Week of May 5

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May 5, 1900

Birth of Nacha Rivkin, founder of the first U.S. girls' yeshiva

May 6, 1943

Publication of Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead"

May 7, 1973

Poet Maxine Kumin wins Pulitzer Prize

May 8, 1942

Poet Muriel Rukeyser receives $1000 literary award

May 9, 1894

Esther Ruskay speaks at founding of NY section of National Council of Jewish Women

May 10, 1992

Singer Sylvia Blagman Syms dies during standing ovation

May 11, 1884

Birth of singer Alma Gluck

 

May 5, 1900

Birth of Nacha Rivkin, founder of the first U.S. girls' yeshiva

Born in Poland on May 5, 1900, Nacha Rivkin immigrated to the United States in 1929, settling with her husband and two children in Brooklyn, New York. Since there was no Jewish girls' school, the Rivkins sent their eight-year-old daughter to public school and taught her Hebrew and Jewish subjects at home. But it was not long before Rivkin sought a better solution. Within a year, Rivkin had worked with Rabbi M.G. Volk and two other teachers to open the Shulamith School for Girls in Borough Park, Brooklyn. It was the first girls' yeshiva in the United States. Rivkin taught kindergarten and first grade and supervised curriculum development.

At the Shulamith School, Rivkin introduced innovative methods for teaching Hebrew to young children. Rejecting rote memorization, and drawing instead on the work of educational theorists Maria Montessori and Jean Piaget, she taught language skills through song, games, stories, and pictures. In 1954, she published Reishis Chochma, a book drawn from the curriculum she had developed at Shulamith. A second volume followed in 1967. The books are now in their nineteenth printing, and are used in 550 Jewish day schools in the Torah Umesorah system. In addition, a collection of songs that Rivkin wrote to celebrate holidays and teach the Hebrew alphabet were published as Shiru Li in 1960. Rivkin was also a talented painter, producing over 200 paintings of still lifes, nature scenes, and Jewish themes, mostly in oils.

After her retirement from the Shulamith School, Rivkin taught pedagogy at the Sarah Schenirer Teachers Seminary in Brooklyn. Through this work, and through her influential books, she had an enormous impact on Jewish early childhood education in America. In 1980, she was honored by Yeshiva Torah Vodaath for her accomplishments. After her death in 1988, a women's yeshiva in Bayit Vegan, Jerusalem, was named the Machon Nacha Rivkin Seminary for Advanced Torah Studies, in her honor.

Sources: Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 1157-1158.

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May 6, 1943

Publication of Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead"

Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, published on May 6, 1943, though not her first novel, was the first to win a wide following for the philosophy she called Objectivism. She explained that: "My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute."

The Fountainhead illustrated this philosophy through the tale of a visionary architect who sticks to his artistic convictions against massive social opposition. The book was not embraced by critics, but it eventually became a best-seller, and was made into a movie starring Gary Cooper in 1949. Together with Rand's Atlas Shrugged (1957), The Fountainhead has become one of the central texts of an Objectivist movement that emphasizes capitalism, individualism, and the pursuit of individual ambition.

Although her idea that altruism is bad and selfishness good contradicts traditional Jewish values, Rand's promotion of individual ambition was typical of Russian Jewish immigrants of her generation. Rand herself came from Russia to the United States at age 21, drawn by the conditions depicted in American movies, and eager to leave Stalinist Russia. Jobs as a screenwriter and script reader in Hollywood supported her writing, and also introduced her to husband Frank O'Connor.

Literary critics and philosophers have never taken Rand seriously, but her works have garnered popular acclaim. Despite mostly negative reviews, her four novels remain in print and have together sold over 25 million copies, and Objectivist discussion groups and internet sites abound.

Sources: http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer? pagename=about_ayn_rand_aynrand_biography; Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 1124-1126; http://www.objectivistcenter.org.

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May 7, 1973

Poet Maxine Kumin wins Pulitzer Prize

Born in Germantown, Pennsylvania, on June 6, 1925, Maxine Kumin earned a B.A. in history and literature from Radcliffe in 1946. She published her first book of poems, Halfway, in 1961. By then, Kumin had already published three books for children: Sebastian and the Dragon (1960), Follow the Fall (1961), and Summer Story (1961). Four years later, in 1965, Kumin published a second book of poems, The Privilege, and her first novel, Through Dooms of Love. The novel, about a pawnbroker and his "romantic, cause-loving" daughter, was praised by a New York Times reviewer as "serious and effective," and "precisely rendered, with a compassion that is passed on effortlessly to the reader."

Since then, Kumin has published more than a dozen books of poetry, along with several novels, short story collections, essay collections, and a memoir. She has also published numerous children's books, including four co-authored with poet Anne Sexton. Kumin's 1972 poetry collection, Up Country: Poems of New England, won the Pulitzer Prize on May 7, 1973.

Kumin has been compared to Robert Frost and to Henry David Thoreau, for the way in which her poetry engages the New England landscape and is deeply rooted in a sense of place.

Kumin's identity as a woman and a Jew also shines through her work. Several of her novels, including The Designated Heir and Passions of Uxport, examine themes of love, marriage, and women's struggles to define their identities. Many poems, including a series that explores Kumin's own family history, address Jewish themes, especially relationships between Jews and non-Jews.

Kumin has received many awards for her work. Among these are a grant from the National Council on the Arts (1966), the American Institute of Arts and Letters Award (1980), and a $10,000 fellowship for "distinguished poetic achievement" from the Academy of American Poets (1985). In 1996, she was elected a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, but resigned in 1998 to protest the lack of diversity on the board of chancellors, which had never included a Black woman poet.

The most recent Kumin collection, Jack and Other New Poems, was released in January, 2005.

Sources: Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 766-767; New York Times, April 11, 1965; September 4, 1966; November 19, 1972; November 18, 1985; November 14, 1998; Washington Post, Times Herald, May 8, 1973.

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May 8, 1942

Poet Muriel Rukeyser receives $1000 literary award

On May 8, 1942, the National Institute of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Letters jointly presented awards to ten artists working in music, literature, and visual art. Among the recipients in literature was a young poet named Muriel Rukeyser. Although she had not yet turned 30, Rukeyser had already published five volumes of poetry; a sixth, as well as her first prose work — a biography of scientist Willard Gibbs — would appear later the same year. Rukeyser's first book, Theory of Flight (1935), had won the Yale Younger Poets award, but it was her second book that established her as a serious artist. With the publication of U.S. 1 in 1938, she was hailed as "a dramatic lyric poet" whose "images of motion, of the driven mind and body are distinctly exciting and right." Critics credited U.S. 1 with dispensing with the "piling up of obscure detail" which had marked her first book. Rukeyser went on to publish 17 additional books of poems over four decades, culminating in The Collected Poems of Muriel Rukeyser in 1979. She also wrote several children's books and published translations of works by Gunnar Ekelof and Bertold Brecht.

In both her poetry and her life, Rukeyser was deeply engaged in the cause of social justice, a path that led to multiple conflicts with authorities. Born on December 15, 1913 in New York City, Rukeyser's middle-class upbringing and college education were interrupted by her father's bankruptcy in the Great Depression. Her first foray into the political realm came in 1933, when she traveled to Scottsboro, Alabama, with college friends to report on the trial of nine young black men accused of raping two white girls. In Alabama, Rukeyser was arrested for communicating with black reporters and carrying literature of the National Students League. She later wrote about the experience in her poem "The Trial." In 1936, she traveled to Spain to report on protests against the Olympics being held in Hitler's Germany; upon her return to the U.S., she became active in supporting the Loyalists in the Spanish civil war. Decades later, she was arrested for protesting the Vietnam War. All of these incidents, and other themes of social protest, found their way into her writing.

Although Rukeyser never publicly identified as a lesbian, her poetry referred to love between women and railed against homophobia. Her oft-quoted words of tribute to artist Käthe Kollwitz point stunningly to the suppression of women's voices and the potential power of their liberation: "What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? / The world would split open." Rukeyser's reflections on Jewish identity likewise suggested the pain inherent for a Jew in either suppressing or embracing one's essential identity. This excerpt from "To Be a Jew in the 20th Century," from Letter to the Front (1944), presents the challenge:

To be a Jew in the twentieth century
Is to be offered a gift. If you refuse,
Wishing to be invisible, you choose
Death of the spirit, the stone insanity.
Accepting, take full life. Full agonies:

Although Rukeyser's work always had its critics, she was recognized for her talent during her lifetime. She won a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Copernicus Prize, and the Shelley Memorial Award, and was elected president of PEN. The New York Times called her collected poems "richly rewarding." Rukeyser died on February 12, 1980. A Library of America edition of Selected Poems by Rukeyser, edited by the noted poet Adrienne Rich, was published in 2004.

Sources: New York Times, January 31, 1938, March 27, 1938, April 22, 1942, July 22, 1942, February 13, 1980; Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 1191-1193; http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/rukeyser/tobeajew.htm; http://www.glbtq.com/literature/rukeyser_m.html.

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May 9, 1894

Esther Ruskay speaks at founding of NY section of National Council of Jewish Women

When New York City's section of the National Council of Jewish Women met for the first time, on May 9, 1894, the evening's speaker was Esther Ruskay. Born in 1857, Ruskay had been a member of the first graduating class of Normal College (now Hunter College) in 1875. She became known as a leading advocate for Jewish traditionalism, but was widely respected throughout the Jewish community, even becoming the first woman to speak from the pulpit of Temple Emanu-El, New York's flagship Reform synagogue.

In her 1894 speech, Ruskay castigated those who saw Judaism as out of step with modernity and particularly those who looked to deracinated movements like the Ethical Culture Society for spiritual and ethical guidance. At a time when many Jews were criticizing Judaism as increasingly irrelevant and seeking to Americanize Jewish practice, Ruskay held firmly to tradition. In the same speech, she urged that Hebrew be taught regularly to Jewish children "in the same spirit of educational fervor" as was given to training in Latin and Greek.

Ruskay pushed the early National Council of Jewish Women (founded in 1893) to focus its efforts on strengthening Judaism. She successfully urged the Council to commit to protecting the Jewish Sabbath and respectfully but firmly challenged the NCJW leaders from Chicago who believed that Judaism could be sustained with a Sabbath observed on Sunday. A frequent contributor to the English-language American Jewish press and the New York Sun, Esther Ruskay believed that adherence to traditional Jewish observance could vitally enrich life lived amid modern societal demands. A collection of her writing was published by the Jewish Publication Society in 1902 under the title Hearth and Home Essays.

Ruskay was instrumental in the founding of the New York Educational Alliance, the Young Women's Hebrew Association, and the Vacation Home for Girls. She died at age 53 in 1910.

See also: This Week in History for November 15, 1896.

Sources: Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 968-979, 1193-1194; Esther Ruskay, Hearth and Home Essays (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1902); personal correspondence from John Ruskay to JWA, September 2004.

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May 10, 1992

Singer Sylvia Blagman Syms dies during standing ovation

On May 10, 1992, at New York City's Algonquin Hotel, Sylvia Syms finished singing her last song, raised her right arm to acknowledge the audience's standing ovation, and collapsed of a heart attack. The cabaret singer died the same evening at age 74. Syms's death ended a career that had spanned half a century.

Born in New York in 1917, Syms first became interested in jazz through radio broadcasts of live shows on New York's famed 52nd Street, then also known as "Swing Street." As a teenager, too young and too poor to be admitted to the city's jazz clubs, she hid in coatrooms to listen to such greats as Art Tatum, Lester Young, Mildred Bailey, and the woman who would become her mentor and role model: Billie Holiday. Syms made her own debut in 1941, at a 51st Street club called Kelly's Stable. In 1946, she made her first recording, "I'm In the Mood for Love."

In 1949, Syms was discovered by Mae West, who gave the singer the role of Flo the Shoplifter in a revival of Diamond Lil. Syms would go on to play Bloody Mary in South Pacific, Dolly Levi in Hello, Dolly!, and Gypsy in Tennessee Williams's Camino Real. At the same time, she continued to perform in jazz clubs as a cabaret star, or as she preferred to call herself, a saloon singer. The intimate atmosphere of the club or saloon suited Syms, who told a 1974 interviewer that "her religion [was] people" and once said that "when you perform, it's a one-to-one love affair with the people out there. That's how it has to be."

The people loved Syms back. She recorded fifteen albums, of which the major hit was her 1956 version of "I Could Have Danced All Night" from My Fair Lady. It sold more than one million copies. She was also popular with her fellow performers, earning the nickname "Buddha" (for her short stature and round figure) from Frank Sinatra. Sinatra, who also called Syms "the best saloon singer in the business," produced and conducted her 1982 album of jazz classics, Syms by Sinatra. The 1992 Algonquin show was entitled "Syms celebrates Sinatra," and was intended to be a tribute to her longtime friend and mentor. Syms's last album, You Must Believe in Spring: The Words of Alan and Marilyn Bergman was released posthumously, in June 1992.

Sources: Jewish Women in America, pp. 1364-1366; New York Times, May 11, 1992, May 17, 1992.

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May 11, 1884

Birth of singer Alma Gluck

Alma Gluck, who was famous in the first decades of the twentieth century for her concert performances and recording career, was born in Romania on May 11, 1884, the youngest of seven children. Her father died when Gluck (born Reba Fiersohn) was two, and the family came to the United States when she was six, their passage paid by the sweatshop wages of Gluck's eldest sister.

In 1902, she married insurance agent Bernard Gluck, and it was through him that she began her singing career. A business associate of Bernard's, who had heard Alma sing, arranged for her to take voice lessons beginning in 1906. In 1909, her teacher set up a meeting with famed conductor Arturo Toscanini, who hired her immediately. Gluck made her debut on November 16, 1909, in a Metropolitan Opera performance of Massenet's Werther. A decade later, the New York Times recalled that her character's "pretty song made a prima donna of Alma Gluck in one evening."

Although Gluck was successful in opera, she did not care for its theatrical nature and instead chose to become a concert performer. By 1914, a year after leaving the Opera, she was the most popular concert singer in the United States, performing in all 48 states and in as many as 100 concerts a season. Gluck's extensive recording career earned her the most lasting fame. Between 1911 and 1919, Gluck made 124 recordings, both of classical arias and of American folk songs. Though little-known today, Gluck's success in her time was phenomenal. Her audience, measured by concert tickets and recording sales, was matched by very few others. Her recording of "Carry Me Back to Ol' Virginny," perhaps her most popular, sold almost two million copies. On many of her records, Gluck is accompanied by violinist Efrem Zimbalist, who became her second husband in 1914. The pair also gave regular joint performances in concert.

Gluck retired from the stage in 1925, but remained active in musical causes. She was a founder of the American Guild of Musical Artists, and a supporter of the Musicians Emergency Fund. She was also a renowned hostess, regularly gathering groups of musicians in her home. In addition, she worked to support her favorite causes, singing for the Red Cross and signing on to the work of the Musicians Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy during the Spanish Civil War. Notably, she was not active in the Jewish community, instead developing ties to the Episcopal Church, in which she also baptized her three children (though never choosing baptism for herself). Gluck died of liver disease in 1938, at age 54.

Sources: Jewish Women in America, An Historical Encyclopedia, p.521-523; New York Times, February 19, 1919, October 28, 1938.

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