A. M. Klein
Abraham Moses Klein, born in 1909 in Ratno, Ukraine, was a prominent Jewish-Canadian poet, lawyer, and community leader. His family immigrated to Montreal, where he became deeply involved in the local Jewish community, initially considering a path as a rabbi before pursuing higher education at McGill University and later obtaining a law degree. Klein's literary career began in the late 1920s, and he emerged as a significant voice in the Canadian Jewish community through his work as an editor for several Jewish publications, including the Canadian Jewish Chronicle. His poetry, often reflecting on Jewish identity and culture, garnered recognition, with notable works such as "Hath Not a Jew..." and "The Hitleriad," which addressed themes of the Holocaust. Klein's literary contributions earned him accolades, including the Canadian Governor-General's Medal for his collection "The Rocking Chair, and Other Poems." Despite his literary success, Klein faced personal struggles, including clinical depression, leading to his withdrawal from public life in the 1950s. He left behind a legacy of poetry and short stories, as well as a significant novel, "The Second Scroll," that explored Zionist themes. Klein's impact on Canadian literature and Jewish culture remains influential to this day.
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Subject Terms
A. M. Klein
Poet
- Born: February 14, 1909
- Birthplace: Ratno, Volhynia, Russian Empire (now Ratne, Ukraine)
- Died: August 21, 1972
- Place of death: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Biography
Abraham Moses Klein was born in Ratno, Ukraine, in 1909, to Colman and Yetta Morantz Klein. Soon after his birth, the family immigrated to Montreal, Canada, becoming part of the tight-knit Jewish community there. Besides public schooling, he received a Jewish education from a young age, and he considered becoming a rabbi. However, after graduation from high school in 1926, Klein entered McGill University, majoring in classics, political science, and economics, and graduating in 1930. Three years later, he earned a law degree from the University of Montreal. He helped set up a law practice in Montreal in 1934, supporting the rest of the family after his father’s death. In 1935, he married his childhood sweetheart, Bessie Kozlov. After a brief stint in another law firm in northern Quebec, he returned to his original law practice in Montreal in 1938, remaining in that city for the rest of his life.
As early as 1928, he had become active in Jewish affairs, serving as educational director of a Zionist Youth Organization and editing its monthly magazine, the Judean. In 1936. he became editor of the Canadian Zionist, and two years later he moved to the Canadian Jewish Chronicle, the country’s leading Anglo-Jewish publication. In all of these journals he published his editorials, poems, short stories, and educational articles, and became a major voice in Canada’s Jewish community. After World War II, he was a staunch advocate for creating a state of Israel. However, Klein resigned from the Chronicle in 1955 after suffering a mental breakdown, and his clinical depression forced him to withdraw from public life.
Klein is mainly remembered for his poetry. His earliest poetry was written while he was at college and appeared in the various student journals he edited; his later poetry was published in Jewish journals. Much of the substance of his poetry was derived from his Jewish experience, with Klein either accepting or questioning his religion and culture. He also wrote poems celebrating other aspects of life in Montreal and was closely associated with the Montreal Group of poets.
His first volume of poetry, Hath Not a Jew. . . , was published in 1940 and contained a selection of his more specifically Jewish poems. This was followed by The Hitleriad in 1944, a satiric attempt to denounce the Holocaust, based perhaps on Alexander Pope’s satire, The Dunciad. His poetry collection The Rocking Chair, and Other Poems (1948) won the Canadian Governor-General’s Medal. The Collected Poems of A. M. Klein, a full edition of his poetry edited by Miriam Waddington, was published in 1974, two years after his death.
Klein also wrote numerous short stories, published in his journals; these were not collected until 1983, when A. M. Klein: Short Stories was published, part of a project to collect all of his stories, essays, and articles. He also wrote a single, but noteworthy, novel, The Second Scroll (1951), based on a tour of the Near East that he undertook on behalf of Zionism. In 1956, he was awarded the Lorne Pierce Medal by the Royal Society of Canada.