L’apport du rabbin Pinchas Hirschprung aux lettres juives canadiennes

In November 1944, Rabbi Pinchas Hirschprung (1912-1998) published a memoir of his escape from Nazi-held Europe titled Fun Natsishen Yomertol: Zikhroynes fun a Polit (translated as: From the Nazi Vale of Tears: Memoirs of a Refugee). The author points out that the memoir raises several interesting literary issues in the context of Yiddish cultural life in Montreal. He notes that when Hirschprung immigrated to Montreal at the end of 1941, he was hardly predisposed to take a close interest in the mainstream secular movement in contemporary Jewish literature. The author notes that as a renowned Talmudist and Orthodox practitioner, Hirschprung was not prepared by his strictly religious background to interact with political journalists and modernist poets who occupied positions of command in the Montreal Yiddish newspaper, the Keneder Adler. Despite this, he was soon invited to write in this newspaper and, at the end of 1942, he published the first chapters of his future work Fun natsishen yomertol: zikhroynes fun a polit in the pages of the Adler. The author examines how this relationship was established between Rabbi Hirschprung and his new colleagues, and the significance that should be drawn from this relationship for the evolution of Yiddish letters in Montreal. Rabbi Hirschprung served as the chief Rabbi of Montreal from 1969 until his death, as well as dean (rosh yeshiva) of the Rabbinical College of Canada.

Canadian Jewish Studies / Études juives canadiennes

Vol. 27

48-66

2019

fr