“The fol­low­ing sketch records mere­ly the impres­sions of a short excur­sion, under­tak­en about two years ago, into the land of Jar­gon, or Yid­dish lit­er­a­ture. I should be hap­py could I per­suade oth­ers to make the jour­ney for them­selves. Part­ly for my sake, that I may have some­one with whom to com­pare expe­ri­ences. Part­ly for their own, because there must be many who would enjoy it as much as I, and prof­it by it more. Part­ly for the sake of the land, which is in great mea­sure igno­rant of its own trea­sures, and allow­ing its unique and frag­ile mon­u­ments to crum­ble away in the atmos­phere of present-day civil­i­sa­tion.” (Hele­na C. Frank, The Land of Jar­gon, 1904).

As the found­ing direc­tor of the Open Sid­dur Project, I fre­quent­ly pre­pare texts for exhi­bi­tion in its libre Open Access archive of Jew­ish litur­gy and prayer lit­er­a­ture. For every prayer, prayer-poem, and song I tran­scribe, I do my best to pre­pare a short bio of its author and ear­li­est trans­la­tors. While search­ing for the orig­i­nal Yid­dish text of Mor­ris Rosenfeld’s ca. 1897 poem ​“דיא חנוכה ליכט” (lat­er adapt­ed as a pop­u­lar Hanukkah song), I found two Eng­lish trans­la­tions, from 1914 and 1921, both by Hele­na Con­stance Frank (July 31, 1872 – Feb­ru­ary 18, 1954). ^{1 1} The 1914 trans­la­tion was made in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Rose Har­ri­et Pas­tor Stokes (née Wies­lan­der; 1879 – 1933) the social­ist labor activist, birth con­trol advo­cate, and fem­i­nist writer. Rosenfeld’s text with trans­la­tions by Fei­wel and Frank can be accessed at the Open Sid­dur col­lec­tion. I learned from scat­tered pub­lished pieces that Frank was a pio­neer­ing fig­ure in the his­to­ry of mod­ern Jew­ish lit­er­a­ture, both Yid­dish and Hebrew. ^{2 2} This includes the dis­cus­sion in Vol 11.002 of The Mendele Review: Yid­dish Lit­er­a­ture and Lan­guage, pub­lished on 27 Feb­ru­ary 2007. The lit­tle that I found about her piqued my curios­i­ty, and I present here what more I was able to learn through sub­se­quent research.

More than a trans­la­tor, Hele­na Frank was a cham­pi­on of Yid­dish. Her 1904 essay, ​“The Land of Jar­gon,” com­mu­ni­cates much of the same urgency that I hear among Yid­dishists pro­mot­ing the lan­guage today. ^{3 3} Hele­na Frank, ​“The Land of Jar­gon,” in The 19th Cen­tu­ry (Octo­ber 1904), pp. 652 – 667. Not only had Frank pub­lished the first Eng­lish trans­la­tion of Rosen­feld, she lit­er­al­ly intro­duced Rosen­feld, Y.L. Peretz, and oth­er Yid­dish and Hebrew poets and writ­ers of the late nine­teenth and ear­ly twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry to an Anglo­phone audi­ence. After Hen­ri­et­ta Szold dis­cov­ered one of Frank’s trans­la­tions of a Peretz sto­ry pub­lished under the pseu­do­nym ​“Golde” in the New York Jew­ish Dai­ly News, Frank was select­ed by the Jew­ish Pub­li­ca­tion Soci­ety as the trans­la­tor of Sto­ries and Pic­tures (Peretz, JPS 1906) and her career in trans­la­tion began in earnest. ^{4 4} Jonathan Sar­na, JPS: The Amer­i­can­iza­tion of Jew­ish Cul­ture 1888 – 1988 (2021), p. 84, ftn. 116. Just read the Table of Con­tents to her Yid­dish Tales (JPS 1912): forty-eight works by Asch, Berdy­czews­ki, Berkowitz, Berschad­s­ki, Blinkin, Braudes, Frischmann, Jehalel, Lern­er, Lib­in, Naum­berg, Perez, Pin­s­ki, Rai­son, Rosen­thal, Schapiro, Sholem Ale­ichem, Spek­tor, Stein­berg, and Tashrak – all with a short intro­duc­tion for Eng­lish read­ers who were hear­ing their names for the first time. While work­ing on Yid­dish Tales, Frank also found­ed an orga­ni­za­tion, the Anglo-Jew­ish Yid­dish Lit­er­ary Soci­ety, which pro­vid­ed Yid­dish lan­guage read­ing mate­ri­als to patients in Lon­don hospitals. ^{5 5} Israel Abra­hams, ​“The Anglo-Jew­ish Yid­dish Lit­er­ary Society”in The Book of Delight and Oth­er Papers (1912), pp. 255 – 258.’ In the year after Frank’s death, in a review of Howe & Greenberg’s Trea­sury of Yid­dish Sto­ries, Josef Left­wich wrote, ​“One should recall Hele­na Frank as the pio­neer of Eng­lish trans­la­tion from Yiddish.” ^{6 6} Joseph Left­wich, ​“Book Review: A Trea­sury of Yid­dish Sto­ries (ed. Irv­ing Howe and Eliez­er Green­berg),” in The Jew­ish Chron­i­cle (14 Octo­ber 1955) p. 9. 

Despite Frank’s role as a pio­neer­ing trans­la­tor and pas­sion­ate advo­cate of the Yid­dish lan­guage, a com­pre­hen­sive biog­ra­phy and a full bib­li­og­ra­phy of her trans­la­tions remains to be com­piled. Among the longest exist­ing dis­cus­sion of Frank’s work is an essay in Yid­dish, writ­ten by the acclaimed Yid­dish poet Jacob Glat­stein (1896 – 1971). Not only does this essay elu­ci­date Hele­na Frank’s place (or lack of it) in the Jew­ish lit­er­ary world, it is the last (and most recent) treat­ment of her among Yid­dishists, and I share it in order to revive Glatstein’s call to action to prop­er­ly hon­or Frank’s name and locate her final work. Up to that point, only a few short pieces about Frank had been writ­ten before and after she died alone in Hasle­mere, Sur­rey. Glat­stein, writ­ing six­teen years after Frank’s death in 1970, might not have read them all but appears to be famil­iar with the same out­line of her life that they describe. In the para­graphs that fol­low, I will attempt to sketch as com­plete a por­trait of Hele­na Frank’s life as can be drawn from these works. 

One piece in par­tic­u­lar, ​“Por­trait of a Lady at Eighty,” pub­lished in 1952 in the UK Eng­lish peri­od­i­cal The Jew­ish Chron­i­cle, a cou­ple of years before Frank’s death, pro­vides cru­cial details on Frank’s jour­ney to Yid­dish. Jour­nal­ist Joseph Fraenkel writes that when Hele­na was ​“about twen­ty years of age she learned that she had a Jew­ish grand­fa­ther, and the dis­cov­ery led her to take an inter­est in Jews and Jew­ish teach­ing. She became deeply absorbed in the peo­ple’s his­to­ry and lit­er­a­ture, stud­ied Hebrew in secret, and took an active part in the Hov­evei Zion move­ment, at that time under the lead­er­ship of Colonel Goldsmid.” Hele­na became close friends with the British-Jew­ish suf­fragette Hen­ri­et­ta Lowy (1866−1953), and con­nect­ed with oth­er high soci­ety Jews at the Ben­twich Salons orga­nized by Lowy’s fam­i­ly. Before World War I, she trav­eled to Pales­tine to help estab­lish a children’s clin­ic with Hen­ri­et­ta Irwell (1869−1941). ^{7 7} Hele­na Frank in Solomon Grayzel’s ​“A Talk with Hele­na Frank,” JPS Book­mark, vol. 1 (1954), p.7. Her trip is also not­ed by Somech Phillips in ​“The late Hele­na Frank,” p. 33, who refers to the clin­ic as a ​“Chil­drens Home.” In 1920, Hen­ri­et­ta Irwell co-found­ed the Women’s Inter­na­tion­al Zion­ist Orga­ni­za­tion. Back in Eng­land, Frank began trav­el­ing east across Lon­don to the Jew­ish Free Read­ing Room in Step­ney, where she com­menced learn­ing Hebrew. Frank’s stud­ies led to her dis­cov­ery of Yid­dish, as described by Fraenkel: ​“Her Hebrew teacher was named Hil­da Manville. Hele­na, who also spoke and wrote in Russ­ian, Span­ish, Ger­man, Ital­ian, and French, soon made excel­lent progress. Miss Manville, vis­it­ing Whitechapel one day, bought some ​“heimishe kuchen,” which she packed in a Yid­dish news­pa­per and sent to Hele­na, who was then in France. In this way Hele­na learned of the exis­tence of a Yid­dish lan­guage. Con­sid­er­ing her­self to be a Jewess, ^{8 8} In Frank’s ini­tial obit in the Jew­ish Chron­i­cle (26 Feb­ru­ary 1954), p. 15, Sir Leon Simon (1881−1965) states: “[Frank] was brought up as a Chris­t­ian and nev­er gave up or changed her reli­gion.” Joseph Fraenkel appears to have tried to cor­rect the record in a fol­low-up pub­lished a cou­ple weeks lat­er: ​“When I asked her whether she con­sid­ered her­self to be Jew­ish or Chris­t­ian, her reply was: ​‘I con­sid­er myself to be a Jew­ess’“ (in ​“The Late Miss Hele­na Frank” in The Jew­ish Chron­i­cle, (12 March 1954), p. 9, restat­ing what he had already writ­ten pre­vi­ous­ly in ​“Por­trait of a Lady of Eighty” (1952). she was anx­ious to absorb every­thing Jew­ish, and before long acquired a Yid­dish teacher, Ephraim Hieger.” ^{9 9} Pos­si­bly this was Fran­cis Ephraim Hieger (1861−1920), a Jew­ish watch­mak­er in Gold­ers Green, orig­i­nal­ly from the Mazowieck­ie region or its cap­i­tal War­saw, in Poland, whose records can be found in the Eng­land and Wales Cen­sus, 1911 and the Eng­land and Wales Death Reg­is­tra­tion Index 1837 – 2007 on fam​il​y​search​.org and ances​try​.com, and is not­ed in Pam Fox’s The Jew­ish Com­mu­ni­ty of Gold­ers Green: A Social His­to­ry (2016).

Frank’s Jew­ish iden­ti­ty and fam­i­ly his­to­ry is a sub­ject of con­tin­u­ous inter­est in the short pieces writ­ten about her. Here ​“Por­trait of a Lady at Eighty” is again par­tic­u­lar­ly informative. ^{10 10} Josef Fraenkel, ​“Por­trait of a Lady of Eighty,” in The Jew­ish Chron­i­cle (1 August 1952), p. 13. Much grat­i­tude to Hillary Einziger for locat­ing this piece. Frank’s geneal­o­gy is root­ed in a his­to­ry of Ger­man-Jew­ish set­tle­ment in Eng­land on her pater­nal side, and British noble ori­gins on her mater­nal side. Fraenkel explains: ​“There was in Ger­many a Jew­ish fam­i­ly, who, in grat­i­tude to Napoleon, adopt­ed the name of ​“Franzke,” which was lat­er changed to ​‘Frank.’ In the late 1820s a mem­ber of this fam­i­ly, Myer Frank, of Salzwedel (Ger­many), set­tled in Man­ches­ter, where he became con­vert­ed to Chris­tian­i­ty and mar­ried a non-Jew­ess. His son, Dr. Adolf Frank, had one daugh­ter, Hele­na, born on July 31, 1872. She was, nat­u­ral­ly, brought up as a Chris­t­ian.” After Frank’s death in 1954, her obit­u­ary in the Jew­ish Chron­i­cle quotes Simon Hieger, ^{11 11} Simon Samuel Hieger (1888−1977), por­trait artist and son of Fran­cis Ephraim Hieger (Eng­land and Wales Cen­sus, 1911). explain­ing fur­ther: “[Hele­na Frank] was a daugh­ter of the late Lady Agnes Grosvenor, ^{12 12} This detail is con­firmed by Olga Somech Phillips, in ​“The late Hele­na Frank” The Jew­ish Quar­ter­ly (Spring 1954), p. 32 – 34. one of the sis­ters of the First Duke of West­min­ster, and was thus relat­ed to many aris­to­crat­ic Eng­lish fam­i­lies. The fact, how­ev­er, that her father, Dr. Philip Frank, ^{13 13} In the same arti­cle, Josef Fraenkel recalls Helena’s father’s name as ​“Adolf,” while Simon Hieger gives his name as ​“Philip.” Nev­er­the­less, it is quite pos­si­ble that Adolf was an alter­nate name, for Fraenkel is oth­er­wise reli­able in his account of Frank’s life, and Hieger and Fraenkel’s accounts align in oth­er ways. The birth­date Fraenkel pro­vides for Hele­na Frank (31 July), for exam­ple, seems a rea­son­able one giv­en the mar­riage date of Lady Agnes Grosvenor to a ​“Philip Frank” on 5 Decem­ber 1871, accord­ing to genealog­i­cal details com­piled in Burke’s Peer­age, Barone­tage & Knigh­tage (Mosley Charles, ed., 2003). at one time a physi­cian to Prince Hen­ry of Bat­ten­berg and to the King of Bul­gar­ia, was of Jew­ish extrac­tion, undoubt­ed­ly deter­mined the direc­tion of her inter­ests at an ear­ly age.” The cru­cial detail miss­ing here seems to be that Helena’s birth was not offi­cial­ly rec­og­nized in the genealog­i­cal records of British nobility. ^{14 14} Lady Agnes Grosvernor’s genealog­i­cal record in Burke’s Peer­age includes a sig­nif­i­cant detail: that Philip Frank was Lady Agnes Grosvenor’s sec­ond hus­band, and that Lady Agnes Grosvenor died on 22 Jan­u­ary 1909 ​“with­out issue” – name­ly, with­out heirs. This would appear to indi­cate that Helena’s parent­age and nobil­i­ty was not pub­licly acknowl­edged. Whether this was the result of endem­ic blood racism or anti­se­mit­ic prej­u­dice in Lady Grosvenor’s fam­i­ly, or some­thing else, remains unknown. 

Jacob Glat­stein, in his essay ​“Gesh­taltn vos zukhn tikn” [Fig­ures In Need of Reha­bil­i­ta­tion], also takes a strong inter­est in Frank’s Jew­ish back­ground. With­out men­tion­ing Frank’s own self-iden­ti­fi­ca­tion as a Jew, he iden­ti­fies her as a Chris­t­ian albeit descend­ed from Jews. Glatstein’s sit­u­at­ing of Frank’s iden­ti­ty under­scores the ​“mys­tery” of Hele­na Frank; her atten­tion to Zion­ist caus­es and Hebrew and Yid­dish lit­er­a­ture sug­gests an aspi­ra­tional Jew­ish iden­ti­ty which, for rea­sons unknown, were nev­er ful­ly real­ized or rec­i­p­ro­cat­ed as they might have been for a reli­gious Jew­ish con­vert. Her lack of a straight­for­ward Jew­ish iden­ti­ty is also used to make a sharp­er point – against those more rec­og­niz­ably Jew­ish writ­ers who debase Yid­dish for a cheap laugh. Glat­stein presents Hele­na Frank’s ​“heimishe kuchen” wrapped in a Yid­dish news­pa­per as the whole­some coun­ter­point to a Yid­dish sul­lied in Eng­lish by the likes of a young Philip Roth.

Writ­ing in the year before his own death, Glat­stein decries the unfair obscu­ri­ty of Hele­na Frank. He con­trasts the unjust treat­ment of Frank’s lega­cy with the wild pop­u­lar­i­ty of Philip Roth after the 1969 pub­li­ca­tion of Port­noy’s Com­plaint. He also high­lights a seri­ous con­cern shared by Fraenkel and oth­er friends at the time of Frank’s death: the fate of her final man­u­script, Tales of Rab­bi Nach­man Brat­zlaver, com­plet­ed only a day before her death. The very last thing Hele­na Frank is known to have writ­ten, accord­ing to Fraenkel’s report, was this: ​“As to my mod­est lit­er­ary work, I fin­ished the two lit­tle books of Rab­bi Nach­man Bratslaver…If I nev­er do any­thing more — nev­er mind! I am pleased that I fin­ished Rab­bi Nach­man — to the best of my ability…” ^{15 15} As quot­ed in ​“The Late Miss Hele­na Frank” in The Jew­ish Chron­i­cle, (12 March 1954), p. 9. This state­ment is repeat­ed in anoth­er let­ter by Hele­na Frank, pub­lished posthu­mous­ly in the Jew­ish Quar­ter­ly, Spring 1954, p.34.Frank’s work on Rab­bi Nach­man is also men­tioned by Solomon Grayzel in ​“A Talk with Hele­na Frank,” JPS Book­mark, vol. 1 (1954), p.7. Glat­stein calls for a biog­ra­ph­er to ful­ly research Frank’s life sto­ry and locate her man­u­script on Rebbe Nach­man. I share this trans­la­tion of Glatstein’s essay on Hele­na Frank in the hope that it will elic­it more schol­ar­ly research into the life of Hele­na Frank, and the where­abouts of her final work of trans­la­tion, the Tales of Rab­bi Nach­man Brat­zlaver.

Click here to down­load a PDF of the text and translation.