This is the sonnet, “The New Collosus” (1883) by Emma Lazarus set side-by-side with its Yiddish translation by Rachel Kirsch Holtman. The translation appears in a section dedicated to Emma Lazarus in Holtman’s 1938 work, Fir Barimte Froyen (Four Famous Women). Lazarus famously penned her sonnet in response to the waves of Russian-Jewish refugees seeking refuge in the Unites States of America as a result of murderous Russian pogroms following the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881. Her identification and revisioning of the Statue of Liberty as the Mother of Exiles points to the familiar Jewish identification of the Shekhinah (the Divine Presence, in its feminine aspect) with the light of the Jewish people in their Diaspora, as found in the Talmud Bavli, tractate Megillah 29a.4:

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תניא ר״ש בן יוחי אומר בוא וראה כמה חביבין ישראל לפני הקב”ה שבכל מקום שגלו שכינה עמהן גלו למצרים שכינה עמהן שנאמר הֲנִגְלֹה נִגְלֵיתִי לבית אָבִיךָ בִּהְיוֹתָם בְּמִצְרַיִם וגו׳ (שמואל א׳ ב:כז) גלו לבבל שכינה עמהן שנאמר לְמַעַנְכֶם שִׁלַּחְתִּי בָבֶלָה (ישעיהו מג:יד) ואף כשהן עתידין ליגאל שכינה עמהן שנאמר וְשָׁב ה׳ אֱלֹהֶיךָ אֶת־שְׁבוּתְךָ (דברים ל:ג) והשיב לא נאמר אלא ושב מלמד שהקב״ה שב עמהן מבין הגליות

It is taught in a baraita: Rabbi Shimon ben Yoḥai says: Come and see how beloved the Jewish people are before the blessed Holy One. As every place they were exiled, the Shekhinah (Divine Presence) went with them. They were exiled to Mitsrayim, and the Shekhinah went with them, as it is stated: “Did I reveal myself to the house of your father when they were in Mitsrayim?” (I Samuel 2:27). They were exiled to Babylonia, and the Shekhinah went with them, as it is stated: “For your sake I have sent to Babylonia” (Isaiah 43:14). So too, when, in the future, they will be redeemed, the Shekhinah will be with them, as it is stated: “Then YHVH your elo’ah will return with your captivity” (Deuteronomy 30:3). It does not state: Hashem will bring back, (i.e., Hashem will cause the Jewish people to return,) but rather it says: “Hashem will return,” which teaches that the blessed Holy One will return together with them from among the various exiles.

Source(s)

“דער נײער קאָלאסוס | The New Collosus, a paean to the Shekhinah/”Mother of Exiles” by Emma Lazarus (1883, Yiddish translation by Rachel Kirsch Holtman 1938)” is shared through the Open Siddur Project with a Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication 1.0 Universal license.

Aharon N. Varady (editing/transcription)

Aharon Varady (M.A.J.Ed./JTSA Davidson) is a volunteer transcriber for the Open Siddur Project. If you find any mistakes in his transcriptions, please let him know. Shgiyot mi yavin; Ministarot naqeni שְׁגִיאוֹת מִי־יָבִין; מִנִּסְתָּרוֹת נַקֵּנִי "Who can know all one's flaws? From hidden errors, correct me" (Psalms 19:13). If you'd like to directly support his work, please consider donating via his Patreon account. (Varady also translates prayers and contributes his own original work besides serving as the primary shammes of the Open Siddur Project and its website, opensiddur.org.)

Rachel Kirsch Holtman (translation)

Rachel Kirsch Holtman (b. 4 Oct 1885 - d. 20 Jun 1962) was a Yiddish author and journalist. She translated works by Lenin and Bukharin into Yiddish and wrote her autobiography in Mayn Lebens-veg (1948).

Emma Lazarus

Emma Lazarus (July 22, 1849 – November 19, 1887) was a Sepharadi Jewish-American poet, writer, translator, and Georgist from New York City. Her sonnet "The New Colossus" (1883), was inscribed and installed in 1903 on a bronze plaque on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. Upon the proscriptive May Laws of 1881 Lazarus rose to the defense of Russian-Jewish immigrants in powerful articles contributed to The Century (May, 1882, and February 1883). Lazarus became more interested in her Jewish ancestry after reading the George Eliot novel Daniel Deronda, and as she heard of the Russian pogroms that followed the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881. As a result of this anti-Semitic violence, thousands of destitute Ashkenazi Jews emigrated from the Russian Pale of Settlement to New York. Lazarus began to advocate on behalf of indigent Jewish refugees. She helped establish the Hebrew Technical Institute in New York to provide vocational training to assist destitute Jewish immigrants to become self-supporting. In 1883, she founded the Society for the Improvement and Colonization of East European Jews. An important forerunner of the Zionist movement, Lazarus argued for the creation of a Jewish homeland thirteen years before Theodor Herzl began to use the term "Zionism." Contact with the Jewish emigrés from Russia led her to study Hebrew, Torah, Judaism, and Jewish history. Her Songs of a Semite (1882) is considered to be the earliest volume of Jewish-American poetry.

Works of related interest:

 

The Feast of Lights, a poem by Emma Lazarus (1882)

The Voice of the Lord, a poem by Rosa Emma Salaman (before 1883)

גאָט בענטש אַמעריקע | God Bless America, for Armistice Day by Irving Berlin (1918/1938) with Yiddish translation

תחנה פיר אין כלה פאר דער חופה | Prayer for a Bride before her Wedding (19th c.)

With Rapture I Behold the Light, a hymn for Shabbat by Gershon Lazarus (Ḳ.Ḳ. Beth Elohim 1842)

בּרידער | “Brothers” – Y.L. Peretz’s Sardonic Rejoinder to Friedrich Schiller’s Paean to Universal Enlightenment, An die Freude (Ode to Joy)

📖 סדור תפלת ישראל (אשכנז) | Siddur Tefilat Yisrael: Carte de Rugăcĭunĭ Pentru Israeliţĭ (Romanian translation by Rabbi Dr. Moses Gaster, 1883)

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