Post­ed by Nao­mi Firestone-Teeter

Avrom Sutzkev­er, 1950 – pho­to by Fritz Cohen

All deaths leave a void, but mourn­ers for Avrom Sutzkev­er, arguably the great­est Yid­dish poet of the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry, are feel­ing an accord­ing­ly out­size loss. Remem­ber­ing the life and read­ing the work, one is struck once more by how genius and cir­cum­stance com­bine to cre­ate a means of express­ing the inex­press­ible – and in a way that seems, con­sid­er­ing the cir­cum­stances, almost nat­ur­al. Read On.