Chapter Three

Education In Our Town

As I pointed out before, all the men in our town could read. Some could study Mishna and Gemara, and some were familiar with the Bible, and there were those who could only read the prayerbook and the Psalms mechanically, not understanding the words. But many could not write, not even Yiddish. They did not learn how to write in their childhood, and among those who could not write were even very learned men. More than 90 percent of the women could not read or write. The women did go to the synagogue on the Sabbath and holidays, and on the High Holy Days the women's section was packed, and their cries rended the heavens. But they could not read. There were some so-called learned women, who could read the prayerbook or the Yiddish translation known as Tzenah Verenah, and a crowd of women would gather around them and repeat every word they said. One such "learned" woman told her friend in Yiddish in a chant: My Haim did not have branches to cover the sukkah,* so he used straw. And so all the women repeated those words after her as if they were a prayer. They said that in past generations one of the sextons would go up during the High Holy Days to the women's section, go into a large barrel as Diogenes in ancient Greece, read from the machzor* while all the women repeated the words after him. In my day some progress in education had been made, and the following procedure was in effect: When a boy or a girl became two years old, and could speak, the parents would start teaching them the mitzvot,* and slowly teach them how to say hamotzi* over bread, and then all the other blessings for food and drink, and then the prayer over washing the hands in the morning.

When a child turned four and had to start Hebrew school (cheder), Idel the Teacher would come over and take out of his briefcase a chart with the Hebrew alphabet, and a pointer which he fashioned from a reed, spread the chart on the table, and tell the child in a soft voice: Come, my son, and I will teach you how to read our holy Torah. The angel will throw you money from heaven and you will be able to buy whatever you like. The child would sit there hesitant and insecure, and Idel would use the pointer to point at the Aleph and say to the child, You see, this is an Aleph. Say, Aleph! Again, Aleph! he would yell. Again, Aleph! he would yell even louder, and keep pointing at all the Alephs in the upper row on the chart. With this, the child's mother, who was hiding at the top of the steps, would throw down a coin on the chart, as the child smiled with great joy. Idel would pinch the child's cheek and say to him, You see, I told you the angel would throw you money! We are done for today. Tomorrow we will resume our lesson. The angel will again throw you money.

What had prompted Idel, a hunchback with a thin billygoat beard, who always sucked air through his teeth and made noises as though he was gulping cold noodles, to become a Hebrew teacher? Unlike the other Hebrew teachers in our town, who were yeshiva boys who studied Talmud in their youth and young manhood, and ate "days," he never studied in a yeshiva, and all he could do at the synagogue was recite Psalms. Why did the town's folk crown him a Hebrew teacher? The only answer that comes to mind is that in his youth he was an assistant to a Hebrew teacher, and used to carry the little ones on his shoulders every morning from their parents' homes to the school. In the afternoon he would return them to their homes, and when the teacher passed away, he took his place.

Idel taught the beginners until they could "whisper", at which time they were sent to school. What is the meaning of this whispering? At first the child was taught that the vowel ah and the letter Aleph sounded ah, and the vowel bah and the letter Bet sounded bah. Once he got the hang of it, he was told not to mention the letters and the vowels, but to whisper the sound to himself and then say ah or bah out loud. The transition from that first stage to the second was very difficult for the child.

But after the child weathered this crisis and could read more or less fluently, he would read in a large print prayerbook, and would start studying Chumash,* and again he found himself on a rocky road.

The teachers would translate the Torah to the children in some kind of a strange Yiddish which they had learned from their teachers, going all the way back to the German exile, when our forefathers lived in that land, and spoke in the strange German jargon of that time.

I recall, for example, when I read the first chapters of the book of Genesis, the rabbi translated for me, "And he said, hot gezugt, Elohim, Got, let the ground grow herbs, an kleiden, the earth, der erd, herbs, akleid, grass, gruz." I was astounded, because "kleid" means dress, and I knew that my mother wore a dress, and my sister too, all women wear dresses, but how can the earth wear a dress, and one made of grass yet?

In the next portion: And she gave birth, hat gevinen, Eve gave birth to Cain, Kinen, and Abel, Hevln. What does it mean, hat gevinen? I knew that when you play with nuts on Passover, one "gevins," meaning, wins, and the other one loses. I also knew that the adults played cards on Hanukkah, and some won while others lost. I also heard that a book seller had a raffle for a set of Chumash, and someone won. My friend also bought a raffle ticket for three kopeks and won a nice small prayerbook with a red cover and gilded edges. A real beauty! But how did Eve "win" Cain and Abel, how is this possible? At which raffle did she win them and from whom did she get the winning ticket, when there were no other people in the world except for her and Adam? And so it went on and on as I was learning the Torah. The smart children started to put two and two together and figured it all out for themselves. But the simple-minded ones did not understand a thing, because of this strange translation, and did not retain anything from this strange chaos. They continued to study until they were eight or nine, and when they reached this age the selection began. The smart children were graduated from the elementary teacher to the Talmud teacher, whether they were well off or poor and had to work for their meal. Even the poorest Jews would put their children in a Talmud class and pay 12-13 rubles for a "time," which meant 30 to 40 percent of their income, when money was valuable and food was cheap.

"Who knows," the poor father would think, "perhaps the Almighty will have mercy and make my son diligent, and he may become a scholar and a rabbi." To have one's son become a rabbi was the highest wish among Jews at that time. Is it any small thing to be a rabbi? A rabbi's fate is good both in this world and in the world to come. In this world he lives comfortably, like one of the rich, and has job security for the rest of his life. He passes it on to his son, if he has a son worthy of taking his place. And the honor he is accorded! In the synagogue he sits at the east wall next to the holy ark, and he always has the third aliyah. No matter of the community, large or small, is decided without him. And in the next world he is assured a place in the first row with all the righteous of the world.

The slow children who came from poor homes would study until the age of 12 or 13. They would keep going over the portion of the week and the books of the early prophets, and when they left school they became apprentices to craftsmen. But if they came from affluent homes, they continued to study even if they didn't understand a thing. Their fate in the Talmud classes was quite bitter. They had no idea what was going on, even after the teacher did all he could trying to explain it to them. Afraid that the child's father would test his son and find out he had not learned anything, and they will not have students next year, the teacher would pour all his bitterness at these students. He would curse them all, call them all sorts of names, just as "a total got," and at times even slap them across the face. This is how they learned. As for the girls, those did not start their studies at the age of 4 of 5. They did not miss anything if they started learning at 9 or 10. Even so they could become rebbitzins.* There were no special schools for girls. They would study at home, taught by our friend, Idel, or Shmuel-Aron. The latter was not a hunchback like his competitor, Idel, but he walked with a limp, wearing a large shoe on his bad leg and walking on it sideways rather than forward. In addition he was a stutterer. He never got married, and while Idel asked for 20 kopeks per week, he only asked for 10. They used the above-mentioned methods in teaching the girls, but did not stop after the girl started "whispering." They taught them till they read well, and would buy them books from that book seller, books like Caesar in the Forest or the Story of the 40 Thieves, and other such books which they read and enjoyed. Those two teachers only knew how to teach reading, since writing was something they themselves did not know.

The children started learning how to write at age 9. They would buy lined paper and a goose feather for the child, and he would bring it to school. The rabbi would sharpen the feathers with a penknife, make a small slit at the tip, and teach the child how to hold the feather. He would fold the paper into four equal parts and draw the letters on it in a pencil. He would then let the child go over with the feather's tip, dipped in ink. He would do it many times until the child learned how to draw the letters. He would then write the alphabet backwards -- c, b, a -- and the child learned how to write the letter backwards. He would then compose a letter from the child to his parents, thanking them for all they had done for their son, and would give it to the students to learn how to write a similar letter.

A specialist in teaching girls how to write was Leibe Friedman. He was a well-to-do Jew, who owned a house in the middle of the marketplace. But he did not want to turn his house into a tavern and deal with drunken farmers, and chose to turn it into a school, teaching the daughters of Israel how to write. Some 20 girls gathered in his house, of different ages, from 10 to 16, and he would teach all of them at the same time, according to the aforementioned method. They would spend about two hours in study, and then others came. He would teach three classes a day, and charge each student 20 kopeks a week. For a while I was one of his students. My rabbi was a Talmud expert, and did not do well teaching writing. So I was sent after school to study how to write at Friedman's house. I was the only boy who sat among his girl students, including girls who were ready to get married. Leibe Friedman was a great expert on writing, and his letter were well rounded. He knew how to write flowery letters, and was always dressed in a new and clean suit. His beard which began to turn gray was well groomed, and he wore a clean square cap on his head. He spoke to the girls softly and kindly, and never yelled at them. He would instead encourage them and lift their spirits. When the girls showed him their handwriting he would always say, "interesting," and to me he said I was to be a great writer in Israel.

The children studied with the Talmud teacher until they reached their Bar Mitzvah age. At that time they reached a crossroads. The poor talented ones would leave their parents' home and go and study at some small yeshiva, to become proficient in Talmud, until they became independent students. The parents were very happy to get rid of the heavy load of paying for their studies, which was a major burden, and from now on they would depend on the rest of the Jews. The balabatim's sons who did not excel in their studies were happy to be rid of their teachers, who abused them, and started to help their fathers in their business. But it was the talented sons of the balabatim who were not sure what to do. Leave their parents' home and go to study at a small yeshiva and eat "days," was not to their liking. Nor did their parents wish to see them go away. But it was hard both for the sons and for their fathers to give up the study of the Talmud, which was considered a blessing, and so they reached a compromise. The boys remained at home and the parents hired a gifted yeshiva boy who taught them Talmud at the synagogue, and so they studied half a day and helped their parents at work the other half. But there were those whose fathers did not have a business in the town, but rather worked as an employee of a company in the big city, or managed woods, or taught school in Minsk. They would study two or three hours at the synagogue, and would waste many hours in idle talk with the yeshiva boys. They saw no point in this kind of a life, and would start reading non-religious books by Jewish maskilim [secular writers], who advocated learning the vernacular and general studies which every modern person needs. They would move to the city, rent a room and start studying on their own. They did not aim too high, seeking to enroll in the university, since they felt it was beyond their reach, given their station in life and their economic condition. But they studied in order to become educated, know life and the world, and use their education to make a living. They studied mainly languages, mathematics and bookkeeping, since at the time there was a great demand for bookkeepers who spoke several languages. They would subscribe to papers such as Hamelitz, Hamagid, and Hatzfira [Hebrew periodicals]. When they learned that groups of Hoveve Zion [Zionists] were formed in the large cities of Russia, after the pogroms of the turn of the century, they organized a similar group in our town. Besides the newly cultured, the group was joined by the sons of the balabatim, and the big surprise was that the rabbi's daughters also joined. In those day there was complete separation between men and women, who were kept apart from early childhood, and could not talk to each other until after they got married. When a young man and a young woman took a walk together, it was considered an immoral act, a sin which caused babies to die. I recall in my childhood when a five or six year old boy and girl forgot their gender and sat down on the ground to play marbles, a boy their age wearing tzitzes* would come over, put a finger in his mouth and say: Beh, beh! [shame on you], batel b'shisl [no good], chazershe fissel [pig's leg]. The reprimanded children would get up and run away as far as they could. The rabbi's daughters must have been influenced by their brother who had gone to study at the Volozhin yeshiva, and like the great poet Bialik who attended the same school, became a Zionist.

The treasurer of the Hoveve Zion group who would collect the dues from the members every month, was the living spirit of the organization. He was a school teacher named Naftali Kaddish. His last name was an unusual name in those days, and so was the person who bore that name. He was short and had a high and pale forehead. His face was narrow and his chin sharp, with a dark goatee covering it. His eyes were small but lively and humble. His long gown was made of simple fabric, and was always clean. His boots, into which he tucked his trousers, were always polished, notwithstanding the fact that the streets in our town were often covered with mud. His color was always white and clean. He lived in a tiny house near the old synagogue. The house was divided in half by a small corridor, half for living quarters and half for teaching purposes. The house had a fence on the street side and a small gate. Like all the Jews in the town, he would get up early and go to the synagogue, and before and after the prayer he did not study Talmud but rather Mishna and Maimonides's Yad Hazaka, which no one else in the town ever opened. He did not sit anywhere near the east wall, but rather at a table at the end of the room, where the common folk sat. Besides studying Mishna and Maimonides, he would spend much time calculating how much it would cost for a Jew to settle in the Land of Israel, how much one would have to save each month to pay the treasury of Hoveve Zion to be able eventually to settle in the Land of Israel and become a "colonist," which was his fondest goal, and whenever he spoke about it his eyes would shine, like a young man talking about his sweetheart. This fervent Zionist lived across the street from Modl, or Mordecai, who was the town's butcher, a financially aggressive person, who besides his income from slaughter, also traded in hides, and his wife also earned a living. He considered himself superior to everyone. He was an elderly Jew with red face and a white beard and burning eyes radiating self confidence, and he was Naftali Kaddish's personal rival.

I recall on winter nights when I went home after school, I would stop at the synagogue. It was bitter cold outside, and the synagogue was well heated by a large furnace. Yeshiva boys would sit there poring over the Talmud to the light of large kerosene lamps which lit the tables. Naftali Kaddish would sit there and study the large tome of the Yad Hazaka. Suddenly Modl entered, washed his hands and wiped them with the large towel near the basin, and sat down next to the hot furnace. He took out a small pad of cigarette paper, filled it with tobacco, rolled it and licked the edge of the paper and sealed it, and then lit the cigarette with a match, blowing smoke, and then turned to Naftali. Naftali Kaddish! When will you bring the messiah? All you no good Hoveve Zion! Heretics! May the earth swallow you as it swallowed Korach*! Lawless Jews! Men and virgins! He would go on to insult and abuse, and kept laughing at all the Hoveve Zion members. Naftali Kaddish was insulted, but did not respond. He listened but did not say a word. When he did speak, he would also speak softly. Modl would finally calm down because of Naftali's mild manner, and would conclude his tirade with the verse: "If the Lord does not build the house, its builders toil in vain." And he would add: The Holy One made Israel swear not to force the end."

Naftali Kaddish did fulfill his dream and finally immigrated with his family to the Land of Israel. But what happened to them there no one knows.

Chapter Four

The Sabbath in Our Town

The Jewish women of those days were smart and diligent, and did not leave thing to the last minute. They would start preparing on Thursday for the Sabbath. They would go to the slaughterhouse to buy meat for the Sabbath. The slaughterhouse was outside town, on the bank of the river some fifty yards from the houses of the mill street. In the wide open slaughterhouse were butcher shops, each butcher and his own shop. The head of the butchers was Hana, about fifty years old, a husky man, very stubborn and impervious to other people's ideas. If anyone said or did anything he did not like, his anger would be kindled, his face turn red, and he would assail his opponent with curses. But as fast as he got angry, he would also get emotional and shed copious tears. During the dirges of Tisha B'Av at the old synagogue, or on Yom Kippur, especially during Netaneh Tokef,* when he reached the words "who shall live and who shall die," he would wail like a bull and shed streams of tears. He was one of the main criers in the synagogue.

His clients were mostly the affluent women, whom he treated well, and would even offer an occasional flattery or compliment. He had the best meat in the slaughterhouse. He would always buy a healthy fat bull for slaughter, unlike the other butchers, who bought whatever they could find, and would not even pass over a lean old cow.

The poor women could not afford to pay the high price Hana demanded for his meat, and would turn to other butchers. They could buy his leftovers cheap, such parts as lungs, liver, stomach, intestines and chin, but they were afraid of his sharp tongue. They would stay away from his shop. Once the meat was bought, it was brought home, washed properly and salted, and was put on the salting board as ordered by the religious law. Now it was time to buy flour for baking hallah. The housewife would buy the flour from the same baker from whom she bought bread every day. In my early childhood the quality of the flour was poor. It was derived from the wheat that grew in our vicinity, which was inferior, and the flour mills were primitive, therefore the flour was coarse and dark. The hallah baked from that flour was not much to look at, nor did it taste too good, although it tasted better than our daily bread which was coarse rye bread. This bread was hard to eat and even harder to digest, and its only virtue was that it was cheap. When I grew up and started studying Talmud, the bread improved, since they made it of a mixture of fine ground rye and coarser rye ground without the chaff, and they called it "plovinik," or "half bread," which is more like the bread we eat today. They also baked a bread from fine flour only, called "sitnitza," which was fed to the sick. The healthy could not indulge in such luxuries, and if anyone came to buy such bread the first question was, who is sick? The hallah was eventually made of fine flour brought from Minsk, and ground in better equipped mills. It was more tasty than the hallah we eat now, since the women added eggs, oil and sugar, and the hallah then became pretty and tasty.

To bake hallah one needs yeast, but where do you find yeast? The only one who sold yeast was Reuven-Moshe Nahes. The reader may ask, how is this possible? Jews need yeast every day, or at least once a week. How is it possible that only one Jew sells it, and has no competitors? Are there no more Jews in the town who need to make a living? But it was a fact.

This is how it happened: The community had given the rabbi the exclusive right to sell yeast, as a source of livelihood. Since the rabbi's wife was a refined woman who did not want to be involved in selling yeast, and the rabbi certainly could not be bothered with such things, the rebbitzin transferred the privilege to Nahes, who was also a baker and a flour merchant. He sold the yeast and gave the rebbitzin a commission.

The rabbi's name was Elazar Shtarshon, of the renowned Shtarshon family of Vilno. I said it was beneath the rabbi's dignity to sell yeast, but the truth is, he was not capable of selling anything. He was a man of the spirit, not of action. He had absolutely no interest in worldly things. He was one of those rabbis of old who hardly ever touched money. One could tell by looking at him he was not an ordinary human being. His face was white as snow. He had a high forehead, a long dark beard, sad eyes which were always deep in thought, and he never held an idle conversation with anyone. When he was asked anything about public affairs, he would answer with a quick "yes" or "no." The Jews of the town did not like him because of his aloofness, but in their hearts they respected him, since they considered him a godly man. His wife, on the other hand, was friendly, if that is the right word, and liked to be involved with people. She was a worldly woman who knew her etiquette. She was in effect the leader of the community in her husband's stead. The lay leaders would come to her for consultation on financial matters, and her word was the law. I knew this rabbi in my childhood when I started going to the synagogue in Ivenets, and he was still there when I grew up. Everyone thought he would stay there till his dying day, but much to everyone's surprise a large delegation came and took him to their town, Baltrimantz, and the rabbi's post in Ivenets remained vacant for a long time. It was not because there were no candidates. There were more than enough candidates. A week did not go by without some young or old rabbi showing up from a near or far town, seeking the rabbinical throne of our town. The candidate would remain for a few days, stay at a hotel, and give a few sermons at the synagogue, not for pay but only to show how good he was. He would leave without an offer from us, but he was told that he would be considered, so as not to disappoint him too much. We even had some famous rabbis come and try to secure the position for their sons or sons-in-law, but Ivenets was very choosy when it came to selecting a rabbi. It boasted that its rabbis would became well known throughout the land. Among the well known rabbis who came to us to try to secure the post for others was Rabbi Meir-Noah, who in his youth served in Ivenets, and has changed many pulpits, until he finally became a rabbi in Moscow. He was a scion of the family of the head of the Volozhin Yeshiva, one of the best known in the Jewish world and in Jewish history. The founder of the yeshiva was Rabbi Haim of Volozhin, one of the main students of the Gaon of Vilno.

Rabbi Meri-Noah was the opposite of Rabbi Eliezer Shtrashon who left Ivenets (of the famous Shtrashon family of Vilno). While Rabbi Eliezer was all soul, Rabbi Meir-Noah was all body. While the former lived in the lost world of Babylonia, the latter lived in Czarist Russia, acted according to the Zeitgeist, and knew how to get along with both Jews and Russians. Despite his age he was still strong and sturdy, tall, wide shouldered, thick-necked, with a red face surrounded by a long white beard, and his eyes were lively and clever. He wore an expensive fur, and instead of the rabbinical hat he wore a Persian-lamb hat. His Yiddish contained more Russian expressions than Yiddish, and was spoken with genuine Russian pronunciation, singing the "r" the Russian way. He used this cocktail Yiddish in his sermons as well, and many did not understand what he said, but they considered him exceedingly wise.

It appears that he had gotten used to preaching before Jews who had mainly served in Czar Nicholas's army, Jews who served for 25 years. Those men had been taken from their parents when they were 7 or 8, and spent so much time away from the Jewish community that they had forgotten their mother's tongue, substituting it with Russian. Rabbi Meir-Noah was a progressive rabbi, who had known Russian before, learning it in Moscow, and spoke like an educated Muscovite.

But with all the respect that our town accorded him, he was not able to persuade us to take him back as our rabbi, since even back then the community was divided into many different groups, each propagandizing for its own candidate. Nearly all the candidates did not come alone. They had an advocate who came before them or with them to hold talks with the lay leaders. The advocate was a cunning fellow, who sniffed out the dominant leaders who had influence in the town. He would talk to one of them, promise a certain sum of money, if things went his way, and his man became the rabbi, in which case the money, Heaven forbid, would not be paid as a bribe, but as a gift and as recognition for the trouble incurred. Each of the advocates did the same thing, and as a result stormy arguments broke out in the town, with some praising one rabbi and decrying another, and vice versa. Some of the debates got so heated that people were ready to pull one another's beards and earlocks, while the neutral ones had to separate them and did not let them approach each other.

On Sabbaths, when the women came to services, one could even hear the arguing and fighting in the women's section. This chaos continued for many months, while Ivenets remained without a spiritual leader, with no one to lead the daily Talmud lesson, and no one to decide matters of religious law.

Sometimes the butchers would slaughter a bull on Thursday, and would find a blemish, but would not dare to decide on their own whether it was kosher, and so the butcher in question would lose a great deal of money. The Jews of town would remain without meat for the Sabbath, and would have to make do with a dairy meal. This prompted the warring factions to come to a decision not to accept any of the candidates that had come before them, but rather pick a rabbi from one of the surrounding towns, who did not bother to interview. Since they heard that the rabbi of Tinkwitz was wise, worldly, and friendly, they decided to compose a petition signed by all the Jews of the town and have a delegation take it to Tinkwitz, and offer the position to the rabbi of Tinkwitz. And so it was. The delegation set out on its way in a carriage and a pair, and arrived safely in Tinkwitz. The local rabbi did not even pretend to refuse and did not make any counter-offer, even though his congregation wanted to retain him and even offered him more money. The rabbi willingly accepted the offer and promised to come to Ivenets as soon as he settled matters in his own town. One fine morning one of the members of the delegation received a telegram -- I am coming. The town's folk went out in wagons to Kordony* -- and I among them -- to welcome the rabbi. I was already a yeshiva boy, and I tutored boys who started studying Talmud. Those who came to greet the rabbi stayed at Motke Kordnoier's hotel, and their spirits were high. Jokes and anecdotes were exchanged by all as the rabbi appeared, riding Moishe-Tevye's wagon. He was greeted with an applause and the shofar* was blown. The rabbi gave a sermon to the assemblage, and then everyone mounted the wagons and a long caravan made its way with great commotion to the town. The windows of the town's houses were lit with burning candles in honor of the occasion. The rabbi was brought home, to the house built especially as a home for the rabbi, and the crowd dispersed. This is how Rabbi Aryeh Dvoretzky was welcomed to Ivenets.

In digressing from the topic I had chosen, namely, to write about Ivenets "as I saw it and knew it in my childhood," I have turned to another time, namely, "Ivenets of my early manhood." But this is the way of man in this world. Man is constantly transformed from one station of life to another. From infancy to childhood, from childhood to adolescence, from adolescence to young manhood, from young manhood to middle age, from middle age to old age. But I will not renege on my subject. I will continue to write about Ivenets "as I knew it in my childhood," and will return to the topic I have digressed from, which is the Sabbath in the town. One can write much more about our town, and if it does not have historical value, it is of interest to the descendants of our town, wherever they are, to see how life in our town evolved from generation to generation, and were it not for the fact that the Archevil One put an end to that life, who knows where this life would have reached. In any event, many of the sons of Ivenets in that generation would listen to the aspersion which Rabbi Aryeh would cast against Zionism and its leaders, many of whom were among us and helped with their own hands rebuild the Land of Israel, and the others were helping from afar. And it is possible that if Rabbi Aryeh and his descendants, if they were still alive today, would have come to live today in the State of Israel, as did many members of the Agudah who used to damn Zionism, and are now walking in droves in the streets of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, wearing their fur hats. Better yet, they would like to take control of the state and its inhabitants, and dictate to them how to live and how to behave.

And so, after the balabusteh [housewife, woman of the house, or home-maker] brought the yeast home, she was done with her running errands for the Sabbath. She still needed candles for a blessing, and also fish, which is a must for the Sabbath, no less important than meat. But to buy candles she did not have to go herself. She could send her son or daughter to Rashi-Hinde, wife of Meir Novik, the carriage-driver, who hand-made thin candles for the Sabbath. Only Rashi-Hinde knew how to make candles, and she had no competition. As for fish, this was the specialty of Leibe-Mashkes. Not because this man was a fisherman, Heaven forbid! There were no Jewish fishermen in those days, since it was the work of Gentiles. Rather he would go to Starinik or to Klitzistch to buy fish, and would bring his basket to the housewives' doorsteps, weigh a fish, get pay and move on. If he should have come back from the village without fish, then going to him was no use.

In the middle of winter, in January, when the cold was extreme and frost would freeze people's ears and noses, a Jew from a faraway town might show up in his large winter carriage which was full of fish and sell them in the marketplace. The large fish were consumed by the affluent and the small ones by the poor, for the small ones were sold very cheap, at the price of bread. But if there were no fish for the Sabbath, the housewife would have had to find a fish substitute, using her ingenuity.

On Friday she would get up earlier than the rest of the week. Was it any wonder? She had to do more chores than any other day. In spring and summer it was not too hard, since the days were long. She knew she would get to finish everything, and so she worked slowly and quietly. But in fall and winter, when Fridays were short, she would not only rise early but would also work frantically, fuming and boiling, chiding her husband and children, and complaining about being disturbed trying to do her work, causing her Heaven forbid to desecrate the Sabbath. It became impossible to stay near her. This was her schedule: She would get up, get dressed, and wash her hands, then light the large stove, using firewood prepared the day before, and start baking the hallahs for the Sabbath, the rolls for breakfast, and the lentils. She made sure the fire blazed, lowered the noodle board from the wall, placed it on the large table, spread some flour on it, and made the hallahs and the rolls. In winter when it was too cold in the house and the wood did not burn properly or the chimney was clogged, she would cover her baked goods with a large pillow, to let them rise. After the wood was burned and the stove was properly hot, she would push the coals aside to the edge of the stove and put the hallah and the rolls as well as the lentils deep inside the stove, using a long wooden tool, close the stove with the wooden door to keep the heat inside, and thus her first round of work was completed.

But the regular daily chores did not take care of themselves either. One had to sweep the rooms and make the beds, and if one had a cow or a goat one had to feed it. Still, you do not notice how the time flies, and soon your husband comes back from the morning prayers, and the children have to go to school. She checks the lentils and the rolls, and if they are ready she pulls them out of the stove and slices them, to let them cool off and be ready for breakfast.

When the husband returns, they sit down to eat a breakfast consisting of rolls and lentils. If it is winter, there is also a piece of calf meat, which is rather cheap. The first solicitors begin to show up, those who go from door to door on the eve of the Sabbath. The sextons of the synagogues, each with a tin can for charity, and a wooden one for candles. The charity they take for themselves, as compensation for their work at the synagogue, and the candles they use to light the synagogue during Sabbath services. The charity does not quite support them, but the sexton has other occupations, such as teaching little children, or binding books. They are followed by the gabbais of the various, above-described societies. I am not referring to the official gabbais, who were respectable citizens who would not go begging. I mean gabbais' emissaries, poor folk who received a small pay for collecting money. They would come each with his tools -- paper and pencil. On the right side of the page they would write the members' names and then put a zero next to each name which made the weekly payment. At the end of the year the official gabbai would check the list, counting the circles. If they were less than 52, the delinquent person had to pay the debt.

But time, as we know, does not stand still. Rather time flies. The old grandfather clock hanging on the wall, with the copper chains holding heavy weights, keeps moving, and its hands now mark twelve. It is time to go to the ritual bath. The husband takes the white linens which his wife had prepared for him to wear after the bath in honor of the Sabbath. I am not referring to linens of today, which were hard to find in those days anywhere in Russia. I am talking about the coarse gray cloth which the farmers' wives wove from flax in their primitive gins.

So the man of the house took his white linens and soap, and if it was summer he also took twigs with green leaves still on them, which he bought from a farmer in the market and would go to the bath house.

The bath house in Ivenets at that time was newly built. What ever happened to the old one? Could it be that there was no old one? Could a Jewish community exist without a bath house? You may argue that there was an old one that began to deteriorate and was about to collapse, and so they tore it down and built a new one. But that was not possible, since they used to fix the old one every once in awhile and keep it going. Was Ivenets so rich that it could afford to give up on the old one and build a new one? I remember it like in a dream. It was the night of Yom Kippur after midnight. The Jews of Ivenets were in deep sleep after they had filled their bellies with two unusual meals, a meal of roosters and a meal of hens, from the kapparot* they had swung over their heads in the morning, and also kreplach* and tzimes,* and other Yom Kippur eve delicacies one is commanded to eat. They were suddenly awakened by the bells of the Russian Orthodox church. A deathly fear fell upon them, for they knew that there was a fire in one of the houses. A moment later a shout was heard outside, fire, fire! To us fire and the angel of death were synonymous, since every Jew was afraid his own little home was going to burn down, his most important possession, and he would be left homeless. There were no insurance companies in those days, and the houses were only insured by the county to the tune of 30 rubles, which is 1/30 of what it would cost to build a new house. And to make it worse, it was Yom Kippur, the beginning of fall, and how is one to support one's wife and children without a roof over their heads? But soon it was discovered that the fire occurred in the bath house, which alone was burning. Everyone heaved a sigh of relief, and fear was dispelled, since the bath house stood in a deep valley, near the river, far from the Jewish homes, and the Christians who lived near it were sure to put it out. And so they returned to their homes and resumed their sleep, to be able to get up early and face the day of judgment with a clear mind and a quiet heart, to be able to ask the Creator for the right things for the new year.

But after Yom Kippur a serious question arose, what to do in order to build a new bath house. A bath house is one of the most essential public needs, without which no Jewish community can exist. Where is one to find the financial means to build such a house? So they met and discussed the matter for a long time but found no solution. They could not find such large sums of money which were needed to build a bath house. But after a while the Holy One saw their affliction, how they cried and moaned for they did not have a bath house to bathe their flesh on the eve of the Sabbath, and without a bath the Sabbath loses its magic, and sent them a redeemer, a farm-dwelling [yishuvnik] Jew named Ora Brikovshtziner, or Aaron of the village of Brikovshtzina. He was not an ordinary yishuvnik. Most of them are ignorant boors, and the town's folks looked down on them.

Ora was no boor, but neither was he a great scholar. He could read a chapter of Mishna and understand it superficially, but he was a good businessman. He leased a flour mill and some land from one of the landowners, and built a brewery in the village, which made him rich. Since he was a yishuvnik who belonged to Ivenets (he owned the house where the town's rabbi lived), he donated lumber from his woods to build the bath house, gave some cash, and paid the builders. How did this Ora, who was a stutterer among other things, and somewhat resembled Sholem Aleichem's comic character Tupele Tuturitu, get rich? He couldn't even pronounce his own name properly, and instead of Ora would say Oda. This is a whole story by itself. He got rich by cheating Czar Alexander the Third, and his government, which imposed a tax on liquor, and made a deal with the Russian tax collector, altering the accounting of the volume of liquor he distilled, and bribing the official handsomely. He fixed his device measuring the liquor so it only showed half of the volume, and the other half he sold without paying tax. He did this day after day for several years, until he became quite wealthy and bought two estates.

Ora had one ambition -- to buy pedigree for his money. He married his son off to a daughter of one of the most illustrious families of that time -- the daughter of the great Rabbi Israel Salanter. After Ora became related to one of the greatest rabbinic families, and they found out how he made his money, they warned him to stop his practice, since he could get into great trouble. One day he was caught. He was brought in chains to prison. His distilleries were closed down, and his two estates were confiscated by the state treasury. But it appears that members of his family had some cash. They used this cash to hire the greatest lawyer in Russia, Kopernikov the Jew, and he defended him in court and was able to obtain a "light" sentence. Ora was sent to Siberia for a few years. His family went along with him. Even in remote Siberia he made money, and when he came back he did not return to the village but settled in Ivenets in his own private home, and even enjoyed the bath house he had built for the town. It was a spacious bath house, unlike anything in the neighboring towns. It was no smaller than the bath houses in Minsk. One first entered a large windowless foyer, where the door was always open and the light came in from the outside. In the foyer there was a well, and a pump was used to bring up water, operated by the bath house keeper's assistant. In the foyer the assistant would sell twigs. From the foyer one entered the dressing room, where one would undress, and place his clothes in a bundle on one of the shelves. One would then take along the twigs and go into the steam room, which was the main room. The furnace was on all the time, from midnight on Friday. The stones were blazing, and when one poured water on them they let off a great deal of steam, which spread throughout the room and filled it with heat. Next to the furnace, some three yards up, there were beams with iron hooks, on which one could hang one's linens, to kill any lice that might have clung to them in the extreme heat, since lice were quite common in the town, and many of the residents suffered from them. Some of the homes were small and blessed with many children, and the dirt was a constant source for lice. Along the wall there were long wooden benches for sitting down. In the middle there was a wide long bench where two rows of people could sit with their backs to one another. On the left side of the entrance to the steam room were three wooden steps one could sit on, with the highest being the hottest. There were also two large tubs with water in the room, one hot and one cold. There were several wooden cups, each holding about half a gallon, which were used for ladling water from the tubs. One mixed the hot and the cold water, and used it to bathe. After a casual ablution, one would go up with a bunch of twigs to the level one could tolerate, and whip oneself with the twigs from top to bottom. One would then go to the next room to take a rest from all this hard labor. There were some who did not even approve of the hottest level, and kept crying out, more steam, more steam! After the rest they would go back to the steam room, to continue their ablutions.

In the corner of the room next to the furnace sits Shaul with a lit candle. He takes his wind glasses out of his bag, one by one, heats them a bit with the candle, and attaches them to the back of a bare-backed client. Moments later he begins to remove them one by one, and in the place of the red mark he makes a slight incision with a sharp razor, and a thin stream of blood bursts forth. Once he is finished, he turns to the next client and does the same. And so Shaul is quite busy, and once he and the rest are done, they all go home cleansed and happy.

But the bathing experience was not always a happy one. Sometimes bathers got sick because the healthy and the sick used the same benches without any disinfection, and some got sick in the winter from abruptly changing from very hot to very cold air.

Once the husband came back from the bath house his wife would greet him. She is now calm and satisfied, for while he was at the bath she had a chance to finish her chores, change her dress for the Sabbath, and offer him a light meal, a bit of tzimes, enough to tide him over until dinner. After he and the children return from the house of prayer, the main meal takes place. This meal must be eaten with gusto, since it is a religious commandment.

After cutting the nails with a special small knife, wrapping the cuttings in a piece of paper and squeezing them into a crack in the wall, and after a cursory look at the laws of the Sabbath, Reuven-Shimon appears in the street. Reuven-Shimon is not the sexton of either the old or the new synagogue, but rather the general sexton of the town. He has many and sundry chores. When a wedding takes place, he limps around the houses with a list in his hand and invites the relatives and friends of the bride's and groom's families to the wedding. When he comes into the house he stands on his right foot, while the left one is somewhat raised, and after a greeting he says in a ceremonious voice and a serious expression, Haim son of Rabbi Yankl wishes to invite you to his son's wedding which will take place God willing tomorrow. He plays a similar role when someone's wife gives birth to a male child. He goes and invites the relatives of the couple to take part in the circumcision of the newly-born. If a dispute breaks out between two Jews on some monetary issue, and one goes to the rabbi and complains about the other, the rabbi sends Reuven-Shimon to summon the other party to a Din Torah [rabbinical arbitration]. But these are only occasional and temporary chores, which today are taken care of by the post office or the newspaper. (We did not have a post office in our town at that time, and the papers came to the local government house where a Jewish boy who could read Russian took them and distributed them to people's homes). Reuven-Shimon's main occupation was to summon the Jews to the prayers on Sabbath eve and the eve of holidays, right before sunset, and also let them know the time of candle lighting for Sabbath and holidays. During the days of Slichot* before Rosh Hashana he would get up a few hours before dawn and walk the streets of the town in the dark, and use a large wooden gavel to bang on the shutters and wake up the Jews to get up for Slichot prayers. He fulfilled his task faithfully and with devotion, regardless of the weather, rain or shine, snow storm or bitter cold. He would stand in the middle of the street on his right foot, while the left, the crippled one, was raised, lift up his head and pull forward his belly, and would call out loud, "Jews, to the synagogue," as he drew out every syllable.He did not only call once, although his voice was strong and could be heard at a distance. Every four or five houses he would stop and repeat his call, like a rooster calling intermittently before dawn.

When Reuven-Shimon calls, the Sabbath is about to begin and one has to hurry up. Immediately the father and the children would rush to the synagogue, and the mother would go to the table where the candles were set, say a blessing over the candles in Hebrew, and switch to Yiddish to say a prayer she knew by heart from the book of Sarah Bat Tovim, beginning with "dear God." Briefly, it stated, Dear God be merciful, and as these candles light this room, let my children's eyes be lit in Your holy Torah.

In the synagogue the holiness of the Sabbath would permeate everything. The wooden floor was swept and cleaned from the food remains and cigarette butts that were dropped during the week. A new long towel hangs near the basin. The stands are in place in a row near the walls, each next to its owner. Candles are lit in the round copper lamps hanging from iron chains from the ceiling. A box full of snuff hangs near the ark, and anyone can take some snuff and fill his nostrils. Novices begin to sneeze loudly. After the mincha prayer, a Baal Tefilah* goes up, wraps himself in a talit,* and starts with Lechu Neranena,* and the congregation joins him in chanting.

Between the end of Kabalat Shabbat* and the beginning of the maariv prayers there is a short pause. Reuven-Shimon may show up at the old synagogue, although he prays at the new one, and the public looks at him questioningly. He approaches one of the men at the north wall and announces in his special voice, "Shmerl son of Isaac has the honor of inviting you to Shalom Ben Zachar [male child]."

The Shalom Ben Zachar is one of the ceremonies for greeting the newly-born. First one goes to Klein Michal (an old Jew, very short, hence the name Klein), the local book dealer, and buys some copies of Shirey Hamaalot,* which, besides the usual text, also contain strange names of the devil, such as Sinai and Sansini and Smogalof, Lillith and Samael. These are hung on the walls of the woman who gave birth, to protect the child from evil spirits, Heaven forbid. Each evening until the eighth day of his birth, the day of the bris,* the little children of the neighborhood who have learned how to say the Shema come and recite it in the room, and receive a piece of wrapped candy in return, and sometimes a honey cookie.

The adults who come to the ceremony have to be better fed than the children. After the Sabbath meal they begin to arrive in the house of the newly-born, and they bless the family with mazel tov and go to see the mother, and give her a blessing from the distance. They make some small talk with the father, and sit at the table. The child's grandmother or a neighbor comes in and gives them some chickpeas and dried peas, which all the Jews in our town, rich and poor alike, could afford.

The second course is a pudding of dried berries, cooked with raisins. During this light meal the guests talk about preachers and cantors, and finally say the Shema, again bless the parents that they may have naches* from the child, and live to see him attain Torah, and marriage, and good deeds, and they go back to their homes.

All of these measures are taken only for the birth of a boy, not a girl. The reason is that a boy brings joy and happiness to his parents, for the hope that in their old age they can rely on him, and he will take care of them as much as he can, and when they die he will say Kaddish* for them, and will save them from Gehenom.* They are concerned that Samael and Lillith and all their stooges may envy the newly-born, which has not yet been circumcised and therefore is not protected, and may wish to harm him. This is not the case with the birth of a daughter. They know that a daughter is only a burden for her parents. While it is true that when she grows up and becomes thirteen or fourteen years old she helps her mother with the household chores, cleans and improves the house and everything looks better than before, what is one to do when a girl grows up and reaches a marriageable age? Then she becomes a real burden for her parents. If the groom is a craftsman, he requires at least 150 rubles dowry, and if he is middle class, he demands 300 rubles and a meal at the table of the in-law for a year or two, until he can start making a living. And this is not counting clothes for the bride, wedding expenses, and incidentals. Where does one find such astronomical sums of money? It is true that in the end one finds a way, one borrows money, and the girl with God's help goes to the Huppah* according to the law of Moses and Israel. It hardly ever happens among Jews that a woman sits in her parents' house until her head turns gray without being married. For it is told that an angel announces forty days before a child is born that this child is destined to marry so and so. Can one mock the words of an angel? But how much work, worries and trouble does it take for the parents to be able to fulfill this announcement? Furthermore, a daughter's help to her parents in their old age is not certain, for she depends on her husband. Kaddish she will not say for them, for women do not say Kaddish. So why would the Evil Ones wish to harm her?

Be it as it may, while the newly-born is being attended to, the men in the synagogue have reached the end of the Amidah,* and the sexton gives the leader of the prayers a glass of wine to do the Kiddush. Five and six year olds surround the singer like bees. He finishes the Kiddush and gives each one of them a drop until the cup is drained. The little ones return to their fathers with glowing faces. After Alenu* and Adon Olam* the congregation starts filing out, as each person touches the mezuzah* with his fingertips and kisses it. Only the sexton remains in the synagogue to keep an eye on the Gentile woman who comes in to snuff out the candles and the lamps.

The spiritual entertainment of the Jews in the town were the cantor and the preacher, but they did not always enjoy them.

When I was a small child Reb Itzi the Cantor was already a very old man. His beard and sidelocks were white as snow. His head was bald and his face looked like parchment. He had given up his butcher trade a long time before, because his hands had started to tremble. But he would still serve as a cantor, although his voice was weak, like the voice of a chick. He had two singers, both of them old, about 70 each, but they had low bass voices. When Itzi called out Hineni Haani memaas [I the man of little merit], they would counter with their deep voices, boom boom boom.

Itzi the Cantor would go early to the synagogue and was the first to arrive there. He would take out the Tractate Hulin* and read. It was proof that he used to be a butcher, since butchers must know this tractate, otherwise they would not be ordained butchers.

The youth also liked cantillation, and when the Cantor of Koidanov* visited Ivenets, it was a major event in the town, and the balabatim would fight for the honor to invite this young singer to the Sabbath meal and hear him sing.

The chant of the visiting cantor was sung for a long time by the yeshiva boys while they studied Talmud, and by the craftsmen's apprentices. Even the girls knew how to sing these melodies. Once two yeshiva boys, sons-in-law of two rich men in the town, joined some other young men and put on a play in the winter of the Selling of Joseph. The youth were enthralled to see this first play they ever saw in their lives, and in every home in the town people sang songs from this play, which remained engraved in the memory of the Jews of Ivenets.

The preacher would also entertain the public. A good preacher would make people forget the present and transport them to a better world. But some preachers were boring, inarticulate, and spoke about heaven and hell. The public voted with its donations. After a good sermon the collection box was full. After a bad one it was empty.

I have written all these recollections with deep nostalgia.

Those were days that will never come back...

Glossary of Selected Terms

Adon Olam Hebrew. "Lord of the World." A rhymed liturgical hymn - part of the liturgy since the 14th century.

Alenu Hebrew. "Upon us." Shortened form of Alenu Le-Shabbe'ah, a prayer recited at the conclusion of most synagogue services.

Aliyot Hebrew. "Ascents." Plural of Aliyah. Name given to the act of being called to read a portion of the Torah in the Synagogue. It is considered an honor to receive an Aliyah.

Amidah Hebrew. "Standing." A prayer popularly known as Shemonah-Esreh (eighteen) because it contains 18 benedictions. The prayer, which is said standing, is considered the core of each of the prescribed daily services.

Baal Tefilah Hebrew. Literally, "Master of prayer." Term used to denote a person who leads the prayer service on a special occasion.

Bimah Hebrew. "Elevated Place." A raised platform in the synagogue from which the Torah is read and other parts of the services are led.

Bris Hebrew. "Circumcision." Ritual circumcision - celebrated on the eighth day following the birth of a male child.

Cholent Yiddish. Name of a stew which is traditionally prepared before the Sabbath and allowed to cook overnight, thus avoiding the ban on cooking on the Sabbath.

Chometz Hebrew. "Fermented dough." Chometz is ritually unfit for passover consumption and is forbidden in the house of a Jew during the eight days of Passover. In popular use, the term can designate any contraband.

Chumash Hebrew. "Five." The five books of the Torah. The Pentateuch.

Gehenom Hebrew. Literally, the name of a valley south of Jerusalem. In biblical times it was the site of a cult which burned children. Today the name is used metaphorically as the name of the place where the wicked go after death.

Gemorah Aramaic. "Completion." Name given to the discussions and elaborations about the Mishna by early scholars. The Mishna and the Gemorah together constitute the Talmud.

Hamotzi Hebrew. "Who brings forth." Popular name for the blessing over bread and before meals. (Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the Universe, who brings forth bread from the earth.)

Havdalah Hebrew. "Distinction." Name given to the blessing recited at the conclusion of the Sabbath and festivals to emphasize the distinction between the sacred and the ordinary.

Hulin Hebrew. "Profane." Name of one of 63 major tractates of the Babylonian Talmud (see Talmud). It is concerned largely with the slaughter of animals and the preparation of meat.

Huppah Hebrew. "Wedding canopy." The canopy which the bride and groom stand under during the wedding ceremony.

Kabalat Shabbat Hebrew. "Reception of the Sabbath." A term which describes the inauguration of the Sabbath.

Kaddish Aramaic. "Holy." A prayer which praises God. It is written in Aramaic, and is found in various forms in different parts of the liturgy. Although the prayer does not mention the dead, it is also commonly used as a prayer for the dead. Thus, children will say Kaddish for their departed parents, husbands wives, etc.

Kaneh Dudke Yiddish. "Kaneh = enema, Dudke = fife" Derisive idiomatic expression. Precise meaning not clear.

Kapparot Hebrew. "Expiations." A custom in which the sins of a person are transferred to a fowl. The custom is practiced by the orthodox on the day before the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur). A chicken or other fowl is swung around the head while a special prayer is said. The fowl is then donated to the poor. The custom appears to have originated in the 9th century. Among modern orthodox, money is substituted for the chicken. Thus, in common use the word Kapparot can refer to a material loss or waste.

Kiddish Hebrew. "Sanctification." Prayer said over wine to consecrate the Sabbath or other festival.

Kishkes Yiddish. "Intestine." Usually used to denote a delicacy, the stuffed intestine of a kosher animal.

Koidanov Name of a town located 38 km southwest of Minsk. Alternative spellings include Kaidonovo, Kaydanovo, Keidanov, Koidanovo. In 1935, the Soviets renamed the town Dzerzhinsk. The town was the home of a famous Hasidic dynasty. The Jewish population was 1788 in 1926. According to Harry Rubinstein (1897 - 1974) and Morris Rubinstein (1896 - 1968), Naomi Gurian Rubinstein [Nehama bas Moshe (1876 - 1951)] was born in Koidanov.

Korduny Name of a townlet located about 7 km northeast of Ivenets. The townlet can be found on map NN 35-8, AMS series N501, available at nominal charge from the National Archives.

Korach Hebrew. Name of the central figure in the revolt against Moses during the wanderings following the exodus from Egypt. The name is spelled Korah in most English texts.

Kreplach Yiddish. Plural of Krepl. "Boiled dumplings." Kreplach are usually stuffed with meat and eaten on Purim, Sukkot and other festivals.

Kugel Yiddish. "Pudding." The term usually refers to "Lukshen Kugel" or noodle pudding.

Kvass Yiddish. "Kvass." A thin, sour beer.

Lecha Dodi Hebrew. "Come my friend." The beginning words of a hymn which welcomes the Sabbath. It is part of the Friday night liturgy.

Lechu Neranena Hebrew. "Come let us exalt." First two words of psalm 95, recited on the eve of the Sabbath.

Maariv Hebrew. "Evening prayer service." One of 3 obligatory daily services. (see also mincha and shachris)

Machzor Hebrew. "Cycle." Term used to designate the prayer book for festivals. The daily prayer book is called a siddur.

Matzoh Hebrew. "Unleavened bread." Specially prepared unleavened bread eaten and used for ritualistic purposes on Passover. The antithesis of chometz (see above).

Mezuzah Hebrew. Originally "Doorpost." Now refers to a case containing parchment which is affixed to all doorposts in Jewish homes. The parchment contains quotations from Deuteronomy. The cases are often ornamental.

Mincha Hebrew. "Afternoon prayer service." One of 3 obligatory daily services. (see also Maariv and shachris)

Minyanim Hebrew. Plural of Minyan "Number." The term designates the quorum of ten males, ages 13 and over, which is necessary for conducting synagogue services. That is, certain services cannot be conducted without a Minyan.

Mishna Hebrew. "Oral law." According to Jewish tradition, when Moses received the Torah (or Written Law) on Mount Sinai, he also received the Oral Law. The Oral Law, which interprets and expands on the Written Law, was passed down through the generations until in the year 200 C.E., Judah ha-Nasi redacted and edited the Oral Law as the Mishna. The Mishna and Gemorah (see earlier) constitute the Talmud (see later).

Mitzvah Hebrew. "Commandment." A religious duty. In common usage, the term also refers to a good deed or meritorious act.

Mitzvot Hebrew. "Commandments." Plural of mitzvah (see above). Orthodox Jews follow 613 biblical commandments or Mitzvot, of which 248 are positive commandments and 365 are prohibitions.

Musaf Hebrew. "Additional service." Part of the liturgy for the Sabbath and festivals. It is usually conducted following the reading of the Torah.

Naches Yiddish. "Pleasure, Satisfaction." A parent has Naches from a successful child.

Netanah Tokof Hebrew. "Let us tell." First two words of a prayer recited in the Musaf service (see above) on the New Year. The prayer, which dates to the eleventh century, describes the heavenly procedure on the day of judgement. Rabbi Amnon of Mayence is said to have composed and recited the poem as he was being martyred.

Rashi Acronym for Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac (Rabbi Shlomo Ben Isaac), (1040-1105), leading commentator on the Torah and Talmud. In modern times virtually all students and scholars study Torah and Talmud together with Rashi's commentaries.

Rebbitzin Yiddish. "Rabbi's wife."

Shachris Hebrew. "Morning prayer service." One of 3 obligatory daily services. (see also Maariv and mincha)

Shavuot Hebrew. "Weeks." The festival of Pentecost, celebrated on the 6th and 7th days of Sivan.

Shire Hamaalot Hebrew. "Song of ascent." Name given to Psalms 120-134.

Shema Hebrew. "Hear." First word of the prayer declaring God's unity. (Hear, O Israel, the lord is our God, the lord is one."  It is said at least twice daily, in the morning and in the evening.

Shofar Hebrew. "An animals horn prepared for use as a musical instrument." The Shofar is blown in the synagogue as part of various rituals.

Simchat Torah Hebrew. "Rejoicing with the Torah." Festival on the day following Sukkot honoring the reading of the final chapter of Deuteronomy and the conclusion of the year-long reading of the Pentateuch. The festival traditionally involves much singing and dancing.

Slichot Hebrew. "Penitential prayers." Special prayers recited in the period immediately before the new year. The prayers are often recited at midnight.

Sukkah Hebrew. "Booths." A temporary dwelling with a thatched roof built to commemorate the wanderings of the Jews following their exodus from Egypt. Jews eat and sometimes sleep in these huts during the festival of Sukkot.

Talit Hebrew. "Prayer shawl." Generally, the talit is worn by males during the morning services, but customs for wearing the talit vary from community to community.

Talmud The Mishna and Gemorah (see above). There are two talmuds. Both contain similar but not identical Mishnas. The Gemorahs were written separately in Babylonia and in Jerusalem. They are referred to respectively as the Babylonian Talmud and the Jerusalem Talmud. The Babylonian Talmud was completed in about 500 C.E. Work stopped on the Jerusalem Talmud about 100 years earlier.

Tefilin Hebrew. "Phylacteries." Two black leather boxes and associated leather straps which are bound to the left hand and head during weekday morning services. The boxes contain scriptural passages from Exodus and Deuteronomy, "...for a sign upon thy hand and a frontlet between thine eyes." Tefillin are often kept in an embroidered, tefillin bag.

Tisha B'Av Hebrew. "9th day of the month of Av." A fast day and day of mourning in remembrance of the destruction of both temples in Jerusalem. Estimates of the true dates of destruction vary, but are all during the month of Av. The Talmud sets the date of mourning as the ninth day.

Tsimis Yiddish. "Vegetable or fruit stew." In common use a tsimis (also spelled tzimmes) is a mishmash of different foods. A "Gantze Tsimis" contains everything, including meat. The word is also used colloquially to indicate making a fuss. (Don't make a tsimis.)

Tzitses Yiddish. "Fringes." Name of the tassels attached to the four corners of a special garment worn by men and boys in fulfillment of a biblical commandment (Numbers 15: 37-41). In modern usage, the name tzitses often refers to the entire garment.

Zaddik Yiddish. "Pious, saintly man."

« Previous Page Table of Contents

  Ivenets, Belarus     Yizkor Book Project     JewishGen Home Page

Copyright © 1999-2008 by JewishGen, Inc.
Updated 3 Sep 2005 by LA