Lazarus Aaronson

Lazarus Leonard Aaronson (24 December 1894 – 9 December 1966), often referred to as L. Aaronson, was a British poet and a lecturer in economics. As a young man, he belonged to a group of Jewish friends who are today known as the Whitechapel Boys, many of whom later achieved fame as writers and artists. Though less radical in his use of language, he has been compared to his more renowned Whitechapel friend, Isaac Rosenberg, in terms of diction and verbal energy. Aaronson's poetry is characterised more as 'post-Georgian' than modernistic, and reviewers have since been able to trace influences back to both the English poet John Keats, and Hebrew poets such as Shaul Tchernichovsky and Zalman Shneur.

Aaronson lived most of his life in London and spent much of his working life as a lecturer in economics at the City of London College. In his twenties, he converted to Christianity and a large part of his poetry focused on his conversion and spiritual identity as a Jew and an Englishman. In total, he published three collections of poetry: Christ in the Synagogue (1930), Poems (1933), and The Homeward Journey and Other Poems (1946). Although he did not achieve widespread recognition, Aaronson gained a cult following of dedicated readers. Upon retiring from teaching, he moved to Harpenden, Hertfordshire, where he died from heart failure and coronary heart disease on 9 December 1966. His poetry was not widely publicised, and he left many unpublished poems at his death.

Life and career Aaronson was born on 24 December 1894 at 34 Great Pearl Street, Spitalfields in the East End of London to poor Orthodox Jewish parents who had immigrated from Vilna in the Pale of Settlement in Eastern Europe. His father was Louis Aaronson, a bootmaker, and his mother was Sarah Aaronson, née Kowalski. He attended Whitechapel City Boys' School and later received a scholarship to attend Hackney Downs Grammar School. Others in the group who, like Aaronson, later achieved distinction included John Rodker, Isaac Rosenberg, Joseph Leftwich, Stephen Winsten, Clara Birnberg, David Bomberg, and the brothers Abraham Fineberg and Joseph Fineberg. Aaronson was also involved in the Young Socialist League, where he and other Whitechapel Boys helped organise educational meetings on modern art and radical politics. Aaronson remained a committed socialist throughout adulthood.

Having been diagnosed with tuberculosis and diabetes, Aaronson did not serve in the military during the First World War. Between 1913 and 1915, and again between 1926 and 1928, he studied economics with a special focus on public administration at the London School of Economics, but never completed his degree.

Aaronson was married three times. His first wife was the actress Lydia Sherwood (1906–1989), whom he was married to between 1924 and 1931. He filed for divorce on grounds of her adultery with the theatre producer Theodore Komisarjevsky, and the much publicised suit was undefended. His second marriage, which took place on 9 July 1938, to Dorothy Beatrice Lewer (1915–2005), also ended in divorce. On 14 January 1950, Aaronson married Margaret Olive Ireson (1920–1981), with whom he had one son, David, who was born in 1953. Aaronson was also close to the economist Graham Hutton, who in 1952 made a radio programme about him for the BBC.

Around 1934, he began working as a lecturer in economics at the City of London College. Upon his retirement from the university in 1958, Aaronson was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire in the 1959 New Year Honours, in recognition of more than twenty-five years of service. The same year he moved with his family from London to Harpenden in Hertfordshire, where he later died from coronary heart disease and heart failure on 9 December 1966, at the age of 71. He was buried in the Westfield Road Cemetery in Harpenden. His wife and young son survived him. In the 1920s, he converted to Christianity. His first collection of poems, Christ in the Synagogue, published by V. Gollancz in 1930, dealt to a large extent with his conversion and spiritual identity as both a Jew and an Englishman. This subject would become a recurring theme in his numerous mystical poems.

Notwithstanding Aaronson's small readership, V. Gollancz published a second verse collection in 1933, titled Poems. Despite being little known to the general public, Aaronson gained a cult following of dedicated readers. Some of his works also appeared in journals and anthologies such as the 1953 Faber Book of Twentieth Century Verse. The poet Jon Silkin also unfavourably compared Aaronson to Rosenberg, writing "it cannot be said that his work attains to either the burning majesty or the depth of Rosenberg's poetry, and this is explicable perhaps by the fact that Aaronson does not altogether care to acknowledge his roots."

Aaronson's poetry was not widely publicised, and he left over a thousand unpublished poems at his death.