Rachel (Rokhl) Häring Korn ( yi, רחל קאָרן, 15 January 1898 – 9 September 1982) was a

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...

-born

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

Yiddish language Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ve ...

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wri ...

and

author An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states: "''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...

. In total, she published eight collections of poetry and two of prose.

Seymour Mayne Seymour Mayne (born 1944 in Montreal, Quebec) is a Canadian author, editor, or translator of more than seventy books and monographs. As he has written about the Jewish Canadian poets, his work is recognizable by its emphasis on the human dimension, ...

characterized her in 1985, three years after her death, as "the first major woman poet in Canadian literature."

Biography

Korn was born in

eastern Galicia Eastern Galicia ( uk, Східна Галичина, Skhidna Galychyna, pl, Galicja Wschodnia, german: Ostgalizien) is a geographical region in Western Ukraine (present day oblasts of Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Ternopil), having also essential h ...

on a farming estate near Pidlisky (now in

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

), and started writing poetry at an early age. At the start of the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, her family fled to

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, returning to

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

in 1918. It was in this year that Korn's first published works appeared, in ''Nowy Dziennik'', a

Zionist Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after '' Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...

newspaper, and in ''Głos Przemyski'', a

socialist Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the ...

journal. These items were published in

, but a year later she published her first Yiddish poem in the ''Lemberger Tageblatt''. Her recognition grew with the publication of her first volumes of poetry: ''Dorf'' (Village, 1928) and ''Royter mon'' (Red Poppies, 1937). Her first collection of prose, ''Erd'' (Land), was published in 1936. Korn was in Białystok when the

German invasion of the Soviet Union Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named afte ...

took place in June 1941; she was evacuated by Soviet authorities to

Uzbekistan Uzbekistan (, ; uz, Ozbekiston, italic=yes / , ; russian: Узбекистан), officially the Republic of Uzbekistan ( uz, Ozbekiston Respublikasi, italic=yes / ; russian: Республика Узбекистан), is a doubly landlocked co ...

along with other prominent Jewish writers. She eventually relocated to

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...

, where she remained until the end of the war. She returned to Poland in 1946, immigrating to

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

in 1948. In Canada she emerged as one of the top Yiddish poets of the postwar era. Korn's fourth collection of poetry, ''Heym un heymlozikayt'' (Home and Homelessness), was published in 1948. She remained in Montreal, writing poetry, until her death in 1982.

Awards

*Louis Lamed Prize for poetry and prose (1950 and 1958) *Jewish Book Council of America Certificate of Honor and Award for Yiddish Poetry (1969) *The H. Leivick Prize (1972) *The Itzik Manger Prize of the State of Israel (1974)

References

External links

Korn, Rachel Häring
" at the Jewish Virtual Library. Source: 2nd Ed. The Gale Group, 2008
Korn, Rohkl
The

YIVO YIVO (Yiddish: , ) is an organization that preserves, studies, and teaches the cultural history of Jewish life throughout Eastern Europe, Germany, and Russia as well as orthography, lexicography, and other studies related to Yiddish. (The word '' ...

Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe
Rokhl Häring Korn
at the Jewish Women's Archive
Rokhl Korn books (in Yiddish)
in the

Yiddish Book Center The Yiddish Book Center (formerly the National Yiddish Book Center), located on the campus of Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States, is a cultural institution dedicated to the preservation of books in the Yiddish language, a ...

digital library
English/Yiddish Literary Evening in memory of Rokhl Korn on the occasion of the Rokhl Korn Archives of the JPL

Jewish Public Library (Montreal) The Jewish Public Library or JPL (, ) is a public library in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, founded in 1914. The library contains the largest Circulating library, circulating collection of Judaica in North America. The JPL has close to 4000 members, an ...

, October 13, 1985. On the site of the

. {{DEFAULTSORT:Korn, Rachel 1898 births 1982 deaths People from Lviv Oblast Yiddish-language poets Polish emigrants to Canada Jewish Canadian writers Writers from Montreal Jews from Galicia (Eastern Europe) Canadian people of Polish-Jewish descent Polish women poets 20th-century Polish poets 20th-century Canadian women writers 20th-century Canadian writers Yiddish culture in Canada 20th-century Polish women Itzik Manger Prize recipients