From The Archive: Portrait Of Harold Bloom As A Young Man

Harold Bloom (far right corner) in the Forverts. Image by The Forverts
It’s hard to imagine the legendary literary critic Harold Bloom, who died Monday at the age of 89, as a young man. This was largely by design.
Bloom playfully projected the aura of a musty, Falstaffian ancient. But, before he became an expert on the English canon, his first language was Yiddish, and like many Yiddish-speaking New Yorkers, his youthful achievements were chronicled in the pages of the Forverts.
In September, Christa Whitney of the Yiddish Book Center posted details of her oral history project interview with Bloom to Instagram and included a yellowed newspaper clipping of him as a youth that he had kept among his belongings. The Forward’s archivist, Chana Pollack, immediately recognized the clip as having originated in the pages of the Forverts. Pollack found the issue of origin, from July 17, 1951, days after Bloom had turned 21, announcing him to the wider Jewish community as the recipient of the Phi Kappa Phi National Fellowship to study at Yale.

Young Harold Bloom from the July, 15, 1951 issue of the Forverts Image by The Forverts
“A multiple scholarship winner is Harold Bloom,” the Forverts said, both in Yiddish and English, noting Bloom’s Bronx address, acceptance at Yale and travel grant to study at Edinburgh University during the summer of ‘51. “A Phi Beta Kappa man, bright Bloom also made Phi Kappa Phi, top of the national honor society.”
Yale would become the institution where Bloom spent most of his life. He became a member of the English Department faculty four years after accepting his fellowship, and taught at the university for over 60 years, holding his final class just days before his death.
PJ Grisar is the Forward’s culture fellow. He can be reached at [email protected].
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Culture Trump wants to honor Hannah Arendt in a ‘Garden of American Heroes.’ Is this a joke?
- 2
Opinion The dangerous Nazi legend behind Trump’s ruthless grab for power
- 3
Fast Forward The invitation said, ‘No Jews.’ The response from campus officials, at least, was real.
- 4
Opinion A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Over 500 rabbis sign letter rejecting Trump’s antisemitism agenda
-
Film & TV In ‘The Rehearsal,’ Nathan Fielder fights the removal of his Holocaust fashion episode
-
Fast Forward AJC, USC Shoah Foundation announce partnership to document antisemitism since World War II
-
Yiddish יצחק באַשעװיסעס מיינונגען וועגן די אַמעריקאַנער ייִדןIsaac Bashevis’ opinion of American Jews
אין זײַנע „פֿאָרווערטס“־אַרטיקלען האָט ער קריטיקירט זייער צוגאַנג צום חורבן און צו ייִדישקײט.
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.