1. Molodowsky, Kadya, Fun mayn elterzeydns yerushe, chap. 47, “Mayn ershter bukh lider, Kheshvandike nekht,” [From my Great-Grandfather′s Inheritance, “My First Book of Poems, Nights of Heshvan”], Sviva 35 (December 1971): 62–64. The lines are quoted from: Kadya Molodowsky, “Marsh” [March], Dzshike gas: lider, 2d ed. (Warsaw: Di Literarishe Bleter, 1936), 10–11.Google Scholar

2. See Pratt, Norma Fain, “Culture and Radical Politics: Yiddish Women Writers, 1890–1940,” American Jewish History 70, no. 1 (Summer 1980): 68–90Google Scholar. On Molodowsky′s life, see Korman, Ezra, ed., Yidishe dikhterins: antologye [Yiddish women poets: Anthology] (Chicago: Farlag L. M. Stein, 1928), p. 348Google Scholar. Molodowsky, Elterzeydns yerushe, chap. 37, Sviva 33 (January 1971): 54–57. Born in Kartuz-bereze, Lithuania, in 1893 or 1894, Molodowsky lived in Kiev, Warsaw, Bialostok, and Vilna before immigrating to New York in 1935. She visited Israel several times. She died in New York in 1975.

3. See, for example, Perle, Yehoshe, “Bikher velt” [Book World], Literarishe bleter 5, no. 2 (13 January 1928): 40Google Scholar. Perle defends Molodowsky against two poets who had previously attacked her in “Bikher velt” calling her poetry “no better and no worse than all our women jets,” that is to say, “delicate, soft, and womanly.” See also Sh. Niger, “Froyen-lyrik,” Literarishe bleter 5, no. 46 (16 November 1928): 909–910.

4. Juhasz, Suzanne, Naked and Fiery Forms: Modern American Poetry by Women (New York: Harper & Row, 1976), pp. 1–6.Google Scholar

5. Molodowsky′s early books are: Kheshvandike nekht [Nights of Heshvan] (Vilna: Farlag B. Kletskin, 1927); Dzshike gas [Dzshike Street], 1st ed. (Warsaw: Literarishe Bleter, 1933), 2d ed. 1936; Freydke (Warsaw: Literarishe Bleter, 1935). Her early books of children′s poems also reflect these concerns: Mayselekh [Tales] no. 5 (Warsaw: Yidishe Shul Organizatsye fun Poylin, 1931); Gey en shikhlekh avek vu di velt hot nor an ek [Little shoes walk away to wherever the world may end] (Warsaw, 1929?). 1 have not been able to locate this text nor an exact citation. Molodowsky mentions that it won a prize after the publication of Kheshvandike nekht, so 1 assume it was published between 1927 and 1933. See Molodowsky, Elterzeydns yerushe, chap. 49, Sviva 36 (April 1972): 56–58.Google Scholar

6. See Friedman, Susan Stanford, “Creativity and the Childbirth Metaphor: Gender Difference in Literary Discourse,” Feminist Studies 13, no. 1 (Spring 1987): 49–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Friedman cites Susan Gubar, “The Birth of the Artist as Heroine: [Reproduction, the Kunsteierroman Tradition, and the Fiction of Katherine Mansfield,” in The Representation of Women in Fiction, ed. Carolyn Heilbrun, G. and Higonnet, Margaret R. (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1983), pp. 19–59Google Scholar. And Gubar, Susa, ′“TheBlanck Page′ and the Issues of Female Creativity,” Critical Inquiry 8 (Winter 1989): 243–264CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Eavan Boland, “The Woman Poet: Her Dilemma,” American Poetry Review 16, no. 1 (January-February 1987): 17–20; Sandra M. Gilbert, “Life′s Empty Pack: Notes Toward a Literary Daughteronomy,” Critical Inquiry 11 (March 1985): 355–384; Nina Auerbach, “Artists and Mothers: A False Alliance,” Women and Literature 6, no. 1 (Spring, 1978): 3–15; Verena Andermatt, “Helene Cixous and the Uncovery of a Feminine Language,” Women and Literature 7, no. 1 (Winter 1979): 38–48. See also Susan Rubin Suleiman, “Writing and Motherhood,” in The Mlother Tongue: Essays in Feminist Psychoanalytic lntepretation, ed. Shirley Nelson Garner, Claire Kahane, and Madelon Sprengnether (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1985), pp. 352–377; Helene Cixous, “The Laugh of the Medusa,” trans. Keith Cohen and Paula Cohen, in The Signs Reader: Women, Gender, and Scholarship, ed. Elizabeth Abel and Emily K. Abel (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983), pp. 279–297; Alice A. Jardine, Gynesis: Configurations of Woman and Modernity (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1985), pp. 114–17, 139, 232–34, 237; Donna C. Stanton, “Difference on Trial: A Critique of the Maternal Metaphor in Cixous, Irigaray, and Kristeva,” in The Poetics of Gender, ed. Nancy K. Miller (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), 157–82; Margaret Homans, “A Vision of Language,” in Feminist Critics on Dickinson, ed. Susan Juhasz (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 198x).

7. Rich, Adrienne, “When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-vision,” in On Lies, Secrets, andSilence: Selected Prose 1966–1978 (New York: Norton, 1979). Also in The Norton Reader, ed. Arthur M. Eastman et al., 5th ed. (New York: Norton, 1980), p. 519.Google Scholar

8. Susan Stanford Friedman argues that the resonances of “the childbirth metaphor” vary for readers and writers of different genders and cultures. Margaret Homans argues the essential role that gender plays in the very nature of figurative and literal language. Helene Cixous challenges the syntax and logic of most writing in French and English, which she calls “marked writing,” governed by a “masculine economy.” See Friedman, “Creativity and the Childbirth Metaphor,” pp. 49–50; Margaret Homans, Bearing the Word: Language and Female Experience in Nineteenth-Century Women′s Writing (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986). pp. 1–39; Cixous, “The Laugh of the Medusa,” The Signs Reader, p. 283.

9. The Yiddish word mayse comes from the Hebrew root for “deed” or “act.” According to Alexander Harkavy, Yidish-english-hebreyish verterbukh, 3d ed. (New York; Hebrew Publishing Co., 1928), pp. 310–311; the first meaning in Yiddish is “deed, act, occurrence”; the second meaning is “tale, story.” Within this meaning, there is a third denotation, “thing, matter,” which leads to the fourth, slang meaning of “female genital organ.” Although this slang usage is hardly the first association a reader would have with the title of verse for children, its very existence suggests an implicit, powerful connection between the acts of telling stories and of reproduction. As the title of Molodowsky′s children′s poems, mayselekh connotes the fantastic, folklike quality of these narrative poems. Also see Stutchkoff, Nahum, Der oytser fun der yidisher shprakh, ed. Max Weinreich (New York: YIVO, 1950), p. 180, entry 240.Google Scholar

10. Molodowsky, , Elterzeydns yerushe, Sviva 36 (April 1972): 56–57.Google Scholar

11. Molodowsky, Kadya, “Mayne kinder,” Der melekh dovid aleyn iz geblibn (New York: Farlag Papirene Brik, 1946), pp. 86–87.Google Scholar

12. Plath, Sylvia, “Childless Woman,” in The Collected Poems, ed. Hughes, Ted (New York: Harper & Row, 1981), p. 259. Also cited in Friedman, “Childbirth Metaphor,” p. 69.Google Scholar

13. Cixous, “The Laugh of the Medusa,” p. 295. See also pp. 285, 290, 293.Google Scholar

14. The Holy Scriptures According to the Masoretic Text, 9th ed. (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1976), vol. 1, p. 8Google Scholar

15. Molodowsky, “Marsh” [March], Dzshike gas: lider 2d ed., pp. 10–11.Google Scholar

16. Kadya Molodowsky, “S′iz haynt a shtiler tog II,” Kheshvandike nekht: Lider, p. 62. All translations in this essay are mine, unless otherwise indicated.

17. Kadya Molodowsky, “Oreme vayber I” [Poor Women], Kheshvandike nekht, p. 90.

18. Kadya Molodowsky, “Froyen-lider I-VIII,” Kheshvandike nekht, pp. 11–19. Some of the poems are dated: III, 1924; V, 1926; VIII, 1925. All other quotations from this sequence are identified in the text of the essay.

19. The laws of Niddah are stated in Leviticus 15:19–30and in the sixth division of Tohoroth in Mishnah, 12th ed., trans. Herbert Danby (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), pp. 745–757.Google Scholar

20. Comp. Marcus Jastrow, Sefer milim: A Dictionary of the Targum, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, the Midrashic Literature, 2 vols. (Israel: reissued 1970 [no publisher, n.d.]), 1:524.

21. The word agunah derives from the Hebrew verb agon meaning “to shut oneself in or off, especially from marriage, to imprison, to anchor.” See A Hebrew English Lexicon of the Old Testament, reprint based on the Lexicon of William Gesenius, trans. Edward Robinson, ed. Francis Brown (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977), p. 723. Also see Rachel Biale, Women and Jewish Law: An Exploration of Women′s Issues in Halakhic Sources (New York: Schocken, 1984), p. 102. Mishnah, Yebamoth 15 (1–10) and 16.

22. The binding image somewhat enigmatically suggests the Yom Kippur Avodah, where the scarlet thread was bound around the horn of the scapegoat released by the high priest into the wilderness. This thread miraculously turns white when the sins of the community are forgiven.

23. The exact meaning of farrisn is ambiguous here. As the past participle of farraysn, it can mean “lifted (with a jerk)” or “torn;” but the verb farrisn means “to smudge with soot.” See Weinreich, Uriel, Modern English-Yiddish Yiddish-English Dictionary (New York: YIVO and McGraw-Hill, 1968), p. 468.Google Scholar

24. Paraphrase of Heschel, The Sabbath (1951; New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1966), p. 66, quoted in Isaac Klein, A Guide to Jewish Religious Practice (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1979), pp. 55–58. See also Paula Hyman, “The Other Half: Women in the Jewish Tradition,” in The Jewish Woman: New Perspectives, ed. Elizabeth Koltun (New York: Schocken, 1976, pp. 106–107).Google Scholar

25. Nancy E. Henry, in a conference paper at Stanford University, May 18, 1987, discussed the significance of the fact that Lot′s wife has no name.

26. I am grateful to David Fishman and David G. Roskies, both of whom pointed out to me the problem of the word farshteynerung.

27. Zinberg, Israel, A History of Jewish Literature, trans. Bernard Martin, 12 vols. (New York: Hebrew Union College Press and Ktav, 1974), 7:257–259.Google Scholar

28. Ibid, 7:257.

29. Weissler, Chava, “The Traditional Piety of Ashkenazic Women,” in A History of Jewish Spirituality, ed. Green, Arthur, 2 vols. (New York: Crossroads, 1987) 2:[48]. Page numbers and quotations refer to the uncut typescript of the article. I am grateful to Chava Weissler for her generosity.Google Scholar

30. Yanov, YitskhokTse′ena Ure′ena (New York: Hebrew Publishing Co. and Moses Greenfield, 1969), pp. 131–132.Google Scholar

31. In Harkavy, Yidish-english-hebreisher verlerbukh, pp. 469, 133, the Hebrew translation of krenitse is maeyon (“spring, fountain, source, well”), and the Hebrew translation of brunem is be-ar (“well, pit”). In the biblical story of Abraham′s servant Eliezer, who secures Rebecca as Isaac′s bride while watering the camels at the city well (Genesis 24:11–20), two variants of maeyon are used, eyn ha-mayim and ha-ayenah (Genesis 24:13, 16). These words stand out from the more frequent use of be-ar in the passage, for the first appears at the moment that Eliezer prays that God will send the appointed woman, and the second at the moment he recognizes her. The Tse′ena Ure′ena acknowledges only the second instance by translating ha-ayenah as kval brunen. Yanov, Tse′ena Ure′ena, pp. 101–2. In his modern Yiddish translation, Yehoash renders the two words as kval vaser and kval. Yehoash, Torah neviim uksuvim, 2d ed. (New York: Morgen Zshurnal Oysgabe, 1942), 1:35. Molodowsky′s use of krenilse alludes to these moments in the biblical text and economizes on the compound words of both the traditional and the modern Yiddish translations with (what I believe is) a slavicism. Whether and when the word krenilse enters any editions of Taytsh-khumash that Molodowsky may have known could further illuminate her usage in this poem.

32. The allusions of one sequence to another in Kheshvandike nekht reveal how carefully Molodowsky selected the poems and structured the book. Compare, for example, the beginning of “Froyen-lider VIII” with the insomnia of “a woman” in the title poem, “Kheshvandike nekht III,” who cannot fall asleep without a child to hold, although she is not a mother.

33. The Yiddish lines are grammatically ambiguous-it is unclear whether the words shrivel her mouth (there would be an implied auxiliary verb hobn to complete the past tense of oysgetriknt) or whether her mouth shrivels, intransitively (un dos moyl hot ir oysgetriknt). The first case would be more interesting, for the words would have a direct, clear effect on the flesh that utters them. In either case, though, it seems fair to read the drama as follows in the text.

34. Ganzfried, Rabbi Solomon, Code of Jewish Law: Kitzur Shulhan Arukh: A Compilation of Jewish Laws and Customs, trans. Hyman Goldin, E, annotated rev. ed. (New York: Hebrew Publishing Co., 1961, 1963), 2:60–62.Google Scholar

35. The following Yiddish translation of this prayer is taken from a Korbn Minkhe, YIVO photocopy: exact source not known: “Borukh. gelibt bistu got unzer got der melekh fun der velt der do makht falin shlof af mayne oygn un dremlung af mayn bremen (veyehi ratson) es zol zayn der vilin fun dir mayn got un got fun mayne elterin zolst mikh makhin leygin mit sholom es zolin mikh nit der shrekin keyn beyze kholomes un shlekhte gidankn dos ikh zoi nit zindigin far dir es zol fun mir aruskimen agute zerae nit keyn fakhol khas vesholem. du zolst der laykh tin mayne oygn nit eyn shlof fun toyt. (Borukh) gelibt bistu got der vos makht laykhtin tsu gor der velt mit zayn sheynhayt.” Note that the Yiddish translation quoted here omits one clause of the Hebrew: ki atah hameyir laishon bal-ayin, “for it is thou who givest light to the apple of the eye.” For variant versions of the Hebrew and English translations, see Philip Birnbaum, trans., Ha-siddur ha-shalem (New York: Hebrew Publishing Co., 1985), pp. 777–786; Kriat shema al ha-mitah, in Siddur safat emet im targum English (New York: Hebrew Publishing Co., n.d.), p. 108; Siddur saylanot korbn-minkhe: kol hateflot kesedern nusakh ashkenaz, Rov Peninim (Jerusalem: Lewin-Epstein Brothers, 1962), pp. 180–184.

36. Siddur safat emet, p. 44.

37. Kitzur Shulhan Arukh, p. 62.