Harry Rogoff

“ No other Yiddish writer has suffered so much abuse, so much ridicule, at the hands of his colleagues. Each and every one of his faults, weaknesses and mistakes have formed themes for innumerable attacks and satires in the press. And defenders he has none, none but his own venomous pen. For the truth must be told, Rosenfeld has admirers, adorers, worshippers ”

“ In these brief essays, filled with intimate observations on the lives and work of representative Yiddish writers, we are brought into contact with a mind that has been at all times keenly responsive to the creative forces in Jewish life, helpfully proud of the best impulses, intellectual and spiritual, in the Jewish community. For here, set down at a time when reputations were still in the balance, are judgments which time has sustained and insights which are no less pointed because they have won general acceptance. ”

“ For an artist has conceived it, nurtured it, loved it, named it with his own light, strengthened it with his blood. It has existence because an artist has created it."
One must conclude that the magazine "East and West," which was the occasion of excellent pioneer work in the presentation of Yiddish writing to American readers, was the occasion also of presenting to Yiddish writers a critic who spoke for them with sympathy, courage, and discernment. ”

“ One moment he pouts like a child, another he denounces like a prophet, the third he flatters like a lackey, the fourth he glories like a king. It's acting, you conclude, acting of the high artistic kind, that is full of soul and heart. ”

“ Every literary plant needs the firm soil of nationality for its roots, and the sunshine and moisture of national culture for its nourishment, and these elements are very uncertain with the Jewish people in spite of the fact that an intense wave of the national spirit has been agitating its most important centers in Europe and America. ”

“ In other words, Rogoff was spokesman of the idea that the artist dare not take sides in the business of life since he has business in his own domain, with demands and standards, with purposes and ideals that are sufficiently exacting to call for the very best in the artist. ”

“ Rosenfeld helped to create and model a literary idiom in Jewish literature. Himself thoroughly saturated with the Jewish spirit, all his verbal inventions are characteristically Yiddish. His coinages are hardly ever rejected, hardly ever modified. He will forever remain an authority on style and idiom. ”

“ A reading of them, fifteen years after they were written, shows that they were a natural outgrowth of that movement of self-analysis and self-criticism of which American Yiddish literature stood so greatly in need. Although creative workers are never too numerous, Yiddish writers were plentiful. ”