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It would be impossible to omit our I. L. Peretz from our Pinkas.

Zamość and I. L. Peretz are tied and bound to each other.

And so, we confronted a difficult mission: how are we to do this? The Peretz literature is enormous. From only the books about Peretz, it is possible to create a large library. And our Pinkas, after all is said and done, is not a Peretz book.

And Peretz must perforce be included in the book that is a monument to the community of Zamość , for its centuries where the Jewish community lived, created, struggled, constructed and built, and…and where it was so tragically and bloodily annihilated by Nazi bestiality.

We attempted to search for a synthesis – including the very essential facts which, whether regarding Peretz, or Zamość, needed to be preserved by us for eternity.

For this reason, in this section, we include the work of Dr. Y. Shatzky about the interweaving ‘Peretz-Zamość’; we bring a selection of chapters from Peretz's memoirs, where, again, Peretz and Zamość are interwoven. Opportunistic articles about Peretz from leaders of various sectors in Jewish life – Our Peretz is, after all, everyone's Peretz.

The Bio-bibliographical material complete the picture.

We believe that this was the way, in order to provide the prominent reflection, and that it should remain for all of eternity, the blessed union: Peretz and Zamość.

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The Water-Carrier, “Khatzkel Botchan,” a famous type in Zamość		“Shayndeleh the Rhyme Reciter,” whom Dr. Shatzky mentions in his article

A former Franciscan church, which was later rebuilt as a cinema theater “Stilov,” here the local Jews drama groups would often perform, as well as Yiddish theater troupes. Here, most of the talks and debates of guest lecturers occurred.

The left side of the former bastion of the wrecked fortress. Lastly the runoff from the canalization. Known among the Jewish populace as “Near the Kozatsky River”.

The new Lublin Gate “Brom”

We desire to establish in Peretz's work, those elements that reflect the theme that Peretz and Zamość are intimately tied up with memories of Zamość. We wish to demonstrate – in the history of a city and its vicinity, with its uprisings and conflicts, had an influence on Peretz's personality. In both instances, this is an important, thankful and difficult theme.

In order to elicit the essential facts, it is necessary first to understand the history of the city of Zamość in general, and about its Jewish community in particular.

The city of Zamość is (as we have covered in greater detail before – Ed.) was created as a work of caprice by a nobleman. At the end of the 16^th century the Chancellor, Jan Zamoyski, a graduate of Padua, decided to open a university, because at the university of Krakow too much theology was taught, and not enough science. It was in this fashion that the city of Zamość came into being, a Polish architectural copy of the Italian city of Padua, and at the university in Zamość, for the first time in the history of Poland, Anatomy was studied there in accordance with scientific methods and for this purpose, Zamoyski imported first class scholars. A city began to rise around this university. A contingent of national groups received special privileges from the founder of the city which protected their economic rights. It was because of this that Armenians settled in Zamość, Greeks, Scots and Jews. The Jews, who settled in Zamość on the strength of an unusually liberal privilege which Zamoyski gave them in the year 1588, were Sephardic Jews. This fact alone, makes the history of the Jews in Zamość interesting already.

The Sephardic Jews did not sustain themselves in Zamość for long. Yet they left behind so much tradition, that not only one family in Zamość, according to Peretz's findings, held themselves to be descendants of Sephardim. How true this is, cannot, regrettably be established with certainty. The older Synagogue, which, incidentally, Peretz recalls in his memoirs, dates from 1595, and was an Ashkenazic synagogue. How and when the Ashkenazic Jews came to settle in Zamość is not known. In the long list of the Rabbis of Zamość, one does not find a single Sephardic name, which indicates, that the Sephardic Jews of the city did not consolidate themselves as a [distinct] community.

Zamość attracted many visitors who could not praise the renaissance beauty of the houses and the women enough. Even an expert like Casanova wrote about the Zamość women.^[1]

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The Jewish history of Zamość is replete with tragic episodes, perhaps a little too much for such a small community. It would seem that the geographical condition of the city was the cause of the long chain of catastrophes, a number of which found a echo in Peretz's work. Blood libel; public hangings of Jews for stealing; various plagues; kidnaping Jewish daughters by university students and forcibly converting them to Christianity the decrees of 1648 which played themselves out tragically in Zamość, a fortress that had to withstand the siege of Chmielnicki's armies – all of this placed the city at the Eastern Wall of Polish-Jewish martyrdom. The legends of heroism and the tragic murder of helpless Jewish individuals in Zamość wove themselves into the historical memory of the Jewish community and lived there for a long time.

After this came the second era, and era of cultural and economic development, which gave Zamość and new face.

This was in the time that Zamość became an Austrian city, as a part of Galicia, in the years 1772-1809. In that period, the Enlightenment blossoms forth in Zamość. The city survives a deep, spiritual revolution. The contact with the outside world let in a new spirit into the ossified city, which had been living on the remnants of its former greatness. The struggles between the Hasidim and Mitnagdim, Maskilim and their opponents were much more pointed and sharp in Zamość than in other cities, from the outset. On finds out a lot about this from books that were written as commentaries during that period, and from the anecdotes of itinerant preachers and lecturers. The approximate significant number of Jewish physicians, almost all of whom were adherents of the Enlightenment, created the new spiritual [sic: intellectual] order in Jewish life, a weighty position in Zamość. The thrust to obtain a secular education first manifests itself in the study of medicine. Jews from Zamość are found on the medical faculties of Padua, Frankfurt-Oder, Lemberg, and even Montpelier. Part of them later returned home, even if the life of a Jewish doctor was very hard, as shown by the tragic end of Moshe the Physician.^[2]

On the second side, the mystic-religious streams were also very strong in Zamość. It is sufficient to indicate, that the famous Kabbalist R' Joel Baal-Shem was from Zamość; from all that we can see, he was born there. Also the Maggid of Dubno, R' Yaakov Krantz found his final resting place in the Zamość cemetery (he died in the year 1807).

Peretz was touched by both movements. Many prominent Enlightened writers and authors used to visit Zamość and would gather subscribers for their works. Part of these Enlightened writers lived in Zamość for a period. For a city that had a population of 1531 Christians and 2475 Jews in the year 1856 – that is to say, not a large population by any means – the number of subscribers that one finds for the books of the Maskilim, was by any estimate a large one. In the years 1810-1860, it is difficult to find a Hebrew book without subscribers from Zamość. A full list of their names, the number of subscribers as examples (there are instances where an individual had even a full 100 subscribers), and the recording of the social position of the Enlightened subscriber could serve as an important source book for the Jewish cultural history of Zamość.

Gotlober, for example visited Zamość in 1835. He obtained subscribers for his Pirkhei HeAviv which appeared in 1837, and in the little volume there is even a greeting-poem written in his honor by Dr. Shlomo Ettinger. Feivusz Szyfer spend many years in Zamość and received support from the Maskilim there. Aryeh-Leib Kinderfreund, himself born in Zamość (died in 1837) had the full support of his townsfolk for his Shirim Shonim (Lemberg 1834). In the little known biography of Yaakov Eichenbaum, who was a Zamość son-in-law, and written by his grandson, the Russian critic, there is substantive material for the struggle between the Haskala and its opponents in Zamość and its vicinity.

One finds important details about Jewish life in Zamość in memoirs written at that time, and in correspondence. It is sufficient to indicate the letters of Renan's sister who was a governess in the home of the Zamoyskis in the years 1844-1846 and a variety of correspondence in the German-Yiddish press.

In those years, Zamość was an important city for culture. According to the writings of a German geographer, published in 1839, the city had a permanent theater, a gymnasium with a large library, a printing press, and two hospitals, a Catholic one and a Jewish one. The Jewish hospital, which was founded in 1800 by R' Hirsch Schiff, was first

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legalized in 1843. In Peretz's time, it had the reputation of being a well-run institution with 26 beds, and even its own pharmacy.

Jewish life concentrated itself about the Talmud Torahs, Yeshivas and Hevras. Part of these Hevras were very ancient, and played an important role in Jewish community life. The leading citizens of the city belonged to the Hevra Kadisha, which was founded in the year 1688.^[3] The ‘Bikkur Kholim’ Society was literally a club of the finest balebatim of the city. It suffices to indicate that in Peretz's time, such important families as: Kinderfreund (one of them was a physician), Luxembourg (Rosa Luxembourg's grandfather), Korngold, R' Joseph Tzireles, the father of Alexander Zederbaum, and many others, were active in the ‘Bikkur Kholim’ Society. It is worth mentioning Yeshayahu Margolis from among the closest of Peretz's relatives in his family, who in 1861 was the presiding officer in charge of the Jewish Hospital, and Shmuel Levin, a relative of Peretz. The Peretz family not only played a role in the community life of the city, but also in its cultural life. Meir Peretz, for example, the writer's uncle, figures frequently as a subscriber to the books of the Maskilim.

The sources tell us of rather incidental things about the literary traditions of the Zamość Jews. It is enough to indicate that the first Polish Jew who wrote German poetry and was privileged to be critically reviewed by literati, was from Zamość, later known as Dr. Ber Falkensohn. We have already mentioned the support of Haskala books by Zamość Jews. So, for example, when it was planned to publish Shimon Levinson's Koreh HaDorot, Shlomo HaCohen wrote a letter to Alexander Zederbaum and asked of him that subscriptions should be gathered in Zamość. We must also not forget the effect that Yaakov Reifman had on the scholarly enlightened circles of Zamość, where he lived in 1862. A group of Maskilim concentrated themselves about him, such as Shammai Kaplan, the Bloch brothers, Herschel Finkelstein, Dr. Pinchas Rosenthal, David Steinfeld, Mordechai Engielsberg, and Ephraim Fiszelson (the author of Theater of Hasidim). The role played by Dr. Shlomo Ettinger is well-known. His name figures quite often in the lists of subscribers.

In light of Peretz's memoirs, which deal only with the first twenty years of his life, one would first have to establish the character and personalities of the vicinity near the author. The polished descriptions about people and events, that are found in Peretz's memoirs, permit one to expand, get involved and imagine, at the time one confronts these details, [in contrast] with other sources, especially memoirs. Peretz wrote his memoirs in such a condensed form and with such a romantic sympathy, that he did not mention many details, because he did not consider them to be important. Is it not interesting to know that Zamość had a renown female reciter of rhymes? She was called Shayndeleh, and was born almost at the same time as was Peretz, 1851. She was still alive in 1931. Unfortunately, except for her picture (found in a YIVO archive), nothing remains, and her verses are unknown.

It is worth knowing more about the intellectual influences on Peretz. For example, Peretz recalls in his memoirs, the Jewish religion teacher in the local Pro-Gymnasia. He gives his name as the initials Sh. K.. This was Shimon Khodak, who died in Warsaw, where he was a Yiddish censor. This Khodak had a great influence on Peretz's spiritual development. He had a substantial Judaica library which in 1910 was transferred to the authority of the Synagogue-library in Warsaw. Peretz, together with Khodak, were active in the area of education in Zamość. They gave courses about Jewish history and natural science, especially for the youth that was unable to attend a school. Much is told of both of their activity in the correspondence of the times. This activity left deep traces behind it. A short ten years after Peretz settled in Warsaw, a Zamość resident, a certain Lederer, recalls that activity in a letter to the newspaper, Israelita:

‘For the last quarter century, Zamość produced, apart from the famous Yiddish author Mr. Peretz, many educated people, who are active in many professions. Among them are qualified physicians, engineers, technicians, lawyers and just plain ordinary intelligent young people, among whom are even found daughters from Hasidic homes.’

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The writer recalls Peretz's activity in education in Zamość, and bemoans the fact that there is no one to continue his work. In passing, it is worth mentioning that the single secular school for Jewish children that Zamość had, was the private school of Mrs. Altberg.

Peretz had an intimate acquaintance with the circles that played a role in the Polish revolution of 1863. In his memoirs, for example, he mentions a certain Y. M. who excelled in the revolution as a leader. Why he didn't give the full name of this Zamość patriot, is incomprehensible. Sources of the time confirm that Peretz was very well informed about this. This Y. M. was Joseph Morgenstern, whose name is mentioned in sources from Polish participants in the revolution.

Already after Peretz had settled in Warsaw, he still had very extensive contact with his home town. There is much about this in the press publications of the times, and in the little known brochure, Hesped which was published about Dr. Yitzhak Geliebter.

In light of these examples, it is possible to see how important it is to systematically and accurately research and uncover the historical underpinnings of Zamość in general, and about the Jewish past in this city, in particular. It is only first later that one can approach deciphering Peretz's memoirs on the basis of other sources and to do an analysis of Jewish community life in the second half of the 19th century. It is through them that Peretz's satirical poems will become clear, those fruits of Peretz the writer, whose themes are rooted in the Zamość environs. Material relative to this theme is plentifully available. No added archival material is needed, even though such material would be of great value, were such material ever to be found. To this time, we cannot hope for this. The printed matter, the memoirs, press, and above all, the lists of the subscribers with the names of the Maskilim from Zamość – these are at hand, and they can be relied upon for clarification purposes.

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I was, as it is said, an unusually gifted child. I had a swift logical mind and – highly emotional.

How does this tie together? It doesn't tie at all. These traits are not miscible.

…a process of two elements (a logical mind and a heart full of feeling) – and one who ‘in spite of yourself, you will live.’

In ‘Monish,^[2]’ just between us, I wanted to copy myself. I wanted to make myself more beautiful. I was lean, dark, and had exceptionally burning eyes (sparks would remain), that were large. I was the proverbial, ‘whatever lands in his sack, the Rambam will be his burden,’ but also ‘in addition, a Torah Reader,’ was added to the verse. I never was a Torah Reader, not even ‘reviewing the portion of the week.’ The essence with us was learning….

I sang no ‘Maria’ out of the wreckage. The Marias will come later. Not everybody…as said: I will not give an accounting. They didn't penetrate me, not in my writing…the others, as much as possible. But we are not there yet. This chapter is called Childhood…

As a young child, I remember the following: 1) I was among boys and girls in a yard, 2) On the floor of a Heder, the melamed was named Chaim Kelbel. I see a diminutive Jew before me, short, a little beard, small eyes, and a small hat. And 3) Under the arm of the belfer. There is a terrible snowstorm, and he is carrying me to Heder….

At the age of three – began (along with all my friends) the study of the Pentateuch. Studied ‘Leviticus.’ I used to say, ‘Vayitra,’ not being able to articulate the sound of ‘k;’ Also not ‘g.’ For years, I was teased as ‘Dad Dood YeDoodenu (in place of Gad, Gedud Yegudenu)….’

On the Sabbath, after the repast, these was a festive time at the home of my grandfather. During the meal, my grandfather would take me (a little Jewish man, with a trembling head, as I became in my old age^[3]), sits me down on the table, in the middle. My mother interposes herself, and quickly snatches away a fork from under me. The entire family is sitting around the table: a son, two daughters, two sons-in-law, and a widow, (after whom I had fashioned the ‘Skiller Rebbetzin,’ without much exaggeration), apart from my grandfather and grandmother. I do not know why they sat me down in this manner. I like it. There is a vase on the table, so I try to see if I can get my hands around it, but my grandmother takes the vase and asks me whether later, I would like to give an exposition on the Torah.

Tenen! (Kennen^[4]) – I answer, and I want to get down from the table already; I can't sit in one place for too long, so my uncle, in a black hat, who was at that time already something of a Maskil, restrains me, – the very one who later would become an expert on my childhood poems, and would collect them and squirrel them away, and he asks:

– And can you expound on ‘Vayitra?’ (He says, mimicking me).

I do not understand what ‘expound’ means, so I ask:

– What does that mean?

– How does one explain Vayikra?

So I thought he was making sport of me.

– ‘Vayitra’ – I answer testily – is not the way it is written. ‘Vayitra’ is a sentence in a portion of the Holy Torah.

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They barely understood me, as to what I meant, and suddenly, I see the portion swimming before my eyes, a word, and then another word, and I call out one letter after the next, without prompting.

My mother's eyes dampen (disbelieving how I saw everything), something began to glisten in her eyes, and she gets up and goes to a corner near the stove, and my grandmother looks at her and smiles: – You are still embarrassed!

My grandfather takes me off the table, to his lap and gives me a pinch on the cheek. But I don't sit for very long, – I had bony legs, so it was not comfortable for me – and I go over to my father, who gives me a kiss.

I don't know any more about my grandfather, nor do I remember anything else about him. I know he was called Shlomo. He was, at one time, a Danzig merchant. It was told, that one time he returned home with his short whip…it was Friday, and he went to the bath, and afterward to the Eve of Sabbath services, as he always did, with no sign of distress. And only first, after the end of the Sabbath, after Havdalah, he called together all his creditors, and said: ‘Rabbotai,’ I have returned without so much as a single groschen, take everything that you want that is in the house!'

– Chana'leh, bring everything! – he croaked to my grandmother.

And my grandmother Chana'leh took off her jewelry and put it on the table. She opened the chest with the silver and gold, brought in the valuables from the other building… but nobody touched a thing.

My grandmother had her store, and they lived from the store, paying off the debts one at a time, with interest. And children were married off.

To what extent this story is true, I am not able to attest. That my grandmother was skilled to her task, that I know. I do not recall my grandfather any further, as I do at the side of his table, when I recited. I can see his eyes, small, but light-hearted…

I do not know when and how my grandfather died. I was prevented from weeping at the time, and therefore do not forget, I did hear that he was ill, and the doctor directed him to have a hot bath, and he died in the bath…

I leave my family connections for later, and return to my studies….

At the age of six, I began the study of the Gemara. At that time – like everyone else.

I remember the Gemara teacher better.

Also, a diminutive, lean Jew. He was therefore called Berish. He was a stern Jew, but he is unable to hit. When he gets angry, his hands begin to tremble.

– Henneh! – he once called to the Rebbetzin – grab the rolling pin and give that ignoramus a crack in the head!

Henneh does not stir, sitting next to the oven, flicking feathers, or knitting a sock. If it pertained to me, she says:

– Listen, don't you touch Leibusz… I will tell Riveleh…

Riveleh was my mother. And the Rebbetzin was a buyer of onions and greens…and would bring to us as well, she had a real heavy tread. And she loved my mother and I, especially my mother, whom she loved.

– Ah, a Jewish woman, she would say, who is righteous…stints on herself and the welfare of her home – and gives charity, but some charity! And him, that thief, wants to hit her Leibusz!

– Nu, Nu – the Rabbi growls – tell her what a priceless jewel she has…

And she would say exactly the opposite.

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My father (who is no longer alive) also directed that I was not to be hit. I was still a dependent child at the time, living at home, and by nature a liberal, or possibly an anarchist.

And when a call went out that they were conscripting people into military service, and everyone became afraid, the advice was given: don't be afraid. Nobody should answer the call.

– They will beat us!

– One doesn't beat a whole world!

– They will put us in irons!

– There aren't enough chains!

– They'll throw us in prison!

– They will have to turn the whole world into a prison!

He personally slapped me twice in my life.

From my birth on, I hated sweet things. I would not take such into my mouth. ‘I want to be considered smart,’ they would tease me. My grandmother would bake all manner of goodies: white lekakh, honey lekakh, tortes, steffnes, frying up jellied conserves… for herself, for her children…for sick people in the Hostel, – all the grandchildren abused the privilege from time to time. One gets, or filches a little bit; I an the only one – and exception. To this day, I don't eat [sweets].

And so my younger brother's brit milah comes.

The paupers come for some lekakh and a shot of whiskey, and they gather in the middle of the house. On the right – the mother in confinement, and in the house to the left – the more refined guests. Among us there was a attendant, he should forgive me, a ‘dog among dogs.’ That is how he was described. He was, I see him before my eyes, unusually tall, thin and white, without a drop of blood in his face. He was a widower without sons. He had several wives, but not a single child. When the last [wife] died, he gave up on life, and made himself burial shrouds. At night, it was told, he walks around in his burial shrouds, in the yard… scaring people. He hated poor people with a deathly hate. And so, walking out of my mother's house, this rascal carries out a full tray of lekakh on his head, for the balebatim, through the middle house. And I see how a sick young girl looks at the tray with burning eyes. I was quick, so I jump underneath, grab a piece of lekakh, and give it to the pale young girl… My father, – I didn't know this, – was standing at the door of my mother's room. He saw my leap into the air, but what I did with the lekakh when I landed – he didn't see. So he goes over and cuffs me on the cheek. The following morning, we are sitting at the table, he castigates me in front of my mother:

– The comedian, supposedly doesn't eat sweet things, and snatches lekakh from the tray!

The servant comes in with the soup – she must have heard this, apparently, behind the door – and retells, what I did with the lekakh. She saw it.

My mother lowered her glasses over her eyes. She always guarded her manner in front of strangers, even for eyes that were in the house. My father paled, and his eyes became moist. And he rises, and goes into the other room. I feel culpable for not explaining immediately, and I want to follow to make up with him, – and cannot. To this day I cannot forgive myself, and can offer solace to no one…

About this another time.

The second time, I was reading, when I was ‘boy’ already, and not a ‘child’ – a ‘young man’ (certainly 14 years old!). But, at the time, I was a ‘researcher,’ studying ‘A Guide to the Perplexed,’ (How I came to this, will be told), and went around in lofty worlds, terrified awfully by world-tragic dreams! What is the purpose of humanity? Knowledge of the world and free choice … where do tribulations come from, sorrow – Early Jewish puberty played a role in this, during my transition to maturity. But, I had a tendency to depression, sought solitude and tore at my soul with talons…

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One Friday, I disappeared for an entire day. I do not remember where I went. I came to the Bet HaMedrash at the time of the evening prayers to inaugurate the Sabbath, directly from my stroll, in my regular weekday overcoat, my weekday hat, and shoes not shined, with the dirty clay of the city streets stuck to them. My father's face turned red. Nevertheless, he controlled himself in front of the public. But at Kiddush, he cannot take his eyes off my crestfallen face, and suddenly lashes out and slaps me on the cheek with a free hand.

– Lovely Sabbaths he makes for me! – and he went out for a while.

My mother cries out:

– And you mean to say that a child doesn't have any heartaches…

That my aches were not childish, had not occurred to her…

He hit me a total of two times.

He would certainly never let a stranger lay a hand on me. From the pale R' Berish and the Rebbetzin, who constantly sat by the oven, doing something, monitoring the pupils and listening to their learning.

Above the Rebbetzin, on the shelf of the oven, there is always a large, lazy cat…

It happens, however, that the Rebbetzin nods off in the middle of knitting a sock, perhaps lulled by the monotonous intoning of the Gemara lesson, and drops the ball of yarn. The cat, which has been stalking it already, jumps down on the ball from the shelf, and begins to play with the ball, as if it were a mouse, and chases it under the bed…

We burst out in laughter… the Rebbetzin wakes up with a start. The Rebbe gets angry…

For this sort of an outburst of laughter (I would laugh the loudest) he wanted to seriously beat me. But precisely at this moment, my father walked in… the scene changes instantly.

–Ah, Reb Yudel, how are you Reb Yudel? Sit down, Reb Yudel….

The Rebbetzin asks: How is Riveleh. And my father approaches me and asks:

– Leibeleh, why are you perspiring?

– What do you mean? – the Rebbe intercepts the question, out of fear that I should not tattle: –How do you say, the Holy Torah, blessed by God, warms us,…and it is a summer day…

My father comes up with a liberal notion and says to the Rebbe:

– You know what, Reb Berish. Let the children outside for an hour!

It was like a thunderbolt had struck R' Berish…

His eyes bulge out, and he begins to stammer:

–What are you talking about? What do you mean? They should play in the clay?

A new road was being paved, and clay had been piled up in front of the house.

–Why not? – my Father replies back to him.

R' Berish does not concede:

–Well, in connection with Leibusz…. if he wants to…

Me, also! Me, also! – my second cousin Yekhezkiel chimes in…

– I am responsible for Reb Mordechai's [child]! – my father responds. Yekhezkiel's father was called Mordechai.

And that's what happened. The two of us obtained permission and go out in front of the door on a daily basis, to the mound, to the clay, and played, climbing about (obtained an artillery shell from somewhere ), dug holes, and built a fortress.

And this work was useful to us later, in order to do a good deed. A short time afterwards, the Zamość fortress was taken down. The fortifications were dismantled, and workers were hired to dismantle the rubble and put it into barrels. It was paid for from the financial reserves. As a result, a number of Jews signed on to do this work. Old, broken Jews, who couldn't do much else. This was close to the Heder, and during our free hour, we would run up the pile and help the old folks.

What I ever learned from this R' Berish, I do not remember…

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After two time periods [sic: semesters], my second cousin Yekhezkiel and I transferred to Mikhl the Melamed. He also didn't hit.

‘Yellow Mekhl’ was a peculiar sort of Jew – he had a blond beard. He was a teacher, and in addition to that, he was the Shammes of the Bet HaMedrash. He was very adept at calculation, and understood ‘mensuration.’ Nobody ever saw him do anything but teach us in Heder.

In the Bet HaMedrash he would never speak, and if he was asked anything, he would never reply about studies. Except if it pertained to a Gemara that had something to do with calculation or measurement. He became another person. He would speak, and with great love for the issue. In this way, learning with him was no big deal. He would look at a ‘dense’ young boy with pity, and say: ‘stopped up, a pity.’ About a ‘talented boy,’ – he would say accordingly, ‘you will be a scholar’ – and in doing things, was underlaid by: what purpose? what is the point? He once said, with ill-concealed disdain: ‘you will become a Rabbi!’ – And in this regard nobody saw him pray either. ‘A closet Kotzker,’ – it was rumored about him; Kotzk [Hasidim] did not hold by recitation of prayers. It would have had to be kept secret – A city of Mitnagdim, a Bet HaMedrash of Mitnagdim. I recall an incident. A diminutive Jew, called R' Azriel'khl was standing at the Prayer Table. At one time he ran a saloon – a real piece of work. He was an elderly little Jew, sickly, who seemingly could be blown away with a strong breath. One evening, a Jewish stranger comes in, tall, heavy, and strong, and stands himself to recite the Mourner's Kaddish, and blurts out the phrase, Veyatzmakh Purkonay…^[5] Old R' Azriel'khl's anger flares up, he jumps over the table and the bench, runs up to the lectern, up to this strange, strong man, raised up his nails, jumps below him, and delivers a slap to the man's cheek…^[6]

R' Mekhl apparently concealed his adherence to the Kotzker Hasidic sect, moving about during worship among the worshipers in his prayer shawl and phylacteries, never once moving his lips. He does not touch his pupils, and me, for sure not. I was important to the Rebbetzin. Her sister worked in our house as a servant! I remember them both, and continue to wonder how similar the two sisters were. I, been unfocused, would often err, saying to the Rebbetzin: ‘Chana, can you bring me a little water,’ and say to the maid at home:

– ‘Would the Rebbetzin be so kind…’ and they were beauties, Jewish, and modest, (at least in my young view). Tall, pale, thin-skinned-translucent faces, long overstretched eyebrows, silken glances from small, long almond-eyes… and beautiful. Both of them vanish from my memory. I do not know what ever happened to them. I also do not know what I ever learned from R' Mekhl. Certainly not more than a little taciturn contemplation, certainly having acquired a quiet, good-hearted disposition, which I can recognize in many of my things. Perhaps, he conveyed a little bit of Hasidism to me through his silent eyes?

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My second cousin and I progress further, and we come to R' Yudel – a more advanced Gemara teacher. In his class, one ‘leads’ a discussion also.

That R'Yudel loved two things:

Whacking fingers with switches, and – pirogies, which the Rebbetzin would make for him in a cooking day – and then leave… she couldn't stand ‘how the glutton gorges himself, and how the schmaltz runs out of his mouth.’…

The Rebbetzin does not get involved in the teaching process, and also does not patronize my mother's [store], so that she could threaten to tattle. My father is already a merchant, and is rarely at home, and R' Yudel lets himself go. And I walk around with swollen fingers, like the others. In the second period, when we went on from Baba Kama to Yevamot, which was even more difficult for us, the battle also sharpened. And we often caught it for no reason at all. R' Yudel had poor eyesight, could not see, and didn't know who was really guilty – so for any little thing, he would whack everybody on the fingers. He would select the switches, with great and caring love, from a new broom, that the Rebbetzin would bring from time-to-time, and I think that she must of actually dealt in brooms. They were always there, but I do not remember for sure. He would pick out the softest ones, the thinnest one, and he struck gently, but continuously.

We didn't miss him either.

He had a long beard, and one time, we began to draw close to the table. It was evening, after the pirogies. So, he dozed off. Noise and disturbance is going on, the candle on the table is burning, and someone touches it. It appears that someone's hand gave a start from fear. A hair of his beard got tugged. He awoke with a start, and grabbed the switches. For this reason, on the second cooking day, we captured the Rebbetzin's cackling hen, and sat her on the bowl full of pirogies, under a pillow. He comes, takes the bowl, sets it in front of himself, looks with his nearly-blind eyes, and smiles to himself with satisfaction:

– Oy, oy, so many chopped onions! And then he bit into it…

Once, we fooled him into slipping. Behind the Bet HaMedrash was a slippery patch of ice. Between Mincha and Maariv, we covered it up with snow. We then sent a classmate into the Bet HaMedrash, to tattle in front of the Rebbe, that we are outside sliding around on the ice…so he comes out, and steps onto the ice, and falls down. We laugh…and want to run away. So he cries out: Take pity! He swears that he will no longer hit us, do nothing to us…

So we picked him up, and he kept his word. Because of this, yet another task was created for us in the third time period. We (my cousin and I) were transferred to a particularly stern teacher.

He, already pinched. He was a Mohel, and had a sharp nail! And we were not quiet. He wore a small hat, and we packed snow into the brim. He is sitting at the table, and melt starts to run down on his face. He loved tea. Each day, the Rebbetzin puts a metal samovar up, without a teapot, shaking in several kernels of tea. He bellows: too little; she doesn't hear him. And the tea turns out to be particularly watery. So one time, we brought grease from an axle and put it in… the samovar bubbles, and he pours himself a glass: black as ink. Ah, delicious, he throws a grateful glance at the Rebbetzin, and sits himself down, setting the glass in front of himself on the table. He clearly wants already to touch the cup with his lips, when a fear seizes us, that God forbid, he should not poison himself. Someone then gives the table a kick with his foot from underneath, and the glass is turned over, and spills into the Rebbe's lap, the tea being boiling hot – – – – –

The biggest irritant was a different one: we were studying [the Gemara] Ayzehu Neshekh, and he tortured us with questions and demanded answers from us with his Mohel's nail… He was no great scholar. We knew that these were not his questions, and not his answers. So, on the Sabbath, we would drop into the Bet HaMedrash, check out the weekly study of the Tosafot, Maharsh”a, and other commentaries, and bombard him with questions on Sunday morning. He was a round, fat little Jew – and he was silent, turning like a worm, his round eyes darting around fearfully, and we then burst out laughing… so he starts pinching…

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But on Fridays, he would start beating, presumably for cause: this was an old custom, to assure a reminder of [the coming] Sabbath. But it often hurt… and yet despite this, we loved him, loved him very much….

On a cooking day, the young boys would bring change (two-cent, three-cent, at most ten-cent coins). From this, a repast was arranged. This repast consisted of the Rebbetzin's foodstuffs: herring, cookies, and hot peas…the Rebbe's only daughter would also join us for this repast…. pale, sad, girl, with long hazy eyes… and the Rebbe would affectionately stroke her yellowish, and golden head, and tell us stories from Ein Yaakov, from the Medrashim…he became a totally different person. So soft, so full of heart, and his voice suffused with a precious spirituality, that the stern Rebbetzin at a separate table, would be compelled to wipe her eyes…

Oh, but did we love him at those times….but after that I suffered an exile: I studied with a teacher far away, in Szczebrzeszyn, three miles from home, and afterwards, studied in the home of a Dayan; and that brings us to the Second Chapter.

More turbulent years, immature chaos… occasionally growing a little, wrought by all sorts of hands; always with the marks of strangers' fingers on my soul. And occasionally, for a while, thee awakes, if not a sign of will – caprice – and demands. And I produce, as they say, wild antics…inner life is very weak. I am like a sponge that soaks things in. What I absorb, lands somewhere inside of me, I don't know how, as if I wasn't even there…the eye sees, but I do not look; the ear takes things in, but I do not listen. And a tumult mixes into everything, with one thing clashing with another…and something inside gets constructed, and new childhood moments arrive with the wind, and fall on the others – with houses being built upon houses… here and there, something sticks out, a point here, a weather vane, a chimney….

I had a ‘frigid’ great-aunt, my buddy Yekhezkiel's mother. A tall, thin Jewish woman, pale, and sickly. It was from her that Dr. Ettinger conceived his Serkeleh. Constantly whining, ‘Oy, my strength!’ Constantly drinking almond milk for her throat, and always bakes cheese cookies (the one sweet that I love), and eats… and she hides them on a high shelf, so the children, God forbid, should get a hold of them, and ruin them. And me, out of my love for cheese cookies, and also to irritate her, and simply, to demonstrate a trick – jump underneath, grabbing hold of the shelf support, grabbing hunks out, and upset my stomach. And then the old, stern Doctor Skzhinski comes, who later will get me excused from military service, and prescribes something bitter and salty for me, that comes in a little bottle, a white liquid. And me, when I am just left alone, spill the mixture out, pour in a little milk and water and take a tablespoon every hour, and manage to wheedle out a gift of sorts and get cringe every time I need to swallow the white stuff…and I barely get well, – Skzhinski lives right next to us, with our windows opposite each other – so I wait for him at the window, and when he shows himself, I stick my tongue out at him. He grabs a stick, and comes running to us, to give me a reckoning, and I am still in the house…and here he comes, running up the stairs, and so I tear open a big red cupboard in the house, jump in, and land with one foot in a pot full of eggs….

We have a small parcel of wreckage overgrown with green, having arrived at this condition from some situation. I play their quite often towards evening with little girls, pretending to be bride and groom. I am the groom. Me, with the fiery eyes. The bride, – is a cousin of mine, a girl with long curls. And since the game requires that the bride and groom argue, throwing presents at one another, I pick up a small stone, throw, and hit her under the eye, and he is left with a mark up to the time of her real wedding…and in addition, I am the general, and have a whole camp of Heder boys under my command…currency notes were in short supply then, coins – few, so the government permits merchants to circulate ‘notes’ in place of small denomination currency, – so my father generates ‘notes’ and I – ‘snivel.’ I pay him for wooden swords, with paper shields, for braided rope for the hips of my heroes, and get ready to may war with the

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‘leshnitikehs^[1],’ which is what we used to call the ‘youngsters’ from the Neustadt, two versts outside of Zamość. The ‘encounter’ will be midway, behind the common cemetery… and I take satisfaction [as if] from a piece of well explained R”N^[2] that has flowed forth, aggravation from ‘prima donnas,’ excessively, think out simply, and tell the young folk – dependent children who loiter about the Bet HaMedrash….eat nothing in the morning, and drink only coffee, and take the bagel with butter to a poor child, an orphan, who loiters about the Bet HaMedrash, the orphan of Avigdor'l the Teacher… that is what the ‘command of my heart’ told me to do. And recite prayers according to the style of ‘Yad HaKhazakah,’ and stand for the Shemona Esrei, as the Rambam directs, like a soldier at the front, with hands at the sides…and know already, according to the Ralbag, that it is not this way: Elijah the Prophet did not fly up into the heavens…

And according to the Rambam the miracles, are sort of not quite miracles, no ‘editorial communication.’ And show innovations in the Bet HaMedrash in Dominoes and Chess. The board – outlined in crayon, high up, on the floor in front of the Holy Ark (Pure!), the pieces and figures – fashioned from white and dark bread, and either cut or sculpted from potatoes, the black – in the skin! And I run to pray often in the Belzer shtibl: the fervor is attractive – the fire, the shouting, with the banging of the head against the wall during the Shemona Esrei…and because of (what today I would call) the silent rapport – in the Gerrer shtibl, for the Third Repast… and I run into…‘A Guide to the Perplexed,’ which is up on the highest shelf (who needs it?), and on the second side – the ‘Tree of Life…’ I will yet reach the Zohar…and I occasionally take down the ‘Urim VeTummim,’ and hone my intellect, as if I were using a whetstone…

Details from three ‘hazy’ childhood years…what so I do with them? What sort of a strand am I pulling through these stones, pieces of glass and the couple of pearls?

Here I tie together my – getting acquainted with four-legged creatures! I will be able to tell about this in an appropriate manner!

The city that I found ready made, and which was sandwiched between Volhynia, is neither growing nor changing, I will first see in Szczebrzeszyn three miles from home, where I (as we will see later) was sent to a teacher. For an entire semester…I don't, apparently, run into people either. From all appearances, a small, peaceful city, composed of transients, of immigrants without bad dreams yet, seldom hearing, ‘a place to leave and not return,’ seldom having anything happen in the family….Occasionally, somewhere on an evening before a circumcision, and before the little red ‘shlimoyz^[3]’ which was shown and almost scared ourselves… I only remember the ‘Hilukh,’ the reports when fortress was shot up, the fear of the Rebbe and the Rebbetzin, that the walls of the houses might split apart… I also remember the great fear when the jail ‘above the clock’ in the magistrate building was on fire. We packed up. There was a snow and a storm. The burning jail began to waver, it can collapse and fall on the houses, right or left, destroying the city, disappearing in smoke.. We are packing up at home, and I run to the synagogue, to rescue the Torah scrolls….

I will first see people later, and often, Cuzmir^[4], Greater Poland, Warsaw… for the time being, I make acquaintances in the vicinity, as previously mentioned, with animated people and literary folk….

I became acquainted with cats as early as my time in R' Berish's Heder. We also had a cat at home for a while, and I was instructed not to play with the cat…I see cows and oxen infrequently. I know where milk, cheese, buttermilk and sour cream come from… there also is goat's milk, which is brought occasionally for medicinal purposes… I don't see any ox or cow. – Bleating and mooing, I hear only from my classmates, who make this sound only as part of child's

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play. Oxen and cows are driven to ‘us’ (my grandfather leased land), and to the slaughterhouse, just on the other side of the road, around the city, no ‘firstborn’ of my acquaintance roams through Zamość (in the ‘little Paris,’ as the neighborhood is called), first from ‘learning’ and then from literature.

As to horses – I am well acquainted with them also, and as you understand, from a distance… In the courtyard of the ‘little yard,’ an old noble estate, on four neighboring streets, at the edge of the city, near the Lemberg Gate, where my Rebbe lived, the peasants stop and stand on the market days with wagons… it was from one of these wagons, we got a little bit of grease from off the wheel to put in the Rebbe's samovar. I braid little decorative items from horse hair, but I do not pull out the hair personally. It is a little out of fear, and a little out of compassion for the animals…

The officers of the garrison have horses. The garrison leaves, and Cossacks come, part of the time, Uhlans, Hussars… from our location, at the departure ceremonies of the military, which went out from us to the Turkish War, a young general pranced about on a little horse, a pretty one, silky, with such grace, and with such sprightly moves… to the extent that one can extract an interpretation of the verse, ‘my horse,’ from the Song of Songs…. ‘Horses are like life,’ Israel Zhdanover would say, from whom one would rent horses, if one needed to travel with urgency, and not drag one's self along in the cart of a peasant….

‘Zdanów,’ three versts behind the Lemberg Gate, was once a Jewish colony. The Polish regime wanted to attract Jews to agricultural work, and promised easements for Jewish colonists: a one-year relief from repayments, and most importantly… [release from] military service…the colony was established by Dr. Ettinger. He personally worked in the fields with his children…not in my time. In my time, Dr. Ettinger had been dead and buried for a long while. His son was already building Russian Orthodox churches, becoming richer from day to day. ‘And yet – it was grudgingly said out of jealousy – the shit that he dishes out, flies out of his hands’… Out of all of the Jewish colonists, only one Israelite remained, who carried on a not-so-bad economic activity. He had cows (his wife distributed the milk in the city, for Shavuot – also butter, and cheese wedges) and competed quite vigorously with the dairymen from Sitaniec (on the other side, outside of the city) who also maintains that ‘horses are like life’…

This previously concluded memoir will come in handy. And now – my acquaintance that I made with dogs… first let us talk about the dogs….

An elderly German lady had ‘emigrated,’ someone sinful. She wore her own natural hair, and had other blemishes on her soul, which is bruited about from mouth to ear, and it was told that her soul went into the body of a dog, a black ‘Kudlota,’ dog (he went into the ‘monish’), that wanders about from one night to the next on the roof, over the house where she lived. The house servant, who prepares the fish at our house on Friday, personally saw him…at around the season of Selikhot I am walking with my father, a good piece before daybreak, to Selikhot services, and I look, not entirely free of fear, for the dog on the roof – no recollection. They must have gotten him already……

My classmates in Heder and in the Bet HaMedrash talk a great deal about dogs, in a childish sort of way – also. Dogs are like a stone obstacle along the path… they don't let a living human being from the city get by…

Behind the Lemberg Gate, beyond the cemetery, past the Neustadt, about two versts further, is the village of Jatutow. Jatutow has a saloon that serves aged mead, that is famous throughout the area. Noblemen come there to drink. A young man, currently supported by his father-in-law makes his way there…some time back, it is told, balebatim would go to Jatutow every Friday in the summertime, after their bath and oder-losen, to gird themselves before the Friday night Sabbath prayer, with a little glass of mead… not nowadays… today, this is no longer possible. Somebody has installed some rather surly dogs along the way. A young man supported by his future in-laws got it into his head that he would drop in there…‘Imagine that?’… everyone laughs. No, he has a ‘savior.’ He has heard from an elderly peasant, that dogs absolutely die for soft bread, covered in human sweat. So he plans to take a hunk of soft bread, knead it up in his hands, until it will be impregnated with sweat, and throw it… and then one goes (that is how it was told). He goes, comes back, mercy, without trousers and without a good piece of ‘soft flesh’ from his leg. This event comes like oil poured on water; the young man is sent away [sic: by the family of his prospective bride]…

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Sitaniec, behind the Lublin Gate, beyond the slaughterhouse, has, as I have also said, a dairyman. He has something of a ‘dairy concession.’ In the summertime, he sells earthenware bowls of sour cream for a three-cent piece a bowl. Cold, delicious, straight from the cellar, and cheese wedges with caraway seeds. – there are also surly dogs in the village! – it is not even possible to stop by the road… give a yell: Yossel! And he comes out and leads the dogs with a whip…and if Yossel should not happen to be at home, the dogs will hear! And is the barking not enough when you are alone?

And it is impossible to go into the Shokhet's house, where the slaughterers cook and give you a little fatherly oversight; such dogs with bodies drenched in blood. They live well with the butchers, these mean creatures. They lick off the blood, that sprays onto them, from their outer garments and their hands – the slaughterers are already in some danger, they wear long overcoats, and not short vests with cord, like the butchers, – and the dogs don't like this… one is certain, that the Jews, leaving Egypt, also wore long overcoats, and the miracle of ‘thou shalt not wash,’ is held as the greatest of all.

Behind the place where the officers are billeted, there are green valleys; more beautiful than the shore side by the river outside of the city. And flowers grow there, it is a delight to take a stroll there, or to lie down there, there are artillery shells and grenades that have been abandoned, from the fortress, and dryerkikeh kupes (yards), almost frightening! And now, it is permissible to look, and point with a finger, even touch with a hand (no kidding?). The fortress is after all, no longer a fortress, the walls shot up, three-quarters of the barriers torn down – but the method of access through Polkovnik's house, and in the Feather-house, a dog stands, he is big, black, a Kudlater (it appears that he was the model for the story about the reincarnation of that German woman!) – as big as an ox! He happens to be on a chain, but what if he breaks the chain? How difficult would it be for a dog of this sort to tear away from a chain? Especially, if he sees an overcoat? Only my rich relative, Y. M.^[5] goes there (a frigid uncle), who has a house in the city, a dacha outside of the city, a house in Warsaw, where he spends months at a time, and is a contractor, and comes to the club and often invites Polivnik, with whom he has business dealings, to him, for a ‘preference’… he is used to dogs, has his own, at the dacha, knows how to act in front of them, and most importantly – carries himself like he is half-German… And even small dogs with a good pedigree, hate Jewish children…This is an obstacle to taking a swim in the river during the summer. All around are the benches from the former fortress; it appears that – the former ‘inspector’ took down all the hay. He does not want the Jewish children to go bathe, because they don't stick to the path on the way to the river, and they run, and chase each other through the grass and over the hay. And the shortest distance from the city out – assuming you do not want to make a lengthy detour, through the Szczebrzeszyn Gate, over the road, and then left over the mounds! – is precisely between the abandoned fortification and the window, where the inspector lives…well, the inspector alone would not have been such a peril. He plays cards all night long at the club (‘I should have what our magnate Y. M. loses to him night after night; he has need of him!’) and during the day, he has a fondness for the hard stuff – so he drinks and sleeps… he would not hear, even though during the summertime he sleeps near an open window (‘what a goy can do!’), and one sneaks by silently: in front of the house, we take off our boots and shoes, and walk on tiptoes, holding our breath…one can hear one's own heart berating. And the inspector snores away….

Wouldn't that be good already? Well, he has a wife! And she doesn't play cards, and drinks nothing…she is a ‘piece of work,’ this helpmeet of the inspector. And this is the way she is described: ‘Tall as a giant, skinny as a stick, flat as a board, and a face (after smallpox!) like a grater, with a dustcloth tied over the top of her head’ – a little ditty was written about her, and I certainly contributed to it…

But if it was just her, it wouldn't have been too bad either. First – she was a good-natured gentile woman. All children, even the Jewish ones, wearing their long overcoats, she loved deeply from her soul; if she were permitted, she would grab them on the street and give them a kiss. It is possible, that this is because she had no children of her own… and third, if she is not running about buying things in the marketplace, in the various stores, which takes up three-quarters of an hour, she sits at home alone and lays out [Tarot] cards. In the middle of this fortune-telling, the world could turn upside down, she doesn't budge from her spot…several years later, she heard a loud thump from the house where her

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husband was, a real bang, as if someone fell out of bed, – she finally went in, however, a little too late! First she completed her fortune-telling, and – found her husband stone cold…

If it was just her, she would not represent any a barrier! However, she has – a doggie! And the doggie is ‘her precious,’ a purebred…later, when she became a widow, and our feldscher had come into some big money, he bought the dog from her for a tidy sum, it is rumored for six hundred pieces of gold! And - he bought himself a house in the city, where he opened a store for books ‘of all languages,’ to educate the city, and a small cottage out of the city.. He turned over the house in the city and the store to his sons, and he personally (a widower at this time already), moved into the cottage with the dog, out of the city, for solitude and introspection. And I could barely restrain my classmates at that time from taking revenge against this ‘dog-that-became-Jewish’ for his transgressions when he was a gentile doggie … but, for now, the dog is in the possession of the inspector's wife, and here I must relate his great sin!

To us, he appears to be a gentle dog, silken, glistening black, with a white mark between his little eyes, which therefore looks like the blind. And he has thin legs, underneath – his paws are curled, and it looks like he walks on his knees…and he is skittish, with a nervous bark. And if he gets impatient sitting in the lap of the inspector's wife, while she is doing her fortune-telling, and would like to get a little fresh air, by going out the door, and should happen to see us, we, the Jewish children, he starts to bark in his nervous way, and wakes the inspector up, and we all know what that means. And so, he sends his staff after us, to confiscate our clothing…and it is a disgrace and causes heartache – to see our fringed garments in the hands of gentiles! So we are forced to bribe them, or stand long enough and wail, until the people take pity on us, or someone comes along and resolves the problem for us. Our parents say: ‘Praised be the inspector! Would that Heder continued after sefira!’^[6]

My sickly brother's nurse also tells about dogs: he was a sickly little brother, being the third after me…he needs to be watched. Father travels to visit noblemen about commerce, Mother – in the store, my little sister – too young, still plays on the floor, or in front of the store in the sand. A gentile woman from a nearby village is retained to watch my little brother.

She is a short, old gentile woman, flowing white hair, a scrawny face; short, but with quiet eyes that are moist, half-drunk; she drinks, and in drinking, she gets even better, and more attentive. She has a husband in the village, for whom she longs, and so she steals away from time-to-time, and comes back – beaten up, bruised, drained, and half-naked…and becomes even more attached to our house, even more loyal…she puts my sick little brother to sleep with a lullaby and stories…I understand little Polish, but I force myself, and decipher what she means. So, one evening, I steal into the house, lie down on my bed, feigning – a headache, and listen to her until my mother comes home and gives us our evening meal – a woman – but eat ?!

So she sings him long, drawn-out ‘kolednas’ and I wait for the refrain with a quietly beating heart: Hai, Koledna, Ko – ledna!

For this reason, I have a frightening compassion for this poor, abandoned, abused gentile woman. I know that this is more than a lullaby, it is her begging, her prayer. And – who is listening to it? The prayer dissipates into the air…even their church sinks into the ground, by a hair (I would have been willing to measure a tract to find a ‘Savior’!)… out of pity, I would ‘open her eyes,’ so she can set the error of her ways aside… oh, what justice! Jonah, who didn't want to warn Nineveh was punished… but I must wait, until I learn to speak Polish better… (once I was able to, she had passed away already, and I didn't have the motivation…).Once, it occurs to her, and half-drunk, she tells the story of a gentile Angel of Death – a pangeh, that flies out in the air, and waves a white kerchief… and the person over whom the kerchief is waved, is doomed to leave the world; there is a city, and a plague breaks out… another mistake! I, after all know: the Angel of Death has the form of a human, and has a thousand eyes….

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My favorite is when she tells about the animals and the cattle in the village. Even more so about the dogs of the nobility and of the village. She tells about this animatedly, with movement, literally shaping the picture, the capture, the chase…

The dogs that belong to the nobility are swift, and walk with arrogance; they are led on long leashes. If the horn is sounded, and they are released, they fly like the wind… chasing after the animals…and – brave! They will even fall upon wild boars, bears and wolves, capturing released hares and foxes…attacking the boars – a mitzvah! Pity is awakened for the hares, even though I had never seen a hare, and know about it only from the Torah, where it is listed among the ‘unclean’ animals… but it is a skittish animal, the way she tells it, quiet and frightened. As to the foxes – also a mitzvah; they plunder the chickens, that is how she tells it! And they run, that I know, over the wreckage of the Holy Temple… and from the Song of Songs I know that they despoil the vineyards in the Land of Israel… They are cunning, those foxes, I know: ‘the fable of the foxes,’ but what good is their cunning if it is only useful for doing bad things?

The dogs of the peasants are also formidable creatures…they put up with a lot. Most of the time they are chained up, that is what the police demand. And thieves poison them… and yet these dogs are so loyal! They bark and wake up the village, if even so much as a spark is seen, a fire. Or, in wintertime, during the intense cold, when the animals, driven by hunger, come out of the forest and come to the settlement – there is an immediate racket, a tumult! The peasants wake up with a start, run out with staves, iron rods, pitchforks, hoo-hah! They reconnoiter about, the beast is whacked on the head, and his head is smashed in.

And why do these dog-catchers catch them in the city? – – – And soon it was made possible for me to get acquainted with live dogs of the nobility.

As previously mentioned, my father dealt with the nobility. It happened that on a winter's day, he had need to travel to see the noble in Stavrov, so he got the idea of taking me along. So he rides to the ‘yard,’ and enters the Heder. – A side note: it was not customary to go riding around the city, after all, of what business is it for people to know who was going, and where you were going to. Or what your business was? No small matter: competition, and the Evil Eye!

Even my rich, frigid uncle, the previously mentioned Y. M., who goes about the city with his hands folded behind him, even he, for whom his own horses are sent for him from the dacha, also does not depart from the marketplace, but only from an obscure side street; he goes through the yard to the coach. Others leave the city and [on foot] and then board [a coach]. So, my father's riding up to the ‘yard’ makes an impression. As he ascends the stairs, he is followed; this can't be for nothing! The door is opened, and he is not permitted to close it: behind him, in the door, a Jew with his eyes bugging out is standing, and behind him – a number of women. The Heder is bubbling. And when my father says what he had come for, the noise gets even louder. My father is ‘also’ considered ‘not quite right;’ ‘also,’ is because I was already taken for someone ‘beyond hope’….

– Reb Yudel – the Rebbe tries to interject – does this not imply Bittul-Torah?^[7]

My father bursts into laughter. He knows, and everybody else knows, that Yekhezkiel and I are free from five to six days a week. He, a laid-back fellow, pays attention to the lesson immediately on Sunday, and takes the Rebbe's place, who was sometimes occupied with a sideline, either marriage-making, or acting as an arbitrator, and caries on with his classmates. I first start learning on Friday…On Friday, the Rebbe gets a ‘reduced price’ on a portion of beans from R' Moshe-Yitzhak's kitchen, for arranging some sort of a marriage. So there is a bean casserole available for the first repetition of the [weekly portion] that we are examined on for the Sabbath; and I study, – after the beans. The Rebbe keeps on wiping off his thick whiskers, and shaking out his beard, and I lead the class with a high hand!

For me. But Yekhezkiel wants to come to. But my father is afraid to take him along. He could, God-forbid, catch a cold, in which case, he would never be able to get himself out of it with Fraydeleh (his mother)…

We come to the field – I am gripped with an intense sense of distance for the first time. My father is already sunken into his thoughts about the accounting with the nobleman from Stavrov, and I am blinded by the snow, and by the ‘sparkling gems’ on top of the snow, by the pristine purity…the sense of harmony, which I have conveyed in my work, ‘How the field looks;’ Joel tells about this. I look up at the heavens, and grab my father by the sleeve:

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Father, father, look at how the sun is frozen in place, just like our Esrog box!

We had an Esrog box that was made of pure silver….

My father does not allow himself to be distracted from his figures:

– Stop babbling nonsense…sit still…

I see the driver's shoulder, so broad, and the comical, fur hat on his head… and see for myself… and observe, how the horses gallop and run…small, swift horses, with spray kicked up behind their legs, gobs of snow and slush. And the peasant sits and does not move, like a block of salt. (The analogy is to Lot's wife!). He sits, and the whip is at the side of his hand. He doesn't need it! The runners slip, will he take up the whip? What will the peasant do? A whip is, after all, a measure of the evil disposition! I stretch out my hand. My father says impatiently:

– No, you don't!

I retract my hand, I get cold, but I do not tell my father, I am angry with him. After a while, we pass a courtyard. It looks like a city house…except that dogs suddenly jump out from a corner…one, two, three, four – I count them without an absence of fear….big dogs, with tongues hanging out of their mouths, some are barking…all of them jump to us…my father takes no note of them. He jumps down from the wagon, takes off his outer coat, wraps it around me, and goes to the courtyard. (Oh, my father was some hero!) Some of the dogs follow him, still barking… (Wow, what a hero!!!) Two, however, stay behind, and station themselves on either side of the runners, on their back legs, leaning against the runners with their forelegs. I see all of this quickly, and they are focused on the runners with their eyes, sniffing about with trembling snouts, is there nothing good here? The peasant, who had hung some provender for the horses and began to eat himself, throws them small pieces of bread, and pieces of bacon fat. They don't touch the bread, but they consume the bacon fat!

I am not pleased at this!

A change takes place.

On the Sabbath I am examined by Rabbi Moshe Wohl, the Rabbi of the city. I described him in [my work] ‘The Four Generations’ as R' Zisha…someone of a good disposition. He is fond of me, and says to my father:

– He needs another teacher.

– Where do we get one?

– Send him to Szczebrzeszyn…to Pinchas'l (about R' Pinchas'l, more later).

– What will Riveleh say?

– You know what, Yudel? For a time, try the Bet HaMedrash. Let him study on his own.

And that's the way it was left. It is, in fact, the end of the season. I promise that I will be good, and be pious, and be studious. And I become free! And I develop a relish for researching books of the Kabbala… and even more, I run around, doing all sorts of stuff.

This is not good. So it remains that a proper teacher needs to be found. Meanwhile, I am to study at home, and in order that I be prevented from running around, my boots are taken away from me for the entire week. For me it doesn't matter. I run around in my bedroom slippers in the yard. If they get tight, then I kick the slippers with a shake of my foot up to the roof and by going through our alley, get up on the roof of the two-story house to retrieve them. From thee, I see the city for the first time from on high, and it doesn't make a big impression on me. There are taller three-story buildings that block the view…and I remind myself what I had heard about, that from the alley around the clock tower over the magistrate's building [Sic: the Town Hall], one can see not only the entire city, but also for quite a distance beyond! I am seized with an urge to see this. So I crawl down from the roof, and I walk around for days, thinking. How can one sneak the boots away, how can I make the acquaintance of the old clock master who ascends every day to set the clock, and have him take me along….

As they say: I eased off a bit…I smile a bit, and lapse back into contemplation again…in the meantime, standing one evening in the alley, I hear how my father, coming out of the door to the alley (being pre-occupied, he doesn't see me), calls through the second door into the kitchen, saying:

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– Mirel, would you pardon me, but could you run down and retain a messenger and send him to Israel in Zdanów, asking him to immediately come with the horses…

Mirel answers: Good, good! She will just put something on, just grab something to put on! That will take time! So I pick myself up, and run off to Zdanów. The side street near the clock [tower] is deferred. And I run in my slippers. In the street, I am stared at, and people call out: you're crazy! They try to restrain me. I wrestle free, like a serpent. So I am grabbed from the back, and I tear myself away and run and arrive there… and I ask (that much Polish I knew already) a peasant of the village where Israel's house is. ‘There,’ he says, pointing with a finger. I mean, I know, I run, and fall into a neighbor's house, a German, a rich colonist. And right after the little cart, I run into a dog, who jumps up to my chest, puts his front paws on my shoulder and looks at me with his big, red wise eyes, right into my eyes: are you perhaps a thief! He is a trained dog, and he waits for someone to come outside… what I feel, you can imagine by yourselves. I understand little of the dog. And he is a big dog, brown and hairy…. my mother's milk curdles inside of me. And I cannot scream, my throat is constricted. As it happens, I was spotted while still on the way, and seen from the window in Israel's [house]. In the middle of this, a girls jumps over the fence, grabs the dog by the shoulder, gives him a shove away, and leads me out to Israel….

It was his daughter…

A girl, a young one – blood and milk. Clear eyes, wise and sweet. A net of black glistening hair [covered her head]. An excerpt from The Song of Songs….and such a heroine… I might as well have come from the Lempert mountains…And if later an incident happens that I nearly fell into a brook, I am disappointed why it was an elderly Jewish lady who kept me from falling in, and not her…

I dream about her every night…but the thought of going to see her in Zdanów never even occurs to me…

Instead, I conceive of the idea of demonstrating this kind of heroism, and to gram the big yellow dog by his end…he moves off, jumps underneath, and jumps up on my shoulder…

I have a scar to this day…

That about did it. I am sent to Szczebrzeszyn. To Reb Pinchas'l…

And that is how it worked its way in. A little bit of the natural world worked its way into the heart of a little Jewish boy………

The Zamość Park on the site of the destroyed fortress. It was the favored strolling place of the Jewish young people. The young people would go out in boats on this lake, propelling themselves with oars, and the sound of their singing would carry a great distance.

A remnant of the destroyed fortress in the park. In local argot, it was known as “Near Stak,” It was a custom to go there to drink milk “At Fyodor's” – the Christian, who had cow barns there.

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