Awake My People in His 1866 Poem

Awake My People

In his 1866 poem "Awake My People!" author Judah Leib Gordon urges every Jewish man in Russia to "Be a man aboard and a Jew in your tent."[footnoteRef:1] Since the publication of the pome, Gordon's work has been treated with controversy. Readers from all dominations of Judaism from the Orthodox to secular Zionists have looked on the piece as encouraging Jewish citizens to hide their heritage in order to avoid conflict. [1: Judah Leib Gordon. "Awake My People!" The Jew in the Modern World. (New York: Oxford UP, 1995, 27]

At the time that Gordon was writing, there was a heavy Jewish population in Eastern Europe and especially Russia. The Jewish people were allowed to live and to work in the land but they were not fully accepted. Historian Simon Dubnow has stated that "the treatment of the Jews was marked and defined by governmental anti-Semitism."[footnoteRef:2] The Pale of Jewish Settlement, as the areas of Jewish population became known, were marked by a thredbare feeling of tolerance. Jews were allowed to live but they were still outsiders in the country. To people like Lieb Gordon, it seemed like they always would be unless serious changes were made. [2: Michael Stanislawski. "Russia." Last Modified 2010. http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Russia/Russian_Empire]

In Gordon's poem, he goes on to say that Russia is an Eden and that the Jewish people should be honored that they have been allowed to live in the country when they have been evicted from so many. "They have removed the weight of suffering from your shoulder, / They have lifted off the yoke from your neck."[footnoteRef:3] The Jewish people are encouraged to "gaze with loving eyes"[footnoteRef:4] at their benefactors. Gordon makes a good point about appreciating a nation where they are allowed to live as people, but his behests are more akin to idolatry than gratitude. [3: Gordon. "Awake My People!" 1995, 13-14] [4: Gordon. "Awake My People!" 1995, 18]

Most of those who take offense at Gordon's work point to lines where he asks Jewish people to take on characteristics of the Russian country, such as learning the Russian language, learning their arts and trades, and enlisting in the Russian army. The second half of the infamous line about being Jews alone in your tents is that every Jew should also be "a brother to your countrymen and a servant to your king."[footnoteRef:5] Many have interpreted this as giving up one's Jewish identity and assimilating to the culture of the nation. It is hard to argue with this assessment. Particularly since, in the footnotes on this edition of "Awake My People!," the footnote reads "Gordon at first believed that the Jews' isolation was at the root of all the troubles that plagued them."[footnoteRef:6] If this is the case, then Gordon does indeed believe that assimilation is important for Jewish survival, but his intentions are for the aid of the Jewish population. He believed that it was standing out from the larger group that made Jewish people the target of antagonism and keeping a lid on things would make those occasions of acrimony occur less often. [5: Gordon. "Awake My People!" 1995, 28] [6: Gordon. 1995. ]