Fernando Pessoa and the Jewish Question

Nearly anywhere it was possible for a Jew at the beginning of the 20th century to set foot, Eliezer Kamenezky set foot. From his birthplace in Luhansk, he first made the rounds of czarist Russia while apprenticed to a touring Italian opera company. He then emigrated successively to London and the United States—starting off in New York before setting out for California, only getting as far as Cincinnati and Louisville, Kentucky, hoboing on trains before reverse-emigrating to Germany, from which he self-deported to Russia. There, he was jailed for not having a passport, he discovered the mystic vegetarian writings of a Polish Jewish doctor that would change his life, and he traveled throughout the Romanovs’ gulag archipelago as an unwilling guest of the state.  Read Full Article »