Miryeml, An Excerpt

“You have written something powerful . . . I have not encountered such images and scenes in the dozens of books which have already been written about the Holocaust.”
                                                      —Joseph Opatoshu, letter to Tea Arcizewska, April 3, 1953

Tea Arciszewska’s play Miryeml deftly integrates twentieth-century history and Jewish folklore into a narrative about children’s response to wartime trauma. A modernist work in the style of I. L. Peretz, the play seeks at once to capture a vanished civilization and to condemn the world for abandoning it. Arciszewska began writing Miryeml in the 1920s in response to the brutal pogroms that took place in the wake of World War I. When she finished the play in the 1950s, her contemporaries praised it as a memorial to the children murdered during the Holocaust. In 1954 Arciszewska received an I. L. Peretz Prize for best Yiddish drama from the Congress for Jewish Culture for Miryeml, which was then still a manuscript. In 1958, the play was published in book form in Canada by Melekh Grafshteyn, and in 1959 an edition was published in Paris by Goldene pave. N. Shverdlin, vice-president of the Yiddish Writer’s Union, praised Miryeml but claimed it would be impossible to stage; as far as we know, the play has never been performed.

Miryeml is a Yiddish-language dramatic cycle in fifteen scenes about pogroms and the Holocaust from the perspective of Polish Hasidic children, who make sense of their harsh new reality through games and stories about rebbes. The play takes its name from the protagonist Miryeml, an adolescent orphan whose name recalls the biblical prophetess Miriam. She suffers from a mental illness and often disturbs the other children with her morbid comments, which are frequently delivered in rhyme. By the end of the play, Miryeml becomes a prophetlike figure who leads the children from Warsaw toward (she claims) Jerusalem.

While most Yiddish play translations are from the heyday of Yiddish theater, from the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries, Miryeml is a postwar work that juxtaposes Jewish folklore with modernist motifs. Although children do appear in plays about the Holocaust—such as The Diary of Anne Frank and Leopoldstadt—it is unusual for a text about the Holocaust to highlight the experience of a female adolescent with a mental illness. Another surprising feature of Miryeml is that it is vague about who precisely is persecuting the children and why they need to hide in cellars for large portions of the play—resulting in a completely victim-focused narrative that resists easy identification with either World War I or World War II. With regards to its modernism, topic, and critical acclaim, Miryeml challenges our expectations of Yiddish dramas and Yiddish women’s writing

Note: This scene can be performed or read by four actors (and a narrator): Miryeml, Tsirele/Motele, Rokhele/Borekhl, Leyzerl/Meylekhl. 

— Sonia Gollance

 

Scene 7: Miryeml Tells Prophecies

Characters:
Miryeml: mentally ill, 13–14 years old, daughter of a judge in religious court, orphan
Tsirele: the Rabbi’s daughter, 8–10 years old, orphan
Rokhle: 11–12 years old, foreign, lonely
Motele: 9 years old, the Grandmother’s grandson, has no parents
Borekhl: 7 years old, second grandson
Leyzerl: the Butcher’s son, 10 years old
Meylekhl: 12 years old, a child from the shtetl

(TSIRELE and MIRYEML stand in front of the curtain.)

TSIRELE: The country’s called Poland?

MIRYEML: Poland . . . Woe-land . . .

TSIRELE: Our shtetl was a Jewish paradise, isn’t that right? But not here, right, Miryeml? Where does the sky end, where does the world stop?

MIRYEML: Heaven starts out the same as hell . . .

TSIRELE: Miryeml, where are we?

MIRYEML: Warsaw, the devil’s city.

TSIRELE: And where’s our new room?

MIRYEML: Who cares? It’s a tomb.

TSIRELE: (repeats) Who cares. It’s a tomb?

MIRYEML: See, my mirror. (takes out a shard of a mirror) Take a good look! See? A gray demon with red eyes. He does black magic and gobbles all the children!

TSIRELE: Gobbles all the children? Then the world will go dark! Haven’t you heard? The sun only rises because of us children. If there aren’t any children, the sun will set . . . forever. It’s in a book. (CHILDREN exit, curtain falls. Short pause. Curtain rises.)

*          *          *

(Warsaw. A courtyard in the old, opulent style. Nearby a collapsed, burned-out little house. A wide gate, tall steps leading to a house. Children sit on the steps and on stones. MIRYEML stands on the highest step, TSIRELE one step lower. ROKHELE tells a story. All the children listen closely. MIRYEML and TSIRELE also sit down for a moment.)

ROKHELE: . . . And in the end, it was like this. As the angels carried the child’s heart cradled in their white wings, they were attacked by black demons! The demons were hungry, and they devoured the heart.

TSIRELE:  I want to cry. Go on anyway . . .

MIRYEML: Bobe-Yure, good week. I know the story of a black land. A black sun, a black sky. In the sky there’s a black clock, and black watch hands tick . . . Coming out from all the fields, from all the houses, from all the gates, from all the doors . . . are dead people going about their day. Black corpses are carried outside, wrapped in prayer shawls . . . They walk through the black snow . . . One following another . . . And black people, black clothes, black houses, black window panes. Everything is black. The earth is black . . . (she starts abruptly and shouts with great earnestness and fear) Children! Children! Did you hear? Listen! Someone’s been killed by a shot to the heart . . .

CHILDREN: (listen for a moment together) Quiet!

ROKHELE: I’ve gotten so sad.

TSIRELE: Me too.

LEYZERL: This house is haunted.

TSIRELE: How do you know that?

LEYZERL: Ghosts fly out from over there and disappear on the way back.

MIRYEML: One ghost has green hair and red eyes; I don’t care about them. Pesach with khreyn, crazy’s my name. Tell me, Tsirele, what’ve you had to eat today? You’ve been fed some stale bread. (laughs)

ROKHELE: Miryeml won’t play. She says crazy things all the time.

TSIRELE: Sholem says she’s a tired dove.

MIRYEML: I’ve got a magic glass, an enchanted mirror . . . It tells me everything . . . 

TSIRELE: Out loud?

MIRYEML: As loud as it can . . .

CHILDREN: Show us! Are you going to play with it? (run up to her)

MIRYEML: When you look at it from this side, you get stretched out big and tall . . . From that side, small and narrow . . . Sharp edges . . . You have to look exactly in the middle . . . (jumps around the mirror) from the other side, a thousand hunchbacks, and here in the corner you’re ripped in two, in three . . . And there you become completely blurred . . . Watch out for a mirror with scratches.

BOREKHL: Go away, stop that . . . Let’s play shul, all right?

MOTELE: I’ll be the cantor, or maybe even the High Priest from the Temple in Jerusalem.

MEYLEKHL:  Did you know a cantor can only have good deeds or else he can’t go near the pulpit?

MOTELE: No, that’s just for Rosh Heshone and Yom Kiper. Before the prayers he has to dunk himself in the mikve twice. He has to be completely pure.

ROKHELE: Go on, Motele, tell us. Have you sinned? Tell us! Any sin at all?

MOTELE: (silently thinks it over) Yes, I crushed a great big worm with my foot there in the house.

BOREKHL: Let me be the cantor, me!

MOTELE: No, Borekhl once squashed two flies, I saw it myself. (CHILDREN erupt with laughter)

BOREKHL: Not true . . . I haven’t sinned . . . Later I apologized to the fly . . . (CHILDREN laugh)

TSIRELE: That’s very silly. You know, a fly also has sisters and brothers and a mama and little children.

ROKHELE: What’ll you be? (calls upon MEYLEKHL)

MEYLEKHL: I’ll be the Messiah! I’ll come when the world is full of darkness and gloom. I’ll come and raise my right hand and give a sign with my finger, everyone will rise up, and all the dead people and all the living ones will go together to the Land of Israel.

CHILDREN: To the Land of Israel? To the Land of Israel . . .

MEYLEKHL: We’ll be redeemed!

MIRYEML: (interrupts and laughs) Jews have already been waiting about a million-bazillion years. Now Meylekhl wants to redeem them in an instant. (laughs, gets lost in thought)

ROKHELE: Come on, he’s obviously just pretending.

MEYLEKHL: (forcefully) No, no. It’s the truth.

MOTELE: The Butcher’s Wife said (sadly) if the Messiah doesn’t come now, surely he’ll never come.

CHILDREN: Don’t talk like that. You can’t.

TSIRELE: (forcefully) It’s written clearly in the Torah. Jews are a blessed people.

MIRYEML: When you’re blessed, you get a test.

MEYLEKHL: God has chosen the people of Israel!

TSIRELE: That’s what’s written in the holy books.

MIRYEML: Written on vellum, and yet they expel them!

TSIRELE: Did you know that Jews redeem the sins of the whole world? And repent for all generations? For strangers and for family. My mama, of blessed memory, told me herself. There’s no changing fate!

ROKHELE: Yosele won’t play; he has scabies and a matted lump of hair.

MIRYEML: (runs up to him, kisses him on his head, embraces him) The sea will cure you, the sea is parted! After all those days, and nights fifty score . . . There won’t be slaves anymore.

TSIRELE: It’s true, the Messiah will come, he’ll have just one eye . . . and is this one eye enough to see the whole world?

MIRYEML: Of course, a fish has two eyes, an ox has two eyes, and a person has two eyes—but he has one eye!

CHILDREN: Shhh . . . Shhhh . . .

MEYLEKHL: And when I close one eye, I can see what everyone else sees with two.

(CHILDREN all cover one eye)

MIRYEML: Really, it’s a question for a rabbi: Why do people need two eyes? There are too many eyes . . .

MENAKHEML: (stands up proudly) I want to be Shimshon the Strong!

MIRYEML: (laughs) Instead of Shimshon the Strong you should be a bandit and do some wrong.

ROKHELE: (goes up to MOTELE) And who do you want to be, Motele?

MOTELE: Who? Me? Nothing but a bandit. You’ll see, I’ll be such a good bandit. I’ll let everyone keep their lives.

MIRYEML: (laughs) A bandit, from straw. Do you have a knife? You’ll need a sharp knife for a start . . . and a stone heart. Made all of stone . . . Mm . . . Mm . . .

MOTELE: (bows his head)

MIRYEML: A feeling of horror? That’s also Torah.

ROKHELE: (shoves MOTELE away) Go, get lost, you can’t be a bandit. Come on . . . Tsirele, who do you want to be? Don’t make us wait!

TSIRELE: I want to be . . . to be . . . a princess.

ROKHELE: What will the princess do?

TSIRELE: (with imagination) I’ll listen to the shofar blowing, and then you’ll all pour me wine, pass me raisins and almonds.

MIRYEML: For such a queen and from what a land! (takes a tin badge from her pocket) Take this tin badge, a silver platter, from King Shloyme engraved and battered.

TSIRELE: Now let’s pretend (CHILDREN cheerfully repeat “Let’s pretend!”) that we live in a golden room with marble walls, and the doors are made of ivory. Two lions guard the gate, just like in King Shloyme’s palace. You all sit on silver chairs, and the princess (that’s me) goes to sleep . . . A princess has to be sung to sleep, so they sing to her . . .

BOREKHL: Who sings?

TSIRELE: Priests sing . . .

CHILDREN: Priests? From where?

TSIRELE: From the Temple in Jerusalem! And music plays for her; in the Temple even the walls play music . . . I sleep on a bed decorated with lots of tiny gemstones, with the most beautiful pieces of coral, and I lie, with Torah covers for a blanket, all embroidered with translucent pearls and diamonds. I lie there in a white silk shirt, and my jewelry sparkles! All around there are spice boxes and everything smells like oranges, and outside is the Land of Israel!

CHILDREN: (repeat) The Land of Israel!

TSIRELE: The sun shines and nearby there are vineyards, and you all go so sloooooowwwwwwwly and say: Princess, arise for the blowing of the shofar, get up!

CHILDREN: (say enthusiastically together) Let’s pretend. (Squint, a pale light falls on the courtyard, showing them the same tableau they are imagining in keeping with TSIRELE’s dream. Singing, organ music. CHILDREN stand there surprised, keep silent, look at the radiant scene. Listen attentively. This continues for a moment, then grows darker and darker. The CHILDREN are enthusiastic.) Princess! Arise for the shofar blowing! (sound of shofar blasts) Get up! (With these words the tableau disappears, replaced with the usual light. The singing and music stop. MIRYEML has kept her eyes open the entire time and seen nothing.)

MIRYEML: No more Princess . . . Mazel tov . . .

CHILDREN: Hm . . . hm . . . hm . . . That’s just like Miryeml.

TSIRELE: Miryeml, you can play with us, just don’t be crazy.

MIREYML: I . . . I . . . I’m Sholem’s bride!

CHILDREN: (laugh) Go . . . Get lost . . .

MIRYEML: (takes out a small pane of glass from her bodice) The magic glass sees everything. It knows all secrets. I know that besides this world and the World to Come, there’s also another world . . .

TSIRELE: Another world? . . . How’s that possible?

MIRYEML: You can see it of course . . .

CHILDREN: What?

MIRYEML: A million feet walked, and none arrived . . . A thousand heads searched, and none found . . . Countless eyes looked, and no one saw. Yet my enchanted glass saw everything, knew everything.

CHILDREN: Is she prophesying? Tell us some prophecies . . .

MIRYEML: Everyone gather around me and I, Miryeml, will tell you . . . 

CHILDREN: Go ahead, right now, let’s begin.

MIRYEML: And animals came, and they were bad people. And people came, and they were bad animals! And then it came to pass, a million, bazillion funerals! Count, count, count . . . (rhythmic chords from behind the stage) Million! Funerals! Count! People! Count! Children! Count! . . . A million, a million, another a million, again a million and a million again, a million funerals! . . . And someday it will be different . . . Angels will rule the world . . .  and children . . . (gets lost in thought)

CHILDREN: (repeat) Angels? And children? . . . Tell us now!

MIRYEML: You’re crazy! If something matters . . . it won’t come on a silver platter . . . It might get a bit tattered.

CHILDREN: This isn’t how a prophet speaks.

TSIRELE: And the enchanted glass?

MIRYEML: You still must find one special word, something unique that has you stirred . . . You need to have something to say . . . Dawn will come, it’s a new day . . .

CHILDREN: And what will happen tomorrow?

MIRYEML: Tomorrow is now yesterday . . . There’s no more tomorrow . . . Today is the last today.

CHILDREN: (as an echo) There’s no more tomorrow?

ROKHELE: You make us sad. Talk about something else. Tell us a funny story.

MIRYEML: Now we speak the holy tongue because the new month has begun!  Vayhi hayoym, and it came to pass, once upon a time, that heaven and earth were hungry, just like I am. They wanted some bread, so they decided to wed. (CHILDREN laugh) And later, heaven and earth decided they shouldn’t have met . . . They went and ended things with a get. And so a demon won the bet . . . (Children laugh).

LEYZERL: Come out to the street, look, there are so many stars! (looks at the sky)

MIRYEML: Did you know I’ve battled all the stars in heaven? Did you know I’m angry at the sun? 

CHILDREN: (run up to look at the stars through the bars in an iron gate)

TSIRELE: So many silver stars in the sky! Every star is like a silver Star of David . . . Stars are happy, they don’t need to be afraid . . . They’re far away . . . Far . . . Far from Earth . . .

MIRYEML: (approaches the gate, looks at the sky) Every star, God’s light from afar . . . Look how high, a fire in the sky . . . Black clouds cover him . . . He’s engraved, and the light won’t dim . . . Even burned out he’s grand, a fire lit by God’s hand.

Curtain

Tea Arciszewska (1890–1962) was born to an illustrious Hasidic family in Mława, Congress Poland. After spending several years in Jerusalem as a teenager, she returned to Warsaw and became one of the few women to frequent Peretz’s celebrated literary salon. As an actress, artist’s model, founder of the Azazel theater troupe, purported muse to Peretz, and salonnière, she was a dazzling figure in the early twentieth century Yiddish cultural scene in Warsaw. Arciszewska died in Paris in 1962.

Sonia Gollance is lecturer (assistant professor) in Yiddish at University College London. She is the author of It Could Lead to Dancing: Mixed-Sex Dancing and Jewish Modernity (Stanford University Press, 2021), a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award in Jewish Thought and Experience. Her translation of Tea Arciszewska’s play Miryeml was supported by a 2020–21 Yiddish Book Center Translation Fellowship. Staged readings of her translation will be performed at JW3 in London in March 2024 (part of the AHRC-UKRI co-sponsored “A Season of Yiddish Theatre” series at JW3, in collaboration with UCL and the Yiddish Café Trust) and at YIVO in New York in April 2024 (in partnership with the Congress for Jewish Culture). Her translations have been published in In geveb: A Journal of Yiddish Studies, JewishFiction.net and Pakn Treger. You can learn more about her work at www.soniagollance.com.