艾玛·拉撒路传记

诗人的传记

作为第一批成功的犹太裔美国作家之一，拉撒路是19世纪末纽约文学精英的一部分，在她的时代被誉为一位重要的美国诗人。在她的晚年，她写了大胆而有力的诗歌和散文，抗议反犹太主义的兴起，并为俄罗斯移民的权利辩护。在“犹太复国主义者”这个称号出现之前，她就呼吁犹太人团结起来，在巴勒斯坦建立一个家园。作为一名犹太裔美国女性，艾玛·拉撒路面临着属于两个经常相互冲突的世界的挑战。作为一名女性，她在两方面都遭遇了不平等待遇。拉撒路用这些艰难的经历赋予她的工作力量和深度。与此同时，她复杂的身份也模糊了她在美国文化中的地位。艾玛·拉撒路是一个富裕家庭的第四个孩子，家里有七个孩子。她出生于1849年，父母是摩西和以斯帖·内森·拉撒路，她在纽约充满活力的联合广场附近长大。她的兄弟姐妹包括约瑟芬·拉撒路，她也是一位著名的作家，并在1893年犹太妇女大会上发表了演讲。 Emma's early poems and translations show she had a strong classical education and a mastery of German and French. Her father Moses Lazarus recognized his young daughter's talent and began to encourage her work. In 1866, when Emma was seventeen, he privately published her first book, Poems and Translations Written Between the Ages of Fourteen and Seventeen. The Lazarus family traced their ancestry back to America's first Jewish settlers. As descendants of this pioneering group of Sephardic (Spanish and Portuguese) Jews, Emma's family belonged to a distinct Jewish upper class. From them, Emma inherited a rich pride in her Sephardic heritage, and often wrote about the medieval scholars and poets of her ancestors' land.