Rivka Basman Ben-Hayim

Rivka Basman was born in Vilkmergė, Lithuania on 20 February 1925,[3] to parents Yekhezkel and Tsipora (née Heyman).[1] While in school, she and her friends were excited to read the poems and stories of Kadya Molodowsky, a Yiddish woman writer.[1] Basman's father and her younger brother Arele were killed by the Germans in the Baltic.[4] During World War II, Basman spent about two years in the Vilna ghetto.[1] After that she was sent to the Kaiserwald concentration camp in Riga.[1]

Basman started writing poetry at Kaiserwald in order to cheer up fellow inmates.[2] When the camp was liquidated, she saved her poems by smuggling them out in her mouth.[2] After liberation, Basman lived in Belgrade from 1945 to 1947. While there she married Shmuel "Mula" Ben-Hayim[1] and with him engaged in smuggling Jews out of Europe and past the British naval blockade to enter Mandate Palestine.[2]

In 1947 Basman made aliyah and then joined Kibbutz HaMa'apil.[2] She received her teaching diploma from the Teachers' Seminary in Tel Aviv.[5] She also studied literature while in New York at Columbia University.[5] At her kibbutz she taught children and also joined the Yiddish poets' group Yung Yisroel ("Young Israel")[2] While on the kibbutz she wrote and published her first volume of poetry, Toybn baym brunem (Doves at the Well), in 1959.[2]

During the years 1963 to 1965, her husband became the cultural attaché from Israel to the Soviet Union.[1][4] Basman taught the children of the diplomats in Moscow during her time there.[1] She also met with Russian Yiddish authors.[1]

Basman Ben-Hayim wrote her poems mostly in Yiddish.[1] Since that time many of her poems have been translated into Hebrew.[1] While he was living, her husband did the design and all of the illustrations for her books.[1] After his death, she took his family name and added it in with hers.[1]

Basman Ben-Hayim continued to write poetry and was the head of the Union of Yiddish Writers located in Tel Aviv.[6]

Basman Ben-Hayim resided in Herzliya Pituah.[6] She died in Herzliya, Israel on March 22, 2023, at the age of 98.[7]

Basman Ben-Hayim was the recipient of the Itzik Manger Prize in 1984.[1][2] Basman was also awarded the Chaim Zhitlowsky Prize in 1998.[1][2] Other prizes and awards include the Arie Shamri prize in 1980; the Fischman prize in 1983; the prize awarded by the chairman of the World Zionist Federation in 1989; the David Hofstein prize in 1992; The Beit Sholem Aleichem (Polack) prize in 1994; the Leib Malakh prize awarded by Beit Leivick in 1995; and the Mendele prize of the city of Tel Aviv-Yafo in 1997.[1]

• Toybn baym brunem (Doves at the Well, 1959)[1]
• Bleter fun vegn (Leaves of the Paths, 1967)[1][8]
• Likhtike shteyner (Radiant Stones, 1972)[1][9]
• Tseshotene kreln (Scattered Beads, 1982)[1][10]
• Onrirn di tsayt (To Touch Time, 1988)[1]
• Di shtilkayt brent (The Silence Burns, 1992)[1]
• Di erd gedenkt (The Earth Remembers, 1998)[1]
• Di draytsnte sho (The Thirteenth Hour, 2000)[1]
• Af a strune fun regn (On a Strand of Rain, 2002)[1]

• English translations of Basman's poetry