Fania Bergstein (; 11 April 1908 – 18 September 1950)https://benyehuda.org/author/814 |Over 100 poetic and prose works are listed on this site and there may be more was an Israeli poet, lyricist and author who wrote and published for children and adults.
Bergstein made a major contribution to the development of Modern Hebrew poetry for children.https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/childrens-literature-in-hebrew|"One cannot approach the task of describing children’s literature in pre-State Palestine, and later Israel, without addressing the century of children’s literature in Hebrew that first emerged in Europe." A number of her poems for both children and adults have become Israeli classics and are recognized as touchstones of Israel's literary and cultural heritage;https://www.kibutz-poalim.co.il/Fania_Bergstein |Muki Tsur, Fania Bergstein[:] Poetess and Pioneer (Fania Bergstein[:] Sipura shel Meshoreret veKhalutza), haKibbutz haMeuchad Publishing House, Tel-Aviv, 2014, 158 pages https://kotar.cet.ac.il/KotarApp/Viewer.aspx?nBookID=100687366#12.1653.6.default |First 13 pp. of Tsur's book many have been set to music.https://shira-ovedet.kibbutz.org.il/cgi-webaxy/sal/sal.pl?lang=he&ID=511757_shira&act=show&dbid=shira_creators&dataid=25 |List of Bergstein's poems set to music with their composers, arrangers and performers Several of her books, including prose and poetry for children and adults, were published posthumously.
Biography Fania Bergstein was born in Szczuczyn in Belostoksky Uyezd, Grodno Governorate,https://dbs.anumuseum.org.il/skn/en/c6/e176158/Personalities/Bergstein_Fania| Beit haTfutzot Museum data Russian Empire (present-day northeastern Poland).https://www.jewishgen.org/Communities/community.php?usbgn=-1949356 |As opposed to a different town with a similar name, Szczuczyn/Shchuchyn/Slownik in Grodno Province in the Russian Empire, in present-day, western Belarus.https://web.archive.org/web/20060221215026/http://www.polishroots.org/slownik/szczuczyn.htm|"Poland proper has several Szczuczyn's, so it's important not to confuse them." Her father, Yehoshua Mordechai Bergstein,https://www.geni.com/people/Yehoshua-Bergstein/6000000059900211434| Detail from Bergstein-Bergsztejn family tree was a Hebrew teacher and a central role model in her life; he instilled in her a love for and knowledge of Hebrew from a young age.https://www.e-vrit.co.il/Author/7748/%D7%A4%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%94_%D7%91%D7%A8%D7%92%D7%A9%D7%98%D7%99%D7%99%D7%9F Historian Muki Tsur relates, "He taught her Hebrew and made her into a Hebrew poet already in Poland and that was something very special."
Her mother, Dvora Bernstein (), died when Fania Bergstein was a young woman. Several of her later poems were written about a mother, including "Mommy, Don't be Sad" ("Ima, Al Tihi'i Atzuva"),https://shironet.mako.co.il/artist?type=lyrics&lang=1&prfid=837&wrkid=5907/ |Hebrew lyricshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KR_xviXA26k\ Sung by Chava Alberstein; composed by Koby Oshrat and nursery rhymes about mother animals and their babies.
During World War I, the family moved to the city of Sumy (present-day Ukraine), where she attended a Russian girls' gymnasium. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Hebrew language instruction was banned in Russia and so the family moved back to Poland.https://spotidoc.com/doc/2623815/fania-bergstein In her youth, she participated in the Zionist pioneering youth movement Hehalutz HaTzair and later became a key activist in the movement in Poland. In 1930, when she was 22, Bergstein immigrated to Mandatory Palestine as part of the Fifth Aliyah and joined Kibbutz Gvat, which had been founded four years earlier in the Jezreel Valley.https://www.e-vrit.co.il/Author/7748/%D7%A4%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%94_%D7%91%D7%A8%D7%92%D7%A9%D7%98%D7%99%D7%99%D7%9F She migrated together with her partner, Aharon Weiner Israeli, himself an author,https://www.jpost.com/opinion/columnists/another-tack-a-very-israeli-story-315748 |Israeli is described as a "prolific author on Jewish sociology and kibbutz dynamics" who is also variously identified as her husband and her "lifelong friend". At the age of 19 it was discovered she had a congenital heart defect and she was concerned that she might not be able to perform physical labor as a pioneer, as indeed came to pass.http://www.itamar-books.co.il/newsletter/newsletter.asp?mode=nl&newsletter=207
Upon her arrival on the kibbutz Bernstein packed grapes picked during the harvesting season, about which she later wrote in her first book of poetry, Grape Harvesting (Batzir) published in 1939.https://benyehuda.org/read/24408 |This link contains the entire Hebrew text of the book. However, ill health precluded her from working in agriculture and she had to work as a seamstress in the kibbutz sewing shop and clothing storeroom, which she disliked. She was a youth leader for the Gvat children in the Histadrut's Noar Oved youth labor movement. She also worked as a teacher, edited the kibbutz journal and organized a literary circle. She was chosen to be a kibbutz representative to the Kibbutz Hameuhad Committee and to the Histadrut.http://www.zionism.co.il/en/quiz-topics/the-fifth-aliyah/the-people-of-the-fifth-aliyah/ |Short biography Upon her death she left behind her husband Aharon and a son, then 16. Her only child, Gershon Israeli,https://www.gvat.org.il/http_new/viewpage.asp?pagesCatID=1457&MemorialPage=1&Personkey=7F7726051823B5F7&siteName=gvat |Memorial to Gershon Israeli on Kibbutz Gvat site himself a talented writer and poet, born in 1934, played the mandolin and composed music to some of his mother's verses. Israeli was killed in the Six-Day War in 1967, leaving behind a wife and three young daughters. A year after Fania Bergstein's death a special issue of the Kibbutz Gvat newsletter, devoted to her memory, was printed and distributed to the members. It included letters from children telling how much she had meant to them. A copy of the newsletter is now housed in the National Library of Israel archives.
Bergstein was bedridden for the last five years of her life, during which time she wrote at least one letter a day and sometimes two or three. In letters to her sister, she referred to her room as a prison and herself as a prisoner. She was compelled to spend her last two years in HaEmek Medical Center in Afula, Israel, where she died of heart failure in 1950 at age 42. She left behind a gift of poetry and prose to contemporary and future generations, including manuscripts that were published posthumously. She wrote, "I had a feeling that my days were numbered. And the sky was so blue, and I wanted to live, I wanted so much to live."https://blog.nli.org.il/fania_bergstein/ Blog of National Library of Israel
Literary career The first of her poems to be printed was "(Ch)Halomi" ("My Dream"), published in 1926 in the daily Hebrew newspaper haYom (Today) in the city of Warsaw, then the center of Polish Jewry; it appeared under the pen name Bat-haOr (The Daughter of Light).
Bergstein is sometimes identified as Fania Yisraeli but she used her maiden name for her writing. A translator of a number of her poems noted, "Hers is a quintessentially Israeli story – not only figuratively so. Israeli was her married surname." Her first published poem for children, "Children of Gvat" appeared in Davar newspaper in 1932.She became a key figure on the kibbutz, emerging as a local songwriter. She wrote songs about collective life for kibbutz events and holidays, creating her own songs for each holiday, composing anthems for the classes celebrating the end of the school year and dedicating songs to children.
Bergstein has been linked with two other important women writers: Miriam Yalan-Shteklis and Leah Goldberg. These writers led the way toward formalizing and consolidating children's poetry in Hebrew and diversifying the offerings for children through humorous poetry..."Bergstein has also been compared to Rachel the Poetess in that she composed her creations in the shadow of illness." Both women immigrated to fulfill the Zionist dream, both personal and national. Both wrote of their longing to be fully contributing members of their kibbutzim. Rachel was unmarried and childless, while Bergstein married and gave birth to a son despite her physician's warning. Rachel was expelled from her beloved kibbutz, Degania Aleph, due to being ill with tuberculosis, a contagious and then incurable disease; while Bergstein remained on Gvat, where she suffered from years of poor health. Each woman left behind an oeuvre of poetic work still known, loved and admired decades after her demise.
Bergstein wrote and published 13 books for children: six collections of poetry, six storybooks and one of assorted prose, poetry and plays.http://www.itamar-books.co.il/newsletter/newsletter.asp?mode=nl&newsletter=207 |Covers of five of the books can be seen at the top of this site In her children's poetry she dealt with simple topics of a child's daily life in nature on a kibbutz; she usually wrote from the point of view of children. "As a member of a kibbutz, she brought to children’s literature the authentic experience of rural life on a farm, describing the direct encounter between children and animals, the farming implements and the smell of the field." It has been noted that in 1945, at the same time that she was writing her first book of nursery rhymes, she was also writing letters and searching desperately for traces of her family members, who she did not know until later had all been exterminated in the Holocaust. The contrast of her simple, lovely rhymes about childhood and nature with the dark abyss of Nazi terror is striking and underlines her noble character.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1kTYELJ8wE&t=15s Fania Bergstein – Melodies Project, 2013
Butterfly
Bergstein's classic book of nursery rhymes for small children, Come to Me, Nice Butterfly (Bo Elay, Parpar Nekhmad) is a slim volume containing eight short, untitled poems and eight color illustrations. It was first published in 1945 and is still in print as of 2021. In short verses, the poet depicts the young child's early encounters with nature, the countryside and rural reality. The title of the book is the first line of the first poem in the book. The illustrations are by .
Some of the poems' subjects are animals: a butterfly, a lamb, a hen and her chicks, a cow and her calf, a dog. Other subjects are vehicles on the kibbutz, such as a tractor plowing a field and a truck transporting farm produce. The latter one, "Our Truck is Big and Green", is among the best-known poems and songs for young children in the Hebrew language and is based on an actual such truck from the 1940s that made trips to and from Bergstein's kibbutz and its environs.https://www.makorrishon.co.il/nrg/online/47/ART1/964/152.html
In 2012, the Israel Postal Company's philatelic service came out with a series of eight stamps depicting and honoring the most treasured classics of Israeli literature for young children, one of those eight was Fania Bergstein's book.
An educational children's television program called Parpar Nechmad, originally based on Bergstein's first book of poems, was developed for Israeli toddlers aged 2–4 and was telecast from 1982 to 2004. It featured puppets, cartoon animation and live actors.
Field
A second book of nursery rhymes by Bergstein is We'll Go out to the Field (Nisah el haSadeh),https://www.kibutz-poalim.co.il/page_54427 containing 32 short poems. It was first published in 1952 with pictures in a muted pallet and some in black and white; it was reprinted continually over the years and in 2003 reappeared with full-color drawings by the original illustrator. The book was illustrated by Michal Efrat of Kibbutz Giv'at Haim. The illustrator was born in Czechoslovakia in 1926, survived Auschwitz and other camps, made aliya in 1949, illustrated children's books and taught art and died in 2000.