Estella Hertzveld

Estella Dorothea Salomea Hymans-Hertzveld ((1837-07-14)14 July 1837 – (1881-11-04)4 November 1881) was a Dutch Jewish poet and translator. Her poems, mainly on Biblical and historical themes, appeared regularly in several literary annuals.

Estella Hertzveld
Portrait of Estella Hertzveld by Jozef Israëls
BornEstella Dorothea Salomea Hertzveld
(1837-07-14)14 July 1837
The Hague, Kingdom of the Netherlands
Died4 November 1881(1881-11-04) (aged 44)
Arnhem, Kingdom of the Netherlands
Resting placeJoodse begraafplaatsen, Wageningen, Netherlands
LanguageDutch, French, German, English, Italian, Danish
NationalityDutch
Spouse
Jacobus Hymans
(
m. 1863)

Biography

Early life

Estella Hertzveld was born at The Hague in 1837 to Salomon Hartog Hertzveld and Devora Elka Halberstamm, the eldest of six children. Her father was a senior civil servant and taxation expert in the Ministry of Finance from a family of renowned rabbis; her grandfather, Hartog Joshua Hertzveld, served as Chief Rabbi of Overijssel and Drenthe from 1808 to 1864.[1]

Hertzveld distinguished herself at a young age as a gifted writer and poet, and was mentored by Dutch poet Carel Godfried Withuys. At the age of 14 she composed "Sauls Dood" ('Saul's Death'), which appeared in the Vaderlandsche Letteroefeningen, then edited by Withuys, in 1852. The composition was recited to great approbation by poet Jacob van Gigh at a meeting of the Maatschappij tot Nut der Israëlieten. Because of her reputation, the baptized Jew Abraham Capadose dedicated to her his 1853 translation of Leila Ada, the Jewish Convert.[2] In public letters to the Jewish press she distanced herself from Capadose's dedication and beliefs.[3]

Career

Her poems soon appeared regularly in the Israëlietische Jaarboekje and the Almanak voor het schoone en goede, most notably "Elias in de Woestijn" ('Elias in the Desert', 1853) and "Tocht der Israëlieten door de Roode zee" ('Journey of the Jewish People Through the Red Sea', 1854)." She composed "Esther" for Samuel Israel Mulder's collection of Biblical poetry,[4] and her 1856 work "Het Gebed" ('The Prayer') was translated into Hebrew by Abraham D. Delaville.[5] In support of the devastating floods in 1855 and 1861 across the Netherlands, she published "God redt" and "Januari 1861", respectively, and in 1863 she wrote an epic poem to Empress Maria Theresa of Austria for the collection Historische vrouwen van het jaarboekje Aurora.[6] Her poem "De Priesterzegen" ('The Priestly Blessing', 1853), which draws a link between the priests of the Temple service and the service in a ghetto synagogue, inspired paintings by Dutch Jewish painters Maurits Léon and Eduard Frankfort.[7][8][9]

At the same time, Hertzveld mastered German, English, French, Danish, Norwegian, Italian, and Hebrew, and began penning translations of novels in these languages. She translated from the German Ludwig Philippson's oratio Mose auf Nebo (1858), and from the English Grace Aguilar's Opzien tot God (1859). She also translated Norwegian articles by Henrik Wergeland, who advocated for the opening of Norway's borders to Jewish immigration.

Prominent among Dutch literary circles, Hertzveld maintained close ties with other Dutch writers, including Geertruida Bosboom-Toussaint and Johannes Jan Cremer. She was often asked to give presentations at festive occasions, and was guest of honour at the consecration of a new schoolhouse and the new synagogues in Hardenberg (1855) and Delft (1862), for which she composed a series of hymns.[10]

Later life

Hertzveld married Jacobus Hymans, a successful businessman from Veenendaal twenty-one years her senior, in Delft on 16 December 1863. After the wedding, officiated by Chief Rabbi Issachar Baer Berenstein, the two settled in Arnhem. They together had six children: Hannah (1864–1937), Dorothea Dina Estella (1865–1899), Hugo Siegfried Johan (1867–1944), Willem Dagobert George Marie (1868–1872), Leopold Maurits Bernard (1870–1904), and Maria Sophia Elisabeth (1871–1961).

The poetry of her later career was characterized by its emphasis on social activism. Hertzveld composed "Lied der negerin, een dag vóór de vrijheid" in celebration of the abolition of slavery in the Dutch colonies in 1863; "Stemmen en zangen", decrying the Prussian invasion of Schleswig-Holstein in 1864, a copy of which her father gifted to Hans Christian Andersen during his second visit to the Netherlands in 1866;[11] and "Het triomflied der beschaving", denouncing the horrors of war, in 1866. She co-founded and chaired the Arnhem division of the Arbeid Adelt in 1872, but stepped down after the death of her son Willem that year.

A few years later she was diagnosed with pulmonary tuberculosis. Still, she wrote a poem for an album presented to Prince Hendrik on the occasion of his marriage in the summer of 1878, and a verse in an album for Queen Emma in the fall of the same year.[5] From 1880 she inhabitted a sanatorium in Reichenthal, Upper Austria. In anticipation of approaching death she arranged a collection of her poems, which was dedicated to her children and published under the title Gedichten van Estella Hijmans-Hertzveld by her brother-in-law George Belinfante in October 1881.[12] She died a few weeks later at the age of 44.

Publications

Hertzveld's poems "Poezie," "De laatste der Barden," "Abd-el-Kader," and "Het triomflied der beschaving" were featured in Jan Pieter de Keyser's Dutch Literature in the Nineteenth Century (1881), and the poem "Abram" in Samuel Johannes van den Bergh's Bloemlezing der poëzie van Nederlandse dichteressen.[13][14] Most of the following works were published in the periodicals Israëlietische Jaarboekje, Amora, Castalia, Vaderlandsche Letteroefeningen, Almanak voor het Schoone en Goede (edited by Bosboom-Toussaint), Jaarboekje voor Tesselschade, and Jaarboekje voor Rederijkers:

Selected bibliography
  • Sauls Dood ('Saul's Death'), Vaderlandsche Letteroefeningen, 1852
  • Elias in de woestijn ('Elias in the Desert'), Israëlitisch Jaarboekje, 1852
  • De opneming van Elias ('The Ascension of Elias'), Israëlitisch Jaarboekje, 1853
  • Togt der Israëlieten door de Roode zee ('Journey of the Jewish People Through the Red Sea'), Israëlietische Jaarboekje, 1854
  • Esther ('Esther'), Bijbel voor de Israëlitische jeugd, 1854[15]
  • God Redt ('God Saves'), Tot Nut en Oefening 1856
  • Het Gebed ('The Prayer'), 1856
  • De herder en zijn hond, Almanak voor het Schoone en Goede, 1856[16]
  • Julius Cesar op den Snowdon ('Julius Caesar on the Snowdon'), Tot Nut en oefening, 1856
  • Hannibal, Tot Nut en oefening, 1857[17]
  • Roem, gedicht bij Schillers eeuwfeest, 11 November 1859
  • Abram ('Abraham'), Israëlietische Jaarboekje, 1860
  • Bergen en valleijen ('Mountains and Valleys'), Jaarboekje voor Rederijkers, 1860[18]
  • Januari 1861 ('January 1861'), Tot Nut en Oefening, 1861
  • Maria Theresia ('Maria Theresa'), Aurora, 1861
  • De Aalmoes ('The Alms'), 1862
  • Poëzie ('Poetry'), 1862
  • Abd-el-Kader ('Abdelkader'), 1863
  • De Priesterzegen ('The Priestly Blessing'), Aurora, 1863
  • Het lied der Negerin, een dag vóór de vrijheid ('Song of the Negress, a Day of Liberty'), 1863
  • De Menschenhater, 1864
  • Stemmen en zangen ('Voices and Vocals'), Jaarboekje voor Rederijkers, 1865
  • Ten oorlog ('To War'); 1865
  • De zwaluwen en de gevangene, 1866
  • Het triomflied der beschaving ('Triumph-song of Civilization'), 1866
  • Maximiliaan van Oostenrijk ('Maximilian of Austria'), 1868
  • Verzamelde gedichten, 1881
gollark: Although I do have a torso.
gollark: I'm not actually a beekeeper/rogue in real life.
gollark: I CAN generate a new one.
gollark: They have a torso and are standard in coloration.
gollark: My character is gollark. They are a beekeeper/rogue who is branching out into adventuring to feed their bees with better bee food.

References

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Singer, Isidore; Kayserling, Meyer (1904). "Hertzveld, Estella Dorothea Salomea". In Singer, Isidore; et al. (eds.). The Jewish Encyclopedia. 6. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. p. 365.

  1. Wijnberg-Stroz, Joep (1993). Een dichteres in de familie! Estella Hertzveld (1837-1881); een Nederlandse joodse vrouw als vroeg voorbeeld van acculturatie (Thesis). Voorschoten. OCLC 68078186.
  2. Kalmijn, David (1955). Abraham Capadose (in Dutch). Boekencentrum. p. 195. OCLC 9535903.
  3. "Esthella Hertzveld-Hijmans". Jewish Virtual Library. American–Israeli Cooperative Enterprise. Retrieved 11 April 2019.
  4. Wogue, Lazare, ed. (7 November 1882). Notre correspondance Hollandaise. L'Univers israelité (in French). 37. Paris. p. 203–205.
  5. Van Biema, E. (1911). "Hymans-Hertzveld, Estella Dorothea Salomea". In Molhuysen, P. C.; Blok, P. J.; Kossmann, F. K. H. (eds.). Nieuw Nederlandsch Biografisch Woordenboek (in Dutch). Leiden: A. W. Sijthoff. pp. 1193–1194.
  6. Metz, Daniël M. (28 April 2015). "Hertzveld, Estella Dorothea Salomea". Digitaal Vrouwenlexicon van Nederland. Retrieved 20 April 2019.
  7. Van Voolen, Edward (1996). "Dutch Jewish Art and the Emancipation". Studia Rosenthaliana. Proceedings of the Seventh International Symposium on the History and Culture of the Jews in the Netherlands. 30 (1): 109–117. JSTOR 41482711.
  8. Van Voolen, Edward (1999). "Aspects of Emancipation: Dutch Art and the Jews". In Borrás, Judit Targarona; Sáenz-Badillos, Angel (eds.). Jewish Studies at the Turn of the 20th Century: Proceedings of the 6th EAJS Congress, Toledo, July 1998. 2. Leiden: Brill. p. 173. ISBN 978-90-04-11559-0. OCLC 42692029.
  9. Weiss-Blok, Rivka (2017). "'Religiosity' in Dutch Jewish Art in the Nineteenth and the Early Twentieth Century". In Kaplan, Yosef; Michman, Dan (eds.). The Religious Cultures of Dutch Jewry. Brill's Series in Jewish Studies. 58. Leiden: Brill. pp. 272–273. doi:10.1163/9789004343160_013. ISBN 978-90-04-34316-0.
  10. Zwarts, Jacob (1924). "Hymans-Hertzveld, Estella Dorothea Salomea". In Molhuysen, P. C.; Blok, P. J. (eds.). Nieuw Nederlandsch Biografisch Woordenboek (in Dutch). Leiden: A. W. Sijthoff. pp. 772–773.
  11. Reeser, H. (1971). "H. C. Andersen en de dichteres Estella Hijmans-Hertzveld". Studia Rosenthaliana. 5 (2): 213–218. JSTOR 41481052.
  12. Van den Branden, F. Jos.; Frederiks, J. G., eds. (1888–1891). "Estella Dorothea Salomea Hijmans-Hertzveld". Biographisch woordenboek der Noord - en Zuidnederlandsche letterkunde. Amsterdam: L. J. Veen.
  13. De Keyser, Jan Pieter (1877). Neerlands letterkunde in de negentiende eeuw [Dutch Literature in the Nineteenth Century] (in Dutch). 2. The Hague: D. A. Thieme. pp. 901–906.
  14. Mayer-Hirsch, Nechamah. "Estella Hijmans-Hertzveld". Jewish Ring (in Dutch). Archived from the original on 23 October 2009.
  15. Mulder, S. I., ed. (1854). Bijbelsche tafereelen uit de geschiedenis van Job en Esther. Bijbel voor de Israëlitische jeugd (in Dutch). Leiden: D. du Mortier en Zoon.
  16. Hertzveld, Estella (1856). "De herder en zijn hond journal". Almanak voor het schoone en goede (in Dutch). Amsterdam: G. J. A. Beijerinck. 2 (12): 190–195.
  17. Hertzveld, Estella (July 1857). "Hannibal". Tot nut en oefening (in Dutch). The Hague. 5: 173–184.
  18. Hertzveld, Estella (1860). Greb, F. H. (ed.). "Bergen en Valleijen". Jaarboekje voor Rederijkers en Beminnaars der Poëzij (in Dutch). Amsterdan: L. F. J. Hassels. 4: 129–137.
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