#abba kovner

As Passover begins tonight, a poem by Abba Kovner, translated from the Hebrew by Eddie Levenston, gives food for thought. Kovner (1918–1987), born in Sebastopol, was a partisan fighter in World War II; along with a small group of fellow resistance fighters, he escaped from the Vilna ghetto into the Baltic forest, where they spent the war carrying out sabotage operations against the German army. It was during this fight that he met his wife, Vitka, also a resistance leader. The two eventually settled on a kibbutz in Israel. Kovner, who became a writer of poetry and prose, was a significant witness at the trial of Adolf Eichmann. He won the Israel Prize for Literature in 1970.

The Whole Account

You began to love in times of disgust. Close at hand there was no tree, no sign of a living stem or flower, and when there was no reason to sing it was your laughter, jubilant, rousing, saying: There is someone here alive—joyful! And many, so many, then were lying curled up and fearful in grimy shadow, and you began to love without dousing the light of the carbide and went down to the boat that threatened to break up at sea, and you conceived against doctor’s orders. Unannounced, you strode the dead streets, marching—all forty-five kilos of you!— as if on a victory parade of life flowing beneath the surface of all the words, like a fountain flowing, cascading with confidence, telling no lies. More on this book and author: 

Learn more about Sloan-Kettering by Abba Kovner

Learn more about Abba Kovner