appreciation of poetry should be leery of calling any group 'eccentric' and if this is meant as a some kind of compliment, I think a better word could have been found

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