Friday, May 03, 2019

Something in Yiddish

From my researching (and in preparation for an article), here is a quotation from Raphael Abramovich's autobiography, In Two Revolutions, in Yiddish 




The translation is from Joseph Nedava:

"In one of my speaking appearances, I think, in Karlsruhe or Stuttgart, I had a remarkable opponent: a young man with a rounded head, a noticeably protruding chin, and a big expressive 'actor's' mouth. None of my Bundist friends knew who he was: they just knew that he was a Zionist who was reputedly a good speaker. But when that young Zionist began to speak,— and he commenced with a wonderful quote from the prophet Amos, — the whole crowd turned to him, for they sensed in him an unusual oratorical power. And the first one to admire him was I myself, the lecturer, whom he opposed... Only later was I informed that the young Zionist was Vladimir Jabotinsky. A year and a half later [1905] I encountered him in a series of debates in [St.] Petersburg".

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