![]() From this moment she began a private crusade for her people. When a journalist defended these pogroms in the Century Magazine, Lazarus wrote the fervent reply "Russian Christianity versus Modern Judaism" in the next issue. The turning point in Lazarus's life was the outbreak of violent anti-Semitism in Russia and Germany during the early 1880s. Her translation of Heinrich Heine's Poems and Ballads (1881) was considered the best version of Heine in English at the time. Her five-act drama, The Spagnoletto (1876), focuses on Italy in 1655, but as playwright she had more fervor than talent. In 1874 she published her first prose, Alide: An Episode of Goethe's Life. Lazarus's work began appearing regularly in Lippincott's Magazine and Scribner's Monthly. These poems so pleased Ralph Waldo Emerson that he invited Lazarus to visit him, thereby beginning a correspondence that lasted throughout her life. Poems and Translations (public edition 1867) was followed by Admetus and Other Poems (1871). At the age of 11 she began writing impassioned lyrics on traditional romantic themes and at 17 privately printed her first collection. Her wealthy, cultured parents provided comforts and devotion, beginning with private tutors and summers at the seashore. With its lone floors where reverent feet once trod.Emma Lazarus was born in New York City on July 22, 1849. ‘Took voice and mingled in the chant of praise.įor youth and happiness have followed age, Our footsteps have a strange unnatural sound,Īll found their comfort in the holy place,Īnd children’s gladness and men’s gratitude ‘Midst blinding glory and effulgence rare,Īlas! we wake: one scene alone remains, –īut mournful echoes through the empty hall: The slaves of Egypt, – omens, mysteries, –ĭark fleeing hosts by flaming angels led.Ī wondrous light upon a sky-kissed mount, The purple seas, the hot blue sky o’erhead, How as we gaze, in this new world of light,Īgain we see the patriarch with his flocks, Wrung from sad hearts that knew no joy on earth,īy these lone exiles of a thousand years,įrom the fair sunrise land that gave them birth! What prayers were in this temple offered up, The light of the “perpetual lamp” is spent No signs of life are here: the very prayers We stand and gaze around with tearful awe, The ocean’s plunge and roar can enter not, How strange it seems! These Hebrews in their graves,Ĭlose by the street of this fair seaport town,Įmma Lazarus’ “In the Jewish Synagogue at Newport,” published in Lazarus’ 1871 collection “Ademtus and Other Poems” “The Jewish Synagogue at Newport” used the same title format and the same meter as “The Jewish Cemetery at Newport.”įrom Longfellow’s “The Jewish Cemetery at Newport” Lazarus’ poem was written as a response to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem “The Jewish Cemetery at Newport.” The last stanza of the Longfellow poem included the phrase “dead nations never rise again.” Lazarus concentrated on the “living power” of the synagogue: “The sacred shrine is holy yet.” Even though Touro was officially closed, it was well maintained and was occasionally used for special occasions. Lazarus was familiar with Touro Synagogue because her family spent their summers in Newport along with many others of New York’s cultural elite. When “The Jewish Synagogue at Newport” was composed, Touro Synagogue was not open for worship services because the Jewish population of Newport had dispersed after the Revolutionary War. Very few of us are familiar with Lazarus’ 1867 poem “The Jewish Synagogue at Newport.” Touro Synagogue, built in 1763, is the oldest standing synagogue still in use in the United States. Already a famous poet in 1883, Lazarus was asked to contribute a poem to an auction to raise money for the statue’s Bartholdi Pedestal. Emma LazarusAlmost everyone knows that Emma Lazarus wrote “The New Colossus,” the famous sonnet inscribed on a bronze tablet at the entrance to the Statue of Liberty. ![]()
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