Lazarus, Emma. Songs of a Semite: The Dance to Death, and other Poems

(AMERICAN JUDAICA)

The American Hebrew

New York

1882

FIRST EDITION. The Mayer Sulzberger copy

The poet Emma Lazarus (1849-87) was born of a New York Sephardic family and is most celebrated for her iconic sonnet “The New Colossus” which in 1903 was inscribed on the pedestal of the Staue of Liberty - a beacon to the “huddled masses yearning to breath free.” The present collection includes passionate Jewish poems including “The Dance to Death,” a verse tragedy about the burning of the Jews in Thuringia during the era of the Black Death. The poem was dedicated to George Eliot “the illustrious writer who did most among the artists of our day towards elevating and ennobling the spirit of Jewish Nationality.”