Eliezer Blum

Eliezer Blum (1896 –1963 ), known by the pen name B. Alkvit ), was a Polish-born American Yiddish poet, short-story writer, critic, and translator associated with the New York–based In-Zikh (Introspectivist) movement. Blum died in New York in 1963. A posthumous collection, Lider ("Poems"), consisting largely of the same poems in a revised arrangement along with several newly added poems, was published in 1964 under copyright held by his widow, Etta Blum. His poems were later selected for major anthologies, including Sing, Stranger: A Century of American Yiddish Poetry and A Treasury of Yiddish Poetry, situating his work within the canon of American Yiddish verse.

Prose Blum's short stories, written over more than three decades, were collected in the Yiddish volume Oyfn Veg Tsum Perets Skver ("On the Way to Peretz Square", New York: Tsiko, 1958). A selection of 27 of these stories was translated into English by Etta Blum and published posthumously as Revolt of the Apprentices and Other Stories (1969).

Translation Blum also worked as a literary translator. In 1926, Blum's Yiddish translation of Arthur Schnitzler's Casanovas Heimfahrt was published under the title Kasanovas aheymker.

In-Zikh movement Blum was associated with the In-Zikh movement, a New York–based Yiddish avant-garde group that arose in 1919 when Aaron Glanz-Leyeles, Jacob Glatstein, and N. B. Minkoff agreed on a shared poetic program and the founding of the literary journal Inzikh as its organ.

Critical writing Alongside his creative work, Blum wrote literary criticism and participated in contemporary literary debates. In 1935, Blum's review of Debora Vogel's poetry collection Acacias Bloom, titled "Modern Prose", was published, to which Vogel responded in 1936, and Blum in turn replied. All three pieces are preserved in the scholarly volume Blooming Spaces: The Collected Poetry, Prose, Critical Writing, and Letters of Debora Vogel.

Legacy Sol Liptzin's A History of Yiddish Literature describes Blum as "the quietest of the Insichists," noting recurring themes of childhood memory and premonitions of death rendered in a compassionate, restrained lyrical style.

Zutra notes that Blum has been called "the fourth one of the triad," alongside fellow In-Zikh poets Aaron Glanz-Leyeles, Jacob Glatstein, and N. B. Minkoff, and argues that his 1931 collection Vegn tsvey un andere represents a distinctive response to Glatstein's poetic influence within the movement.

Blum's poetry and short fiction have been included in major anthologies of American Yiddish literature, and his critical exchange with Debora Vogel is preserved in scholarly editions of her collected work.

Selected publications

Poetry Vegn tsvey un andere (1931) Lider (1964)

Prose Oyfn Veg Tsum Perets Skver (1958) Revolt of the Apprentices and Other Stories (1969) Contribution to Khelmer Yizkor-bukh (Johannesburg: Khelmer Landsmanschaft, 1955)

Translation Kasanovas aheymker (1926)