In it, as an American author, she wrote “Keep (your) ancient lands, your storied pomp!” At the same time, she invoked ancient Greek ideals by transforming the “brazen giant” into a “Mother of Exiles” that retains majesty, beauty and defiance as a new American Colossus with a heart that says:… “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…”
These tensions – between ancient and modern, Jew and American, voice and silence, freedom and oppression – give Emma Lazarus’ work meaning and power.
She became both a spokesperson for, and a fiery prophet of the American Jewish community. She was an advocate for Jewish immigrants, laborers and their causes.
In popular magazines of the day she railed against international antisemitism, as well as, the false stereotypes that encouraged prejudice against Jews everywhere – even in America. At the same time she used Jewish publications to inspire passion for a new Jewish homeland in Palestine, 13 years before Theodore Herzl began to use the term Zionism. She was an important forerunner of the Zionist movement.
When she died at the age of 38, she was mourned as “an irreparable loss to American literature”.
Emma Lazarus was one of the first renowned Jewish writers in American literary history.
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- http://www.libertystatepark.com/emma.html
- http://www.jwa.org/exhibits/wov/lazarus/
- http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/lazarus.html
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“Mother Exile”
Statue of Liberty