Estella Hertzveld

Estella Hertzveld was born at The Hague in 1837 to Salomon Hartog Hertzveld and Devora Elka Halberstamm, the eldest of six children. Her father was a senior civil servant and taxation expert in the Ministry of Finance from a family of renowned rabbis; her grandfather, Hartog Joshua Hertzveld, served as Chief Rabbi of Overijssel and Drenthe from 1808 to 1864.[1]

Hertzveld distinguished herself at a young age as a gifted writer and poet, and was mentored by Dutch poet Carel Godfried Withuys. At the age of 14 she composed "Sauls Dood" ('Saul's Death'), which appeared in the Vaderlandsche Letteroefeningen, then edited by Withuys, in 1852. The composition was recited to great approbation by poet Jacob van Gigh at a meeting of the Maatschappij tot Nut der Israëlieten. Because of her reputation, the baptized Jew Abraham Capadose dedicated to her his 1853 translation of Leila Ada, the Jewish Convert.[2] In public letters to the Jewish press she distanced herself from Capadose's dedication and beliefs.[3]

Her poems soon appeared regularly in the Israëlietische Jaarboekje and the Almanak voor het schoone en goede, most notably "Elias in de Woestijn" ('Elias in the Desert', 1853) and "Tocht der Israëlieten door de Roode zee" ('Journey of the Jewish People Through the Red Sea', 1854)." She composed "Esther" for Samuel Israel Mulder's collection of Biblical poetry,[4] and her 1856 work "Het Gebed" ('The Prayer') was translated into Hebrew by Abraham D. Delaville.[5] In support of the devastating floods in 1855 and 1861 across the Netherlands, she published "God redt" and "Januari 1861", respectively, and in 1863 she wrote an epic poem to Empress Maria Theresa of Austria for the collection Historische vrouwen van het jaarboekje Aurora.[6] Her poem "De Priesterzegen" ('The Priestly Blessing', 1853), which draws a link between the priests of the Temple service and the service in a ghetto synagogue, inspired paintings by Dutch Jewish painters Maurits Léon and Eduard Frankfort.[7][8][9]

At the same time, Hertzveld mastered German, English, French, Danish, Norwegian, Italian, and Hebrew, and began penning translations of novels in these languages. She translated from the German Ludwig Philippson's oratio Mose auf Nebo (1858), and from the English Grace Aguilar's Opzien tot God (1859). She also translated Norwegian articles by Henrik Wergeland, who advocated for the opening of Norway's borders to Jewish immigration.

Prominent among Dutch literary circles, Hertzveld maintained close ties with other Dutch writers, including Geertruida Bosboom-Toussaint and Johannes Jan Cremer. She was often asked to give presentations at festive occasions, and was guest of honour at the consecration of a new schoolhouse and the new synagogues in Hardenberg (1855) and Delft (1862), for which she composed a series of hymns.[10]

Hertzveld married Jacobus Hymans, a successful businessman from Veenendaal twenty-one years her senior, in Delft on 16 December 1863. After the wedding, officiated by Chief Rabbi Issachar Baer Berenstein, the two settled in Arnhem. They together had six children: Hannah (1864–1937), Dorothea Dina Estella (1865–1899), Hugo Siegfried Johan (1867–1944), Willem Dagobert George Marie (1868–1872), Leopold Maurits Bernard (1870–1904), and Maria Sophia Elisabeth (1871–1961).

The poetry of her later career was characterized by its emphasis on social activism. Hertzveld composed "Lied der negerin, een dag vóór de vrijheid" in celebration of the abolition of slavery in the Dutch colonies in 1863; "Stemmen en zangen", decrying the Prussian invasion of Schleswig-Holstein in 1864, a copy of which her father gifted to Hans Christian Andersen during his second visit to the Netherlands in 1866;[11] and "Het triomflied der beschaving", denouncing the horrors of war, in 1866. She co-founded and chaired the Arnhem division of the Arbeid Adelt in 1872, but stepped down after the death of her son Willem that year.

A few years later she was diagnosed with pulmonary tuberculosis. Still, she wrote a poem for an album presented to Prince Hendrik on the occasion of his marriage in the summer of 1878, and a verse in an album for Queen Emma in the fall of the same year.[5] From 1880 she inhabitted a sanatorium in Reichenthal, Upper Austria. In anticipation of approaching death she arranged a collection of her poems, which was dedicated to her children and published under the title Gedichten van Estella Hijmans-Hertzveld by her brother-in-law George Belinfante in October 1881.[12] She died a few weeks later at the age of 44.