KOS KTANA shirim [Inscribed and dated by the author]

Inscribed and dated, July 8, 1928, Antwerp, by Elishava to the writer Haim Yaakov Bezovtovski (1893-1941). Elisheva is a pseudonym taken by the poet Ilizbth Ivanova Jirkov-Bihobski (20 September 1888-27 March 1949). She was born in Russia to an Orthodox Christian family and immigrated to Israel in 1925. Her husband was the publisher and journalist Simon Bichovsky. Of her family she wrote: Of course, I am not Jewish race, but I am not a true Russian either. My maternal grandfather was Irish, ran away from home in his youth, settled in Russia and married a German born woman. I was raised by an English family and so my siblings and I considered ourselves English. I was raised by my mother's sister because my mother died when I was 3 years old. Elizabeth was born in the city of Ryazan, Russia, daughter of Ivan Jirkov, who was first a teacher at a primary school, then became a publisher. She studied at the Gymnasium for girls in Moscow, and later took courses in pedagogy from the Association of Teachers and educators, graduating in 1910. In 1908, at the age of twenty, became interested in Yiddish and Hebrew languages, influenced by her Jewish friends. She studied Yiddish and Hebrew, translated from Hebrew to Russian, and after a while began to write original Hebrew poetry. The subject of Judaism brought her into contact with writer Simon Bichovsky whom she later married. She did not convert and remained a Christian, and was known as "Ruth from the banks of the Volga". In 1925, the couple moved to Eretz Israel where she published poetry in Hebrew, some original and some translated from the Russian. She also translated from Hebrew into Russian works of Gershon Hoffman, Yosef Haim Brenner and others. In her youth Lea Goldberg, who was to become the great writer and poet, met Elisheva when visiting Kovno in 1928 and wrote in her diary her impression of Elisheva: "Today I was at her home. She made a great impression on me. She is simple and modest and the sensation that surrounds her does not affect her. She is a Jewess, a Hebrew, as if she been one her entire life. Tragedy beset her in 1932 when her husband died suddenly leaving her with a 9 year old daughter and unable to make a living. She sunk into poverty and lived in a shack that leaked in winter in the Monterfiore neighborhood in Tel Aviv. During WW II her daughter enlisted in the British military and married a British soldier, Danny Little and lived with him in Africa, and so she remained totally alone. She died in Tiberias, to where she moved in order to recover from arthritis and is buried at the Kineret cemetery. A few of her songs were set to music by Daniel Sambursky, Shaika Faikov, Hava Alberstein and others and were performed by Alexandra, Hava Alberstein and others.…