Collection of letters sent by the poet Leah Goldberg to the poet Tuvya Reubner for twenty years, 1949-1969.
The collection includes about 85 letters, postcards, and illustrated-letters (short notes, with illustrations by Goldberg), as well as tens of postal envelopes, in which the letters have been mailed.
The close friendship between Goldberg and Ruebner was expressed in letters which reflect fondness, openness and sincerity. Almost all of the matters characteristic of human interaction, mainly between intellectuals and poets, are present in the letters: family matters, state of health, philosophical idea, art and music, reflection about the academic world and the poetry world in Israel and worldwide (since Ruebner and Goldberg were both professors of literature), and more and more ideas and topics.
Some quotations from the letters:
Literary matters and Goldberg's relations with authors, poets and intellectuals in Israel are mentioned more than once in Goldberg's letter. For example, Goldberg says about Shlonsky" "It might be hard for you (young generation!) to understand now what Shlonsky meant for us in our early days. What he meant for the Hebrew language. There are things which we cannot or do not wish to ignore" (Letter of June 15 1956). And this is what Goldberg writes about her relationships with Agnon: " I have been thinking in the meantime about what Agnon told you as far as our first meeting is concerned. My cigarettes upset him now since he quit smoking and cannot see women who he likes with fingers yellow from cigarette smoking. In those days my fingers were not yellow even though I smoked (I cleaned them). It is possible that something else upset him, and he approached me with the prejudice that I am one of 'those modernists' who are not of his admirers. In the meantime his attitude towards me changed after he realized what my attitude towards him was, and he attributed the past rejection to yellow fingers which never existed. If I would have written novels I would have turned him into one of my heros" . (Letter of May 7 1963).
Goldberg did not spare criticism from herself and wrote: "when I handed to the printer "Taba'ot Ashan" I had the feeling that I should not continue composing poems. I would walk around and say: why don't I know how to compose music?! All right, I continued writing poetry after that first book. I had a chance now to look at it and I was shocked to see how bad it is" (Letter of September 17 1957).
About her love of art in general and her appreciation of Marc Chagall's paintings, Goldberg writes in a letter of January 24 1965: " I have still not framed Chagall and in the meantime (inorder to gain his autograph one day) I translated from bad Russian some horrible poems which he wrote. Have I told you about this in my previous letter? My secretary almost wept when I dictated these sentimental lines and she still does not understand how terrible it is in his bad Russian. Why should a painter like this also write? And here I take my revenge and quietly draw small painting for myself".
The political situation is also reflected in some of the letter, and this is what Goldberg writes about one month after the Six Day war and the occupation of East Jerusalem: "How wonderful is this city now. And…it is so pleasant to interact with Arabs. Everybody feels that, even those people whose views are not as such. The most pleasant feeling is that the people of the Old City seem recovered. This gives much hope. I was pessimistic about the political situation but now I somehow believe that we shall have better days than before". (Letter of July 8 1967).
About the academy which was a significant part of Goldberg's world, and about the theoretical aspect of literature, she wrote: "Matters of "the science of literature" which you write about depress me for a while already. Two weeks ago I got a reprint of an essay written by one of my brightest students and in view of so much 'science' I do not have the courage to read those ten pages. It is interesting that the young ones are carried away by this route and as a result cannot enjoy a story or a poem". (Letter of August 21 1968). About the world of Israeli publishing Goldberg states a harsh statement which, even though written 46 years ago, sound as if it was written today: "The state of poetry books in Israel is terrible. No publishing house, except for this terrible "Eked", is now publishing at its own expense, any poetry books. Sifriyat Po'alim in this case is not worse than others: I learned to know, since I had some contacts recently with other publishing houses. It seems that there is no atmosphere for poetry nowadays; Carmi published his book with 'Tarshish', which means that it is not Schpitzer who took on himself the expenses since he has no money. And this is how things are". (Letter of April 5 1967).