Cultural Awakening

The Revolution

By A. S.
Donated by Esther R. Buchsbaum

The free winds of change that had blown in Russia in the beginning of the 20^th century had also reached the small town of Horodetz, but, in a small way. The reason was plain. There weren't any factories in Horodetz, and consequently the working class didn't exist. There were a few workers in town: at the men's and women's tailors, the shoemakers, carpenters, and smiths, where there were one or two workers. The owners worked together with them from morning to night.

According to the system of that time, they used to hire a worker for 1 year or 3 years, with meals and a pair of work boots (at the shoemaker) or a suit (at the tailor). That way, the worker became a son of the house like their own child. The worker used to also do housework like taking out the slop buckets or taking care of the owner's children. So the owner was not an exploiter according to the modern way of thinking. Many times the owner had to use his wits to get the few rubles he needed to pay his workers.

The only true worker who understood the revolutionary movement in Horodetz, and did everything he could to advance the revolution, was Pashe, Yankel Rosenbaum's son.

Picture pg 85: Pashe Rosenbaum.

Pashe had been a hired shoemaker for a shoemaker in town. He was a true proletariat;.a son of generations of “horopashnikes”, that is, people who lived by the labor of their own hands. He was ready for anything. He wasn't afraid of anyone, not even a police officer (a uriadnik) or the priest.^[1]

Potentially the Horodetz workers were ready for revolutionary work. They, however, lacked organizers. But this element was soon to come to Horodetz in the form of 2 young men, Avraham, Chaim Hersh Nadritchni's son and Itche, Shiah Farber's son, who had studied in Pinsk. During Passover vacation in 1905, when they came home for the holiday, they took it upon themselves to revolutionize the Horodetz workers.^[2]

Top picture, page 86: Itche Farber (Dr. J. Farber).
Bottom picture, page 86: Avraham Hersh Nadritchni.

Avraham and Itche were very close to the S. S. party. This party was a mixture of Labor Zionists and of Territorialists. In 1905, Pinsk was an important place in the S. S. movement.

Soon Avraham and Itche came to understand that the world is not only for Jews. There were also gentiles who had to be pulled into the cause. That was a hard piece of work and also dangerous. You don't play around with gentiles. Finally, they did organize a large group of non-Jewish youth. For this, they received high praise from Vanya Sverdiuk, the younger son of Maxim Sverdiuk, a Horodetz gentile, who was very wealthy and a secretary of the village council.

When they invited Vanya to address a gathering, he quickly accepted. But, because he was not a speaker, he suggested that he world read something appropriate. The gathering met behind the sluice gates of the river. The meeting was a a great success.

Avraham and Itche didn't care for that kind of gathering. They went directly to the people. They brought proclamations. One of the gentiles hooked up his horse and wagon and both organizers put on gentile clothes. Pashe had made glue (pap). In the middle of the night they rode around the village neighborhoods and glued the proclamations on the crosses which stood at each end of the village and on the offices of the A. D. Gordon Zionist organization. The neighborhood talked about this action for a long time.

A little later, Aaron Karlinski joined the two organizers. He was the son of Mottie Hillel Karlinski, one of the real big shots from Horodetz.

Aaron was a Zionist who was pulled toward practical and cultural work. Through his initiative were founded free evening courses in which one could learn to read and write Yiddish and Russian. Naturally, those who were learning were mostly girls since the boys had already learned in Hebrew school (cheder). These girls were poor and worked as tailors. The teachers were Ruhama, daughter of Isaac Israel, and Maita, daughter of Shimon Isaac Glantzer.

Aaron Karlinski had also dreamed of founding a cooperative in Horodetz. His argument was as follows. In Horodetz many young girls have nothing to do because there is no work. Therefore cooperatives have to be organized, so that the Horodetz world can become productive.

Very often the Pinsk Central Committee of the S.S. sent agitators to Horodetz. One of these young men was the 18 year old Aaron Asher Weinberg who, in 1906, was a traveling agitator. He is now the current New York advocate and Labor Zionist worker.

The first lecture which Aaron Weinberg read in Horodetz was in a grove behind the brick making factory. HIs topic was to show how historical materialism must lead to territorialism. That was on a summer Sabbath. On every Sabbath the worker's children and the owner's children disappeared from the village. Fathers and mothers ran around the village wondering what had become of their sons and daughters. No one realized the reason for this disappearance. At night, when the young people finally came home, not one of them was punished.

The second lecture which Weinberg gave in Horodetz described how the concentration of capital leads directly to materialism. The second time, I think he read the lecture in Chana Pelte's house. This lecture made a big impression on the listeners because of the rich topic and because of his appearance. He had grown a patriarchal beard (for various political reasons).

Besides the S.S. being in Horodetz, there were also the Bundists, but they were a small group. The Bund, whose program was to nurture a Jewish working class, had, as was pointed out before, no working class in Horodetz to work with. That's why the Bund did not have a future in Horodetz. It wasn't entirely unrecognized though. It called out strikes and campaigned for fewer working hours, better conditions and higher wages, similar to the program of the A.D. Gordon Zionist group.

The speaker for the Bund was Jeremiah Aaron, son of Asher Rudetski, who was a land owner and a rich Jew. In addition to the practical revolutionary work, he needed to work hard to come up with new ideas for his daily lectures. Because of this overload of work he was unable to make lectures that were as satisfactory as those from either visiting lecturers or other local lecturers.

Added to these various tasks, a library was organized which was filled with Yiddish books with a socialist orientation by authors such as Karl Marx, Kutski, and A.D. Gordon. The library was kept in the home of Shlomo, son of Moshe Burstein. Shlomo was also the librarian. Sadly, the library did not exist long because, little by little, the readers kept the books for themselves in their homes.^[3]

The picture on page 87 is of Shlomo Burstein.

By the end of 1906, the important members and leaders of the revolutionary group had gone away, some to America and some to Warsaw or other towns. With their leaving the revolutionary spirit also left and new winds started to blow in the village.

Footnotes

After the revolution, Pashe went away to America. In New York he was a worker. After that, he relocated to Atlanta, Georgia where he opened a shoe business. Pashe died June 17, 1940.
Itche, son of our dear countryman, became Dr. J. Farber. Return

Avraham later went to Warsaw and learned to be a dental technician. After that, he had a dental laboratory in Lodz, until the Nazis murdered him and his family. “May the Lord avenge their blood”. Return

A few years later Shlomo became a teacher of Russian in Horodetz and in America he became a worker till he died on August 8, 1934 Return

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