The Yiddish Life of Chaim Soutine (1893-1943): New Materials ​ Introduction and translations by Ofer Dynes ​ In geveb: A Journal of Yiddish Studies (April 2020) ​

For the online version of this article:

[http://ingeveb.org/texts-and-translations/life-of-soutine]

In geveb: A Journal of Yiddish Studies April (2020)

The Yiddish Life of Chaim Soutine (1893-1943): ​ New Materials

Ofer Dynes

Most biographies of Chaim Soutine comment at some point on how impossible it is to write a biography of Chaim Soutine: “What sources do we have for writing about Soutine?” mused Michel LeBrun-Franzaroli ruefully, after decades of meticulous research following the footsteps of Soutine across France: “Leopold Zborowski, his art dealer… didn’t leave any archive, any financial account, any catalogue… Soutine himself hardly spoke, practically never wrote, and at any rate, didn’t say anything about his art.” The preface to the biographical note in Soutine’s Catalogue Raisonné conveys the same ​ sense of frustration, albeit much more succinctly: “The artist left few personal papers and 1 ​ no records.” The few letters of Soutine that have survived are prosaic in their content and laconic in their style. In 1964, Harvard University was able to purchase one of the most extensive collections of Soutine’s correspondence. The hopes were high: the collection contained 37 letters of Soutine, no less, addressed to Henri Sérouya (born Aharon Tsruya, 1895-1968), a renowned Kabbalah scholar who had claimed that Soutine’s paintings are troubling because they “are permeated with the vehemence of Jewish 2 mysticism.” One cannot help wondering: Did Soutine agree with this statement? What kind of conversations did he and Sérouya hold on the subjects of Jewish Mysticism or French Modernism, considering that Sérouya was an expert on both? Disappointingly, the letters do not provide any clues. “Brief notes chiefly concerned with making or

1 This article is part of a larger series entitled “Yiddish Montparnasse.” See: Michel LeBrun-Franzaroli, Soutine l’homme et le peintre (Concremiers : Michel LeBrun-Franzaroli, 2015), 3. Maurice Tuchman, Esti ​ ​ ​ Dunow, Klaus Perls, (1993). Chaim Soutine (1893-1943): Catalogue raisonné = Werkverzeichnis (Köln: ​ ​ Benedikt Taschen Verlag, 1993), 9. Köln : Benedikt Taschen Verlag, [1993] ​ ​ 2 Henri Sérouya, Initiation à la philosophie contemporaine (Paris: La Renaissance du livre, 1933), 167. Sérouya ​ ​ published a book on Soutine in 1967, Soutine (Paris: Hachette, 1967). ​ ​

1 In geveb: A Journal of Yiddish Studies April (2020) cancelling visits … most contain only a few lines” – this is how the dispirited Harvard 3 cataloger described the content of the collection. “Soutine’s life was hard, but his posterity has been almost as tragic,” wrote Maurice Tuchman, referring to the relative dearth of serious scholarship on the artist’s paintings. It appears that this statement extends to the scarcity of sources on Soutine’s 4 life as well. Due to the lack of virtually anything written by Soutine that would shed light on his art, scholars have resorted to memoirs about Soutine. For instance, to explain Soutine’s obsession with painting dead animals, scholars routinely cited Soutine’s famous childhood recollection of witnessing the slaughter of goose, which the slaughterer conducted according to the Jewish ritual laws:

Once I saw a slaughterer cut the throat of a goose and bleed it out. I wanted to cry out, but his look of joy caught the cry in my throat. I always feel it there… It 5 was this cry that I was trying to free. I never could.

I will return to the content of this citation later in this introductory essay. At this point, I want to draw attention to its focalization. Contrary to the way in which this quote is presented in some of Soutine’s biographies, this is not Soutine’s voice. Rather, this is how Soutine’s friend, Emile Szittya, reported a conversation that had transpired decades earlier, in his 1955 memoire Soutine and his Time [Soutine et son temps]. In ​ ​ ​ ​ other words, all the citations scholars draw on when interpreting Soutine’s work are second and sometimes third-hand recollections of conversations he held with his friends. “Friends? He had no friends!” replied his daughter, Aimée, when a group of ​ ​ Soutine enthusiasts tried to form a Society of Friends after the war. She herself hardly knew her father, and her mother, Vera Debora Melnik, the only woman Soutine had ever legally wed, did not write about their marriage. This demonstrates how scarce and how 6 valuable these personal recollections are of conversations with Soutine. Luckily, some of this precious information about Soutine is hidden in plain sight. Since Yiddish was Soutine’s best language, as well as the best language of most of his Jewish friends and acquaintances in Paris, it is not surprising that some of these friends

3 Parke-Bernet Galleries, Autographs & Documents: Anthony Wayne & Zachary Taylor letters, an ​ important Susan B. Anthony archive, correspondence of Soutine and Chagall, American printed broadsides, newspapers, music & memorabilia, mostly from the Civil War: [property of] various owners, including the estate of the late Philip H. Ward, Jr. ... Henri Sérouya ... Public Auction, Tuesday, September 22 [1964] ... (New York: Parke-Bernet Galleries, 1964). The letters were published in: Sophie ​ Krebs, Henriette Mentha, and Nina Zimmer, Soutine und die Moderne = Soutine and Modernism, (Basel: ​ ​ Köln: Kunstmuseum Basel, 2008), 234-235. 4 Maurice Tuchman, “What is a Catalogue Raisonné?” Art International,18:1 (1974), 12. ​ ​ 5 The translation is cited from Klaus H. Carl, Chaïm Soutine (New York: Parkstone International, 2015), ​ ​ 79. Stanley Meisler presents this as Soutine’s actual quote. See: Shocking Paris: Soutine, Chagall and the ​ outsiders of Montparnasse (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 91. ​ 6 Aimée Soutine, “Soutine. mon père,” in: L' Amateur d’Art Nr. / no. 517. Beiheft / Supplement. (May - ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ September 1973):13-16 and her short column in Paris-Match 3 (1966): 19. ​ ​

2 In geveb: A Journal of Yiddish Studies April (2020) wrote notes and memoires in Yiddish, and occasionally also in Hebrew. It is surprising, 7 though, that none of these sources have found their way to the scholarship on Soutine. 8 As Leo Koenig argued as early as 1954, the relative lack of accounts on Soutine’s life from a Jewish perspective has created an imbalance as to how scholars understand the artist’s personal history. As a result, the biographies of Soutine overemphasize his relation with a circle of non-Jewish patrons, and have relatively less to say on Soutine’s relationship with his intimate circle of Paris-based Jewish painters. Moreover, the biographers who reached out to Soutine’s fellow Jewish artists often did so decades after these artists had shared their memories of Soutine in Yiddish and Hebrew publications. Some particularly unfortunate mistranslations of Yiddish idioms only highlight the different levels of cultural intimacy between the Yiddish and the French, and also how 9 much was lost in translation. My goal is to showcase how vital Yiddish is for our understanding of Chaim Soutine’s biography as well as for our interpretation of his art. In what follows, I provide a translation of three Yiddish documents: The first is an account written by Noah Pryłucki, a Jewish journalist and intellectual, of a meeting with Soutine in Paris in 1924, printed in the Warsaw Yiddish daily Der Moment in 1930. The second is a letter ​ ​ that Etel Tzukerman, Soutine’s sister, wrote to her brother around 1935. The third document, an unpublished manuscript, contains the memoirs of Soutine’s childhood friend, Nochum Gelfand (1952), which was preserved at the YIVO archives. These sources represent only a small portion of the materials on Soutine available in Yiddish publications. In this respect, this article is also an invitation for an expansion of the 10 dialogue between Yiddish scholars and art historians. These Yiddish sources validate the scholarly consensus concerning Soutine’s indifference towards Jewish art. Soutine was invested in maintaining social relations with Jewish artists. At the same time, he did not partake in any creative collaboration under the banner of what might be called “Jewish Art.” At the La Roche studios for ​ ​ artists in Paris, for example, Soutine was known to sing a Yiddish melody, as a way to 11 signal his Jewish identity to other Jewish artists, to encourage them to approach him. He made meaningful relations with painters from Israel, and sent some of his paintings

7 Compare for example Meisler’s Shocking Paris as well as Nadine Nieszawer’s Artistes Juifs et l'École de ​ ​ ​ Paris, (Paris: Somogy, 2016). Despite focusing on the Eastern European Jewish aspect of the Paris School, ​ neither work contains a single Yiddish source. 8 Leo Koenig, Yehudim ba-omanut ha-ḥadashah, (Tel Aviv: Devir, 1962), 149-162. ​ 9 Pierre Courthion, in his Soutine peintre du déchirant, based his account on conversations he had held ​ ​ with M. Faibisch Zafrin (Shraga Faibush Zarfin). Zarfin typified Soutine as a typical litvak, using the phrase a tseylem kop (literally: cross-head) to indicate “a rational mind.” Courthion explained this ​ ​ Yiddish idiom as an expression of the ethnic diversity in the Lithuanian lands. See: Soutine, peintre du ​ déchirant (Lausanne: Edita, 1972), 11. To be sure, other scholars were significantly more sensitive to ​ Jewish testimonies. For example, as early as 1945, Raymond Cogniat published a letter of Michel Kikoine on his friendship with Soutine, stressing the importance of citing Kikoine’s letter in its entirety. See: Soutine (Paris: Editions du Chêne, 1945), 29. ​ 10 For a lengthy collection of Jewish anecdotes on Soutine, which, to the best of my knowledge, was not included in any of the scholarly publications on Soutine, see: Chil Aronson, Bilder un geshtaltn fun ​ monparnas (Paris: [s.n.], 1963), particularly 128-148. ​ 11 See an interview with Mane Katz in: Borvin Frenkel, Mit yidishe kinstler: shmuesen un ​ bamerkungen (Miniatur-bibliotek; 5-6) (Pariz: Alv. yidisher kultur kongres in frankraykh, 1963), 122. ​

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12 to be presented at the Jerusalem Museum. He was also occasionally in touch with Yiddish writers Oyzer Varshavski and Sholem Asch, and showed interest in Sholem 13 Aleichem’s prose. At the same time, he was not a member of the Jewish group active in 14 La Roche known as the “machmadim” (Hebrew for “precious ones”), nor did he ​ ​ ​ ​ 15 ​ contribute to the London Yiddish art journal Renesans. He also did not participate in ​ ​ the Yiddish Congress in Paris, 1937. One single testimony states that, after 1937, Soutine joined the Paris gallery of the Yiddish cultural organization YIKUF (Yidisher Kultur 16 Farband). So far, I have not been able to locate additional supportive evidence. The translated texts presented here, however, nuance our understanding of Soutine’s Jewish subject positioning. Specifically, they demonstrate the artist’s ongoing relationship with Jewish Eastern Europe through the 1930s. These Yiddish sources highlight Soutine’s continuous relations with his family and with the world he left behind, an aspect that is basically absent from the French sources, and, as a result, from Soutine’s biographies. The Yiddish texts further articulate another channel that connected Soutine to Eastern Europe: the travels of Paris-based Jewish artists to Eastern Europe, and of Jewish artists and intellectuals based in Poland and Russia to Paris. Gelfand’s 1952 memoirs, for example, contain a rare account of how Soutine’s modernist work made its way back to Soutine’s hometown in the Soviet Union and how it was received by his family and childhood friends. Pryłucki’s article dramatizes how difficult it was for Soutine, who had left Russia for Paris in 1913, shortly before the dramatic spike in Eastern European Jewish artistic publications, to imagine the possibility of Jewish art connoisseurship in Eastern Europe. Pryłucki, his Eastern European interlocutor was, at the time, a delegate to the Polish parliament, a published art critic, and, finally, the proud owner of Soutine’s painting. Despite all that, Soutine’s inclination was to treat Pryłucki as a philistine. The letter Soutine’s sister, Etel, wrote to him in the 1930s may provide some kind of an explanation as to why Soutine had such a

12 th See: “Ta’aruchat tsayarim yehudim mi-pariz”, Do’ar Hayom (April 17 ​ 1936): 7. More generally on ​ ​ ​ Soutine and Palestinian art see: Gideon Efrat, Ha-tsiyur ha-israeli bi-shnot ha-shloshim: bein tel-aviv le-pariz,” in: Noa Tarshis, editor, Mané Katz : ukraina, pariz, erets yisrael (Haifa: Muzeon Maneh-Kats, ​ ​ 2011), 189 13 On Soutine’s reading of Sholem Aleichem see: Hersh Fenster, Undzere farpaynikte kinstler (Paris: ​ ​ ABECE, 1951), 150. In Mendel Mann’s The Self-Portrait [Der Oytoporṭreṭ], he shares a story told by Michel Kikoine (1892-1968). Kikoine and Soutine both met with a “famous Yiddish writer,” and the story, I believe, hints towards Sholem Asch, who first showed great enthusiasm towards Soutine’s work, only to dismiss the hungry Soutine when the latter showed up with a portrait of an old lady. Not particularly appreciative of Soutine’s taste for the grotesque, the author shouted from the stairs: “Do you want me to buy a portrait of a witch?”. See: Mendel Mann, Der Oytoportret (Tel Aviv: Y.L. Perets, 1969), 112-118. For ​ ​ supportive evidence of the relationship between Soutine and Sholem Asch see: Binyomin Shlevin, Shotn ​ fun monparnas (Tel Aviv: Ha-menorah, 1971), 20, There is also evidence of Soutine’s relations with Oyzer ​ Varshavski. See: Kenig Spero, Yizkor bukh, tsum ondenk fun 14 umgekumene parizer yidishe shrayber ​ (Paris: Farlag "Oyfsnay," 1946), 91. On a photo which possibly documents a meeting of Soutine and Varshavski see: Michel LeBrun-Franzaroli, Soutine photographié, ( Concremiers : Michel ​ LeBrun-Franzaroli, 2018), 46-51. 14 Marek Szwarc, Mémoires entre deux mondes: racontées à sa femme, Eugenia Markowa ​ (Coeuvres-et-Valsery: Ressouvenances: 2010) 15 Renesans (London, 1920). ​ ​ 16 Aronson, Khil, “Bagegenishen mit khana kovalska,” in Yizker bukh, tsum ondenk fun 14 umgekumene ​ parizer (Paris: Oyfsney, 1946), 199. ​

4 In geveb: A Journal of Yiddish Studies April (2020) hard time associating Jewish Eastern Europe with interest in art. Soutine’s own desire to paint, his biographers told us, was heavily discouraged by his family. From Gelfand’s memoir we know that Soutine’s family was aware of his success to secure recognition as a painter. At the same time, his sister turns to him for help because of his financial success. Strikingly, she never mentions the fact that he is a painter. Finally, I want to comment on the role of Yiddish in Soutine’s life. Yiddish was, to be sure, the language Soutine spoke in his family home, and most probably the language he spoke with his wife, Vera Debora Melnik. This was also presumably the language he spoke with his fellow Eastern European Jewish artists. Drawing on Yiddish sources brings us closer to these conversations and provides texture to these interactions, to the 17 Yiddish dialect that he spoke to his gestures, to his style. In addition, the Yiddish sources reveal the Jewish conceptual world against which Soutine created his art. In this respect, it is worth mentioning the pioneering work of Avigdor Posèq, the first to draw attention to the role of Yiddish in what Posèq defines as a “psycho-iconographical” study of Soutine’s paintings, namely the reconstruction of Soutine’s inner world, the way it is reflected in his art. Posèq’s scholarship was not well received and his methodology was considered “passé by 18 contemporary art historians.” Since Posèq’s insights on the Yiddish language draw on popular books authored by non-specialists, rather than on Yiddish dictionaries or linguistic studies, I suspect contemporary Yiddish scholars won’t be satisfied with his 19 scholarship either. Nevertheless, his insights about Soutine and the Yiddish imaginary strike me as original and useful. Posèq’s argument is particularly convincing in relation to the artist’s still lifes, which, indeed, have the potential to call to the imagination an ​ entire semantic field which combines halakhic regulations with the traditional Ashkenazi view of the animal world. For example, Posèq argues that Soutine’s celebrated portrayal of slaughtered animals can be decoded if one thinks about it in Yiddish terms. For Yiddish speakers, the word for a cadaver, neveyle, carries over the 20 ​ ​ meaning of its homograph nevole, a disgrace. In order to further substantiate Posèq’s ​ ​ ​ argument, I suggest we turn to the reception of Soutine’s paintings in Yiddish. A close reading of these sources would help us examine to what extent these sensibilities were shared among the Jewish interpretive community. The inspiration for writing this essay was a visit to Soutine’s exhibition at the Jewish Museum in New York, Flesh ​ (May-September 2018), which featured the aforementioned still life paintings. I encourage the readers to browse these images in the website dedicated to the exhibition, and to think about the paintings in a Yiddish idiom. Soutine’s still lives are full of tsar ​ bale khayim (compassion for animals’ suffering)—of nevelyes, pgorim (carcasses), and ​ ​ of animals whose startled look vi a hon in bne odem (the way the rooster looks at ​ ​ 17 Yankev Kozlovski, “Yidishe kinstler fun lite,“ in: Lite vo.2 (New York: Kultur gezelshaft fun litvishe yidn, ​ ​ 1965), 525-526. 18 Vivian B. Mann, Review of Matthew Baigell and Milly Heyd, Complex Identities: Jewish Consciousness ​ and Modern Art, (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2001).in: Ezra Mendelsohn, Jews and ​ ​ the State: Dangerous Alliances and the Perils of Privilege (New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, ​ 2003), 284. 19 Posèq draws his insights o from a relatively obscure popular book on Yiddish: Lillian Mermin Feinsilver, The Taste of Yiddish (South Brunswick: T. Yoseloff), 1971. ​ 20 Avigdor Posèq, Soutine: His Jewish Modality (Sussex, England: Book Guild, 2001), 203. ​ ​

5 In geveb: A Journal of Yiddish Studies April (2020) people) reminds us of the way roosters gaze at the world during the Yom Kippur’s 21 prayer, without any understanding, as they are about to be slaughtered.

21 See: https://thejewishmuseum.org/exhibitions/chaim-soutine-flesh. Accessed July 2018.

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Appendix [1] Noah Pryłucki, “The Son of Zelig the Tailor from Smilovitch - One of the th 22 Most Famous Painters in Our Times”, Der Moment (July 11 ​ 1930), Part 1. ​

… Soutine’s friends infected me with their faith in him. I liked him even before we met, just from the things people were telling me about him. And when, in March 1924, a Parisian collector offered me the chance to purchase from him one of Soutine’s paintings, (one) that he wanted to get rid of badly, I snatched up this artwork as if it was a gemstone….

A year later, while I’m in Café de la “Rotonde”, news broke that Soutine is in Paris, and he is on his way to the café. As soon as he shows up at the door, an uproar breaks out, and the commotion intensifies when the friends who circle him notice that he is wearing new, clean clothes.

A typical yeshiva student—both in his looks as well as in the way he dresses [ . . . ]. It’s enough to look at him for a second, and you know, that this is not a man of this ​ world. He is devoted to his field, and is, in his own style, a cunning young man—one of those shy and smart fellows, who don’t trust people from other social circles. When they hear the foolish talk of these people, an ironic sparkle lights their eyes, and they enjoy ridiculing them behind their backs.

We make each other’s acquaintance. “You are probably a big fan of Sujet?” He strikes up a conversation with me right away with a mischievous jab which is, at the same time, bashful, and in the first few minutes of the conversation he constantly tries

22 Noyekh Pryłucki (1882–1941) was a Warsaw-based journalist, political leader, and Yiddish ​ ​ ​ scholar. After the publication of this essay, Nochum Gelfand, Soutine’s childhood friend, ​ contacted Pryłucki with some corrections and suggestions. In August 1930 Prilutsk responded with a request from Gelfand to write his recollections of Soutine. Gelfand did send a response. Nevertheless, the 1932 republication of this article in Moment does not contain any changes. For Gelfand’s postwar memoirs on Soutine, which he sent to Daniel Tsharny, see: appendix 2. Prylucki’s letter is published online in: Cohen, Nathan. 2010. Moment, Der. YIVO Encyclopedia ​ of Jews in Eastern Europe. http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Moment_Der (accessed July 25, 2018).

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to trip me up. He likely takes a sly joy from the prospects of making some 23 sophisticated joke.

After he tests the waters and realizes he won’t be able to pull off a hoax, he throws away the thorny tone and becomes serious and trustful. He starts talking about himself, the things that have been worrying him, so it seems, for some time.

Art—this is truth, only truth is art. But how difficult it is to achieve! The way is through color. Painting is above all about color. But only the lucky ones, born under the deep blue French sky have an instinct for color. You have to be a Frenchmen from your mother’s womb, to know how to paint. [ . . . ] He speaks with curt, condensed sentences, coined like aphorisms. He speaks his mind, 24 things that he experienced, and were plaguing and preoccupying him.

I am very sorry, when he gets up to leave. He excuses himself: He has just arrived, and doesn’t have a lodging for the night yet. In his hand, which he takes out of his pocket, in an attempt to pay for the wine I ordered for him, I see a few copper coins—all the cash he has— definitely not enough to rent a room in a hotel. When we are about to bid farewell, he stoops and says impishly (or maybe in all seriousness?) Do you think I can paint? Not at all!

23 My understanding is that Soutine made fun of Pryłucki, pretending that Sujet is a name of a painter (like Monet or Manet). Karolina Szymaniak suggested that this is a reference to Jewish subjects in arts. Sunny Yudkoff suggested that this is a reference to representational art, as opposed to abstract art. 24 Compare Michel Kikoine letter to Raymond Cogniat in: Soutine (Paris: Editions du Chene, 1945), 29: “Soutine, and actually, all of us, were preoccupied by another drama. Being exiled Jewish painters in a strange land meant that we did not have a (Jewish) visual art history, but only that of the adoptive country, which we couldn’t counter-balance.”

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Appendix [2]

25 Etel Tzukerman (Soutine), Letter to Chaim Soutine, [1935]

My dear brother Chaim-Itzhak Soutine, I, your youngest sister, Etel, write you a greeting and wish you happiness in life. I, together with my beloved husband and my daughter Nekhomele, am with our mother. Until now, dear brother, we have been living miserably. Our father has been dead for three years. It has been two years since our brother Yankel passed away. We are like lost sheep in the great world. Now, dear brother, you are like a ray of sunshine—lightening up our dark lives. You turned on the light, and every time we think about you, it gives us the courage to live. We thank you, dear brother, for the present that you have sent us. Mother also gave us a few francs. Dear brother, I myself am a weak person, I have a serious condition: it’s called diabetes. It’s incurable, and I must keep a strict diet. Until now I was not able to do that, because we live very poorly. But now, dear brother, as mother gave me a few francs, I have some kind of support for my sickness. Now, dear brother, I am turning to you to save us, as I have no other recourse. Please forgive me that I bother you so much, but it has come to a point that I must share everything with you—who can be closer than a brother? Only you, my dear, can be my savior. Our daughter is neglected, I rarely look out for her because I am always too weak. She is especially dear to me, since for five (children) she is the only one who survived, may she live for many years. Dear brother, it is very difficult for me to ask, but I ask you nevertheless if you can please help us with a few francs, in all my future life I will always say that you were my savior. I wish you health, your sister Etel Tzukerman. My husband and daughter send their regards.

Appendix [3]

Dear Daniel Tsharny, In my previous letter to you, I promised to write about my countryman and schoolmate, the artist Chaim Soutine. Really, we should meet so I can spend a long time sharing my memories of him, but, until that happens (and I hope this will happen in the

25 Reproduced in Nicoïdski, Clarisse. Soutine, ou la profanation. 1993, 267-268. The French ​ ​ translation (pages 200-201) is fragmentary and full of omissions. Chaim Soutine’s father died in 1932, hence Etel Tzukerman wrote the letter around 1935. She died a year later, in 1936. Soutine’s mother passed away in 1938. Soutine’s niece, Nachama (Nina), and his brother-in-law, Sholem Tzukerman - both mentioned in this letter - survived the war. Nechama (Nina) Ferapontova currently lives in Minsk. Other relatives immigrated to the US. For additional information based on an interview with Nechama (Nina) Ferapontova, see: http://soutine-smilovichi.by/excursion/etapi-jizni-sutina/semya-khaima-sutina?tmpl=component &print=1 and http://zviazda.by/be/news/20150519/1431983649-bezumec-geniy.

9 In geveb: A Journal of Yiddish Studies April (2020) near future), I will share a few episodes of his life. First, a comment on his biography. I have no idea why so many writers provide such an incredibly inaccurate biography of his. Even Noah Pryłucki, who, twenty two years ago, wrote about him in two issues of 26 Moment, had made a mistake in Soutine’s biography, and I drew his attention and I ​ sent him materials (following his suggestion, as you will see in the appended letter), which I had as a close friend of Soutine’s. His father’s name was not Shloyme the tailor, as Yankev Botoshanski wrote in the clipping from the Argentinian “Di Presse” that you had sent me, nor Selig the tailor, as Noyekh Prylucki wrote, but Zalmen, or we used to call him in Smilovits, Zalmanke der Shnayder. And Chaim Soutine (or Chaim-Itsye as we used to call him), was not the eighth child . . . or the eleventh… He was the son of Zalman Soutine from his second marriage to Sore, born in 1893. Gorelik, I believe, already wrote this in a small journal of reproductions, if I am not mistaken, which was 27 published in Paris in the “Renaissance” publishing house, some twenty-five years ago. I purchased two copies in Warsaw of that publication, and sent them home to Smilovitch and received the answer from my brother that this was a great surprise in the shtetl. People were surprised to read what had become of the not-especially-clever Chaim-Itsye in the art world. I sent the other copy to his younger brother Gedalye, who then escaped from Russia with other yeshiva students and was recuperating in Otwock, ​ and whom I visited a couple of times. I also told him that the great painter (Marek) Szwarc, who came from Paris for an exhibition with his paintings, in an interview with the Warsaw (daily) Haynt, said that Chaim Soutine was one of the three greatest 28 ​ ​ painters in Paris. His brother Gedalye as well as the rest of the Smilovitch family were convinced that Chaim was dead, because he had not kept in contact. When Gedalye travelled from Otwock to Warsaw to meet Szwarc, Szwarc couldn’t believe that this was his brother, because he was going around in rags, malnourished. Szwarc said, if it’s true that Chaim Soutine is your brother he wouldn’t have allowed you to be dressed so poorly, and with one day of drawing, he could have provided for you for a whole year.Nevertheless he gave him $20 on the assumption that Chaim Soutine would give it back to him in Paris. With the first wife, his father had a son called Moyshke, who died here a few years ago, and also a daughter, Mirke, who also died here in the Bronx a few years ago. With the second wife Soreh, he had four more sons: Gershn, Khayem Itsye, 29 Yankl, and Gedalye, and two daughters, Tzipe, (died in the Bronx), and Itke-Friede. About five years ago I received a letter from Itke Friede’s daughter, asking me to help her find her aunts and cousins, because she is the only child to survive the great conflagration that engulfed the earth (the Holocaust – OD). Her parents and brothers and sisters died from hunger deep in Russia, where they had fled the Nazis. There are also a nephews and her cousin with whom I meet from time to time at the reunions of

26 See appendix (1) 27 Waldemar George. Ḥayim suṭin. yidn-kinstler-monografyes. Paris: Éditions Le Triangle, 1928. The bibliographical information Gelfand provides from memory is wrong. More on Le Triangle in Aronson, Bilder un Geshtaltn, 37-39. 28 See Marek Szwarc’s memoir, Entre Deux Mondes (note 14). ​ ​ 29 Itke-Freyde is the full Jewish name of the aforementioned Etel, the writer of the letter translated in appendix (2).

10 In geveb: A Journal of Yiddish Studies April (2020) people from Smilovitz, one of them had even visited Chaim Soutine years ago, when he was in Paris. That’s all for now about Soutine.

(1)

סוטינס חבֿרים האָבן מיך אָנגעשטעקט מיט זײער גלױבן אין אים: ער איז מיר געפֿעלן געװאָרן, נאָך איידער כ׳האָב מיך מיט אים באַקענט — בלױז פֿון דעם אַלײן, װאָס מ׳האָט מיר װעגן אים אָנדערצײלט. און בשעת אין מערץ 1924 האָט מיר אײנער אַ זאַמלער אין פּאַריז אָנגעשלאָגן אָפּצוקױפֿן בַײ אים סוטינס אַ געמעל, פֿון װעלכן ער האָט, קענטיק, שטאַרק חשק געהאַט פּטור צו װערן, האָב איך אים באַלד אױפֿגעכאַפּט װי אַן אבֿן־טובֿ...

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אין אַ יאָר אַרום הער איך אין דער „ראָטאָנדע“ די סענסאַציע, אַז סוטין איז אין פּאַריז, און אַז מ׳װעט אים באַלד זען ​ אין קאַפֿע. עס ברעכט אױס אַ טאַראַראַם, װען ער באַװַײזט זיך נאָר אין דער טיר, און דאָס געפּילדער װערט נאָך מער רעשדיק, װען די חבֿרים, װאָס רינגלען אים תּיכּף אַרום, באַמערקן, אַז ער טראָגט נַײע, רײנע מלבושים.

אַ טיפּישער ישיבֿה־בחור — הן אין פּערזענלעכן אױסזען, הן אין הולך. [...] גענוג צו װאַרפֿן אַ בליק אױף אים, און דו װײסט: ס׳איז אַ מענטש נישט פֿון דער װעלט, אַ פֿאַנאַטיקער אין זַײן גבֿול און אױף זַײן שטײגער אַ געריבענער יונג, ​ — פֿון יענע שעמעװדיק־קלוגע חבֿרה־לַײט, װאָס האָבן ניט קײן צוטרױ צו מענטשן פֿון אַן אַנדער קרַײז, הערן זײערע „יאָלדישע“ רײד מיט אַן איראָנישן בליץ אין די זַײדענע שװאַרצאַפּלען און האָבן ליב הינטערװַײלעכץ זײ צו נעמען אויפֿן צימבל פֿון חוזק.

מיר באַקענען זיך.

— איר האָט אַװדאי ליב סוזשעט? — פֿאַרפֿאָרט ער מיר גלַײך גנבֿיש־שטעכעדיק און צו גלַײך שעמעװדיק־געמיטלעך, און די ערשטע עטלעכע מינוט פֿון שמועס פּרוּווט ער כּסדר מיך אַרױפֿצופֿירן אױף אַ גליטש. ער האָט, משמעות, ממזריש הנאה פֿון דער פּערספּעקטיװ, צו קענען טרַײבן אַ ביסל ראַפֿינירט לצנות.

אױסטאַפּנדיק אַזױ אַרום דאָס פֿעלד און איבערצַײגנדיק זיך, אַז קײן פּורים־שפּיל װעט זיך דאָ ניט אַײנגעבן, װאַרפֿט ער אַװעק דעם שפּיצעכיקן טאָן און װערט ערנסט און פֿאַרטרױלעך. הייבט אָן צו רעדן װעגן דעם, װאָס עגבערט אים אינעװײניק, זעט אױס — נישט פֿון נעכטן אָן.

— קונסט — דאָס איז אמת. בלױז דער אמת איז קונסט. אָבער װי שװער איז אים צו דערגרייכן! דער װעג ליגט דורך דער פֿאַרב. מאָלערַײ דאָס זענען צום אַלעם ערשטן פֿאַרבן, נאָר דעם חוש פֿאַר זײ פֿאַרמאָגן בלױז יענע גליקלעכע, װאָס זענען געבױרן געװאָרן אונטערן טיף בלאָען פֿראַנצייזישן הימל. מ׳דאַרף זַײן אַ פֿראַנצױז פֿון דער מאַמעס בױך — אױף צו קענען מאָלן...

[...] סוטין רעדט מיט אָפּגעריסענע קאָנדענסירטע פֿראַזן, װאָס זענען געמינצט װי אַפֿאָריזמען. ער זאָגט אַרױס אײגנס, אַלײן דורכגעטראַכט און דורכגעװײטאָגט.

איך באַדױער זייער, װען ער הײבט זיך אױף אַװעקצוגײן. ער פֿאַרענטפֿערט זיך: ער איז ערשט הַײנט געקומען צו פֿאָרן און האָט נאָך ניט קײן נאַכטלעגער. אין האַנט בַײ אים, װען ער נעמט אַרױס פֿון קעשענע דאָס גאַנצע ביסל מזומנים, מאַכנדיק אַ פּרוּװ צו באַצאָלן פֿאַרן װַײן, מיט װעלכן איך האָב אים טראַקטירט, דערזע איך אַ גַײפֿל קופּערנע מטבעות, װאָס קלעקן זיכער נישט אױף צו נעמען אַ צימער אין אַ האָטעל.

11 In geveb: A Journal of Yiddish Studies April (2020)

בַײם געזעגענען זיך, בייגט ער זיך אָן און גיט אַ זאָג שעלמיש (און אפֿשר גאָר נישט אױף קאַטאָװעס?): — איר מײנט, איך קען מאָלן? ס׳הייבט זיך נישט אָן!...

(2) מַײן ליבער ברודער חיים־יצחק סוטין! איך דַײן ייִנגסטע שוועסטער עטל שרַײב דיר אַ גרוס. איך ווינטש דיר פֿיל גליק אין דַײן לעבן. איך און מַײן ליבער מאַן און אונדזער ליבע טאָכטערל נחמהלע געפֿינען זיך צוזאַמען מיט אונדזער מוטער. ביז איצט, טַײערער ברודער, האָבן מיר געלעבט זייער עלנט. אונדזער פֿאָטער איז שוין טויט 3 יאָר. 2 יאָר אַז אונדזער ברודער יאַנקל איז געשטאָרבן. מיר זַײנען געווען פּינקטלעך ווי בלודנע שעפּסן אויף דער גרויסער וועלט. יעצט, טַײערער ברודער, ביסטו דו פּונקט ווי אַ שטראַל פֿון דער זון, ערלַײכטסט אונדזער פֿינצטערן לעבן. דו האָסט אונדז געמאַכט ליכטיק אין יעדער ווינקעלע. דער געדאַנק וועגן דיר, טַײערער ברודער, גיט אונדז פֿיל מוט צום לעבן. מיר באַדאַנקען דיר, טַײערער ברודער, פֿאַר דַײן מתּנה וואָס דו האָסט אונדז געשיקט. די מוטער האָט אונדז אויך געגעבן צו עטלעכע פֿראַנק. ליבער ברודער, איך זעלבסט בין אַ שוואַכער מענטש, איך האָב אין זיך, ניט פֿאַר דיר געדאַכט, אַ שלעכטן פֿעלער – אַ צוקער־קראַנקייט. דאָס איז אַ פֿעלער וואָס מע קען זיך ניט אויסקורירן . נאָר איך דאַרף האָבן אַ ​ שטרענגע דיעטע. ביז איצט האָב איך דאָס ניט געקענט ערווַײזן ווַײל מיר לעבן זייער אָרעם. נאָר יעצט, טַײערער ברודער, אַז די מוטער האָט מיר געגעבן עטלעכע פֿראַנק, קען שוין עטוואָס אונטערהאַלטן מַײן קראַנקן לעבן. יעצט, ליבער ברודער, האָף איך נאָר צו דיר. איך ווענד זיך צו דיר ווי צו אַ רעטער. קיין אַנדער אויסוועג האָב איך ניט. איך בעט דיר, טַײערער ברודער, אַז דו זאָלסט מיר אַנטשולדיקן וואָס איך ריר דיר אויף אַזוי פֿיל אָן נאָר מַײן לאַגע ברענגט מיט אַז איך מוז זיך מיט דיר אַלעס טיילן — ווער איז נאָך נענטער ווי אַ ברודער? נאָר דו, מַײן טַײערער, ​ ​ קענסט זַײן מַײן רעטער. אונדזער איינציקע טאָכטערל איז נעבעך פֿאַרוואָרפֿן. איך קוק אויף איר זייער ווינציק ווַײל איך בין אַליין זייער שוואַך. זי איז בַײ מיר ציטעריק ווַײל פֿון 5 איז זי בַײ מיר געבליבן איינע, זאָל זי שוין זַײן בַײ אונדז אויף לאַנגע יאָר. ליבער ברודער, עס איז מיר אַפֿילו זייער שווער צו בעטן דיר נאָר איך בעט, אויב עס איז נאָר מעגלעך אַז דו זאָלסט מיר אויסהעלפֿן אין עטלעכע פֿראַנק, טאָ העלף מיר. אין מַײן גאַנצן צוקונפֿטיקן לעבן וועל איך שטענדיק זאָגן אַז דו ביסט געווען מַײן רעטער. אַדיע. פֿאַרבלַײב געזונט ווי עס ווינטשט דיר דַײן שוועסטער עטל צוקערמאַן. מַײן מאַן און אונדזער טאָכטערל גריסן דיר האַרצלעך. זַײ געזונט.

(3) סוטין — זכרונות אין מַײן פֿאָריקן בריוו צו אַײך, ליבער פֿרַײנד, האָב איך אַײך צוגעזאָגט צו שרַײבן וואָס וועגן מַײן לאַנדסמאַן און ​ שול־חבֿר, דעם פֿאַרשטאָרבענעם קונסטמאָלער חיים סוטין. איך וואָלט באמת געדאַרפֿט מיט אַײך זיצן אַ לענגערע צַײט און אַײך איבערגעבן מַײנע זכרונות וועגן אים. אָבער ביז יענער צַײט (און איך האָף אַז דאָס וועט איה״ש אין דער נאָענטער צוקונפֿט געשען) וועל איך אַײך איבערגעבן כאָטש אייניקע עפּיזאָדן פֿון אים. צום ערשט אַ באַמערקונג וועגן זַײן ביאָגראַפֿיע. איך ווייס ניט פֿון וואַנען עס נעמען זיך די פֿילע אומפּינקטלעכקייטן וואָס פֿילע שרַײבער האָבן געמאַכט וועגן זַײן לעבנס־ביאָגראַפֿיע. אַפֿילו דער קדוש נח פּרילוצקי ע״ה הי״ד ווען ער האָט מיט 22 יאָר צוריק געשריבן וועגן אים אין 2 נומערן פֿון ״מאָמענט״, האָט געמאַכט אַ טעות אין סוטינס ביאָגראַפֿיע און איך האָב אים אויפֿמערקזאַם געמאַכט אויף דעם און צוגעשיקט אים מאַטעריאַל (אויף זַײן פֿאַרלאַנג, ווי איר וועט זען אין דעם בַײגעלייגטן בריוו זַײנעם דאָ צו אַײך) וועלכע איך האָב געהאַט אַלס נאָענטער חבֿר זַײנער. זַײן פֿאָטער האָט ניט געהייסן שלמה דער שנַײדער ווי עס ווערט געזאָגט אין אַײער צוגעשיקטן אויסשניט פֿון אַרגענטינער ״די פּרעסע״ פֿון יעקבֿ באָטאָשאַנסקי, אויך האָט ער ניט געהייסן זעליג דער שנַײדער ווי נח פּרילוצקי האָט געשריבן, נאָר זלמן, אָדער ווי מען האָט אים גערופֿן בַײ אונדז אין סמילאָוויץ זלמנקע דער שנַײדער. ער, חיים סוטין (אָדער חיים־איציע ווי מיר אַלע פֿלעגן אים רופֿן), איז ניט געווען דאָס 8טע קינד בַײ זַײנע עלטערן ווי יעקבֿ באָטאָשאַנסקי גיט איבער און אויך ניט דאָס 11טע קינד […]. זַײן פֿאָטער זלמן סוטין האָט אים געבוירן פֿון זַײן צווייטער פֿרוי שׂרהן אין יאָר 1893. אַזוי דאַכט מיר האָט אויך געשריבן ש. גאָרעקליק אין אַ קליינעם רעפּראָדוקציע־זשורנאַל, אויב איך מאַך ניט קיין טעות, אין פּאַריז, אין דער ״רענעסאַנס״־אויסגאַבע מיט אַ וועלכע 25 יאָר צוריק. איך האָב געקויפֿט אין וואַרשע 2 עקזעמפּלאַרן פֿון דער אויסגאַבע, איינער אָפּגעשיקט אַהיים קיין סמילאָוויץ און באַקומען אַן ענטפֿער

12 In geveb: A Journal of Yiddish Studies April (2020)

פֿון מַײן ייִנגערן ברודער אַז דאָס איז געווען אַ גרויס סורפּרַײז אין שטעטל לייענדיק וואָס פֿון דעם ניט איבעריק קלוגן חיים־איציען איז געוואָרן אין דער קינסטלערישער וועלט. אַ צווייטע קאָפּיע האָב איך איבערגעגעבן צו זַײן ייִנגערן ברודער גדליהן, וועלכער איז דאַן אַנטלאָפֿן פֿון רוסלאַנד מיט נאָך ישיבֿה־בחורים און זיך געהיילט אין אָטוואָצק, און וועלכן איך האָב אַ פּאָר מאָל באַזוכט און אים אויפֿמערקזאַם געמאַכט אַז אַ גרויסער קונסטמאָלער שוואַרץ, וועלכער איז פֿון פּאַריז געקומען אויף אַן אויסשטעלונג מיט זַײנע בילדער קיין פּוילן, האָט אין אַן אינטערוויו מיט אַ מיטאַרבעטער פֿון וואַרשעווער ״הַײנט״ געזאָגט אַז חיים סוטין רעכנט זיך צווישן די 3 גרעסטע פּאַריזער קונסטמאָלער. זַײן ברודער גדליה ווי אויך זַײן גאַנץ פֿאַמיליע אין סמילאָוויץ האָבן אים שוין געהאַלטן אַלס טויט ווַײל ער האָט פֿון זיי קיינעם ניט געוואָלט וויסן… און ווען גדליה איז אַרַײנגעפֿאָרן פֿון אָטוואָצק קיין וואַרשע צו זען זיך מיט שוואַרצן האָט שוואַרץ ניט געגלייבט אַז ער איז זַײנער אַ ברודער, ווַײל ער איז געגאַנגען אָפּגעריסן און ניט שטאַרק דערנערט, האָט ער געזאָגט אַז „ווען עס איז אמת אַז חיים סוטין איז דַײן ברודער, וואָלט ער דיר ניט געלאָזן אַזוי אָרעם גיין געקליידט, און מיט איין טאָג מאָלן ווען ער גיט אַוועק פֿאַר דיר וואָלטסטו בכּבֿוד אַ גאַנץ יאָר זיך אויסהאַלטן“... דאָך האָט ער אים געגעבן $20 מיט דעם געדאַנק אַז ח. סוטין וועט עס אים צוריקגעבן קומענדיק צוריק קיין פּאַריז. מיט דער ערשטער פֿרוי האָט זַײן פֿאָטער געהאַט אַ זון משהקע, וועלכער איז מיט עטלעכע יאָר צוריק דאָ געשטאָרבן, און אויך אַ טאָכטער מירקע. זי איז אויך דאָ אין בראָנקס געשטאָרבן מיט עטלעכע יאָר צוריק. מיט דער 2טער פֿרוי שׂרהן האָט ער געהאַט נאָך 4 זין – גרשון, חיים־איציע, יאַנקל און גדליה, ווי אויך 2 טעכטער – ציפּע (געשטאָרבן דאָ אין בראָנקס) און איטקע־פֿריידע. פֿון דער איטקע־פֿריידעס אַ טאָכטער האָב איך באַקומען (מיט אַ וועלכע 5 יאָר צוריק) אַ בריוו, אַז איך זאָל דאָ אויסגעפֿינען אירע טאַנטעס און קוזינס, ווַײל זי איז די איינציק פֿאַרבליבענע קינד געבליבן לעבן פֿון דער גרויסער וועלט־שׂרפֿה, אירע עלטערן און אַלע אירע ברידער און שוועסטער זַײנען אויסגעשטאָרבן פֿון הונגער טיף אין רוסלנאַד, וווּהין זיי זַײנען אַנטלאָפֿן פֿון די נאַציס. עס געפֿינען זיך נאָך דאָ חיימס פּלימעניקעס און אויך קוזינס מיט וועלכע איך טרעף זיך אַ מאָל אויף אַ סמילאָוויצער מיטינג, און איינער פֿון זיי , עקיבֿא פֿלאַקס , האָט אַפֿילו אים באַזוכט מיט יאָרן צוריק, ווען ער איז געווען אין פּאַריז. עד־כּאַן פּרשה סוטין.

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