Emma Lazarus

This article is about the poet named Lazarus. For other uses of the name Lazarus, see Lazarus (name).

Emma Lazarus
Born	July 22, 1849(1849-07-22) New York City, New York
Died	November 19, 1887(1887-11-19) (aged 38) New York City, New York

Emma Lazarus (July 22, 1849 – November 19, 1887) was an American Jewish poet born in New York City.

She is best known for "The New Colossus", a sonnet written in 1883; its lines appear on a bronze plaque in the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty placed in 1903. The sonnet was written for and donated to an auction, conducted by the "Art Loan Fund Exhibition in Aid of the Bartholdi Pedestal Fund for the Statue of Liberty" to raise funds to build the pedestal.

Emma Lazarus was honored by the Office of the Manhattan Borough President in March 2008 and was included in a map of historical sites related or dedicated to important women.

Background

Lazarus was the fourth of seven children of Moshe Lazarus and Esther Nathan, Sephardic Jews whose families, originally from Portugal, had been settled in New York since the colonial period. She was related through her mother to Benjamin N. Cardozo, Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court.

From an early age, she studied American and British literature, as well as several languages, including German, French, and Italian. Her writings attracted the attention of Ralph Waldo Emerson. He corresponded with her until his death.^{[citation needed]}

Literary career

Lazarus wrote her own poems and edited many adaptations of German poems, notably those of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Heinrich Heine. She also wrote a novel and two plays. Her most famous work is "The New Colossus", which is inscribed on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. Lazarus' close friend Rose Hawthorne Lathrop was inspired by "The New Colossus" to found the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne.

The New Colossus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Emma Lazarus, 1883

Lazarus began to be more interested in her Jewish ancestry after reading the George Eliot novel, Daniel Deronda, and as she heard of the Russian pogroms that followed the assassination of Tsar Nicholas II in 1881. As a result of this anti-Semitic violence, thousands of destitute Ashkenazi Jews emigrated from the Russian Pale of Settlement to New York. This led Lazarus to write articles on the subject as well as the poem for which she was most famous in her lifetime, "Song of a Semite" (1882). Lazarus began at this point to advocate on behalf of indigent Jewish refugees and helped establish the Hebrew Technical Institute in New York to provide vocational training to help destitute Jewish immigrants become self-supporting.

She traveled twice to Europe, first in 1883 and again from 1885 to 1887. She returned to New York City seriously ill after her second trip and died two months later on November 19, 1887, most likely from Hodgkin's lymphoma.

She is also an important forerunner of the Zionist movement. She argued for the creation of a Jewish homeland thirteen years before Theodor Herzl began to use the term Zionism. Lazarus is buried in Beth-Olom Cemetery in Brooklyn.

Works

• Lazarus, Emma (1888). The Poems of Emma Lazarus. Houghton, Mifflin and Company. http://books.google.com/books?id=iMm0AtPW32cC&dq=Emma+Lazarus&printsec=frontcover. Retrieved 2008-12-12. 
• In the Jewish Synagogue at Newport

Further reading

• Cavitch, Max. "Emma Lazarus and the Golem of Liberty," American Literary History 18.1 (2006), 1-28
• Eiselein, Gregory. Emma Lazarus: Selected Poems and Other Writings. USA: Broadview Press, 2002. ISBN 1-55111-285-X.
• Jacob, H. E. The World of Emma Lazarus. New York: Schocken, 1949; New York: Kessing Publishers, 2007, ISBN 1-4325-1416-4.
• Lazarus, Emma. Emma Lazarus: Selected Poems. USA: Library of America, 2005. ISBN 1-931082-77-4.
• Moore, H. S. Liberty's Poet: Emma Lazarus. USA: TurnKey Press, 2004. ISBN 0-9754803-4-0.
• Schor, Esther. Emma Lazurus. New York: Schocken, 2006. ISBN 0-8052-4216-3. Randomhouse.com
• Young, B. R. Emma Lazarus in Her World: Life and Letters. USA: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1997. ISBN 0-8276-0618-4.

This article incorporates text from an edition of the New International Encyclopedia that is in the public domain.

External links

• Jewish Virtual Library: Emma Lazarus
• Jewish Women's Archive: HISTORY MAKERS: Emma Lazarus, 1849 – 1887
• National Public Radio: Emma Lazarus, Poet of the Huddled Masses
• Works by Emma Lazarus at Project Gutenberg
• Jewish-American Hall of Fame: Virtual Tour: Emma Lazarus (1849-1887)
• Dr. David P. Stern: Welcome to my World: Emma Lazarus
• Emma Lazarus Memorial Near the Statue of Liberty