Not long ago I read an article which made the distinction between songs and poetry: that poetry stands on its own, while a song needs music to have value.
Many shirim are songs, but some are poetry (and I'm not certain where to draw the line). The creations of Zelda are poetry, even though some have become famous shirim, with music.
Zelda was born in what is now Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine, in 1914, to a family of important Lubavitcher rabbis; she was a cousin of the last Rebbe. She came to Jerusalem with her parents in 1926, and died here in 1984. There is a touching description of her in Amos Oz' masterpiece
A Tale of Love and Darkness
(If you still haven't read it, forget all these blogs and read it). Zelda was his teacher, and apparently an influential one; she also lived in the same hard-working neighborhood he grew up in and describes so well. She and her husband never had children.
I don't know when she started writing; her first book of poetry appeared many years after she began, in the 1960s. So I can't tell if she wrote Lechol Ish Yesh Shem, Every Man has a Name, before or after the Shoah. The poem itself never mentions the Holocaust, never even alludes to it, yet sometime in the 1980s it became the single most important Shoah song; perhaps even
the emblematic one.
Hebrew originalEnglish translationEvery person has a name
that God gave him
and which his father and mother gave him
Every person has a name
which his height
and the style of his smile gave him
and which his tapestry gave him
Every person has a name
which the mountains gave him
and which his walls gave him.
Every person has a name
which the star signs gave him
and which his neighbours gave him.
Every person has a name
which his sins gave him,
and which his longing gave him.
Every person has a name
which his enemies gave him
and his love gave him.
Every person has a name
which his festivals gave him,
and which his work gave him.
Every person has a name
which the seasons gave him,
and which his blindness gave him.
Every person has a name
which the sea gave him,
and which his death gave him.
Chanan Yovel (born 1946) composed the music and sings it in the first recording; the second recording is by Chava Alberstein; she's a better singer.
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