Jiří (or Georg) Mordechai Langer forsook his bourgeois Jewish upbringing in Prague for a life of strict religious observance, studying in the hasidic centers of Poland. He later became a committed Zionist. But he is best known for his books on Jewish mysticism, which helped introduce hasidic thought to Western Jews, and for his friendship with Franz Kafka, whom he tutored in Hebrew. Langer was also a talented Hebrew poet. A collection of his poetry has now been translated into Hebrew, along with a biographical study, by Elana Wolff, that also explores the previously unexamined subject of his sexuality. Kenneth Sherman writes:
The collection Piyyutim ve-Shirei Yedidot is a sequence of sixteen poems written in Hebrew. . . with titles such as “Handsome Lad” and “To My Companion.” Their homoerotic imagery point[s] to the fact that Langer was gay—an item not mentioned by any of Kafka’s biographers. Langer’s older brother, František, who knew of his brother’s sexual orientation and whose Foreword to the English translation of [Langer’s] Nine Gates remains a prime source of biographical information, is also mum on the subject. The omission would hardly matter, except that Langer’s sexuality was an essential part of his art and philosophy. [His biographer Elana]Wolff calls Langer’s disclosure of his homosexuality through his poetry “a daring act of self-expression.”
More about: Ball teshuvah, Franz Kafka, Hasidism, Hebrew poetry, Homosexuality, Jiří Langer
