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by Pesach Kaplan
Translated by Beate Schützmann-Krebs
English Proofreading by Dr. Susan Kingsley Pasquariella
Bialystok! It is not merely a feeling of local patriotism that pours warmly into the hearts of many locals when they speak of their hometown. Bialystok truly possesses a distinctive trait: an unusual intensity of human energy. Even the outward appearance of the city bears witness to it.
All the three-story buildings along the main streets, built by the dozens over a span of fifteen years toward the end of the last century, were not the result of any immediate necessity brought on by a sudden rise in the city's population, but rather the product of an overstrained impulse toward expansion.
The horizontal sprawl in “Argentina”[3] and other outlying areas was less visible, but the stretching toward the heavens in the city center was unmistakable. Everywhere, construction took place without capital, without any clear prospect of proper use. The banks would provide the money, and tenants were expected to come eventually. This movement verged on explosion– a large portion of the buildings was transferred to the banks or to other owners. And yet, the city rose. The “skyscrapers” remained as silent witnesses to Bialystok's restless energy.
In the city and its surroundings, tall, rounded factory chimneys rise above the rooftops. However much historians may try to explain this with political motives– whether by pointing to the former German occupier, who 130 years ago allowed no Jew to enter Bialystok unless he was engaged in manufacturing, or to the later Russian regime, which, a century ago, sought to undermine the Lodz-based industry through the growth of Bialystok's production, thereby striking a blow against Poland– the fact remains undeniable: it was the overstrained energy of the Jews that expanded the city's factory network to an extraordinary degree.
That same energy also blazed a trail for textile processing–reaching deep into Russia and even further into China. The industry may have exploded, but the chimneys still stand, silent witnesses to the immense Jewish energy that once surged through Bialystok.
And in matters of individual and communal life as well, Bialystok is more bustling than other cities. The perceptions of living, of enjoyment, of spending–also for charitable causes–are far more pronounced in Bialystok than elsewhere. The creative drive that simmers in the soul of the Bialystoker Jew gives him no rest and urges him toward deeds that often exceed his strength.
Almost all of Bialystok's social institutions came into being through this process of excessive creative fervor. Institutions were duplicated, even superfluous ones were founded. Yet the large buildings that were erected – most of them even on sand – were adorned, outfitted with all manner of devices, and maintained. They fight for their existence with life-and-death urgency. And every smallest corner in these dozens of houses bears witness to the immense energy that surged in the blood of their builders and patrons.
Even in its poverty, Bialystok remains the princess among cities. In its decline, it still shines with the polish of its daughters, with the vitality of its youth – yes, even with the oscillating versatility of its illuminated advertisements
The overflowing energy of the great population had a particularly intense effect on certain individuals, who rose like giants from the crowd and came to serve as beacons of Bialystok's uniqueness in the wider world. Every city has its own great figures, but no other city can claim a personality as wondrous as Dr. Chazanovicz – who, in his poverty, laid with his ten fingers the eternal foundation for a library in Erets-Yisroel, and with his superhuman energy stirred and enkindled the Jewish world.
In the alleyways of Bialystok, the exalted spirit of Dr. Ludvik Zamenhof was born and raised. He gazed across nations and lands with a prophetic eye, contemplated the times of ba'acharit ha'yamim [the end of days] and created, for all of humanity, a language: Esperanto. With revolutionary force, it broke through all the boundaries of the world, finding followers in the courts of kings as well as in the humble rooms of hard-working laborers.
For a long time, the cradle of the Zionist movement of Eastern Jewry stood in Bialystok - and likewise, the house of Rabbi Shmuel Mohilever, that great genius who succeeded in gaining the ear of the eminent Jewish magnate, Baron Rothschild. He won him over to the great ideal: to lay the foundation, in the land of Jewish hopes and aspirations, for the labor of thousands of pioneers.
And when the first subterranean thunder of the Russian Revolution shook the world, Bialystok stood as the anvil - upon which, out of the sorrow and fury of the people, that mighty force was forged which would later reduce the vast empire of absolutism to rubble and ash.
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Bialystok paid for this victory with 130 Jewish lives, lost in two military pogroms. Yet in the annals of the history of humanity's struggle for freedom, Bialystok is inscribed in golden letters.
I refrain from overstating the greatness of Bialystok. It may well be that Bialystok also bears, in a negative sense - in matters of crime or fraudulent dealings - certain exceptional traits that are directly tied to its spiritual partsef [visage]. But every citizen of Bialystok feels that the city is unlike any other in Poland, and everyone who has come into contact with our town knows it too.
This Bialystoker distinctiveness can be seen and felt even in distant lands. In New York, for example, there are hundreds of organized Jewish landsmanshaftn, yet not a single one possesses such a deeply rooted and far-reaching structure as the Bialystoker Center. The same holds true for Chicago – and for places across the globe: in Kovno, Uruguay, Chile, Australia, and in Erets-Yisroel.
Wherever a few Bialystokers are scattered, no matter how small their number may be, they soon establish a society, a union, reconnect through the newspaper with their old hometown, and care for its institutions. They also found a Bialystoker colony, one that remains bound by dozens of threads to the [old] metropolis.
The strength of Bialystok lies not in its outward appearances, but precisely in its ordinary realities. The 50,000 Jews of Bialystok lived, in general - both materially and spiritually - in much the same way as Jews throughout Poland. And yet, Bialystok was the first and only city that, following the end of the German occupation (World War I), in a revolutionary act, cast off its autocratic Va'ad haKahal [the traditional communal council] and established a model democratic kehile, one that will be remembered for generations to come.
At the same time, Bialystok once again took a revolutionary path – simply, through physical force, it seized control of the registration rolls, claiming them as the rightful property of the Jewish community.
The Hebrew movement in Bialystok was but one branch of the broader Tarbut movement[4] throughout Poland. Yet when Bialystok founded its Hebrew Gymnasium, it was not the radical Hebraists, but rather the more well-established Jews – people of exceptional energy – who built it high and firm, so that its splendid building, its shining status, and above all its 700 students inspired the deepest admiration among locals and visitors from near and far.
The Yiddish movement in Bialystok was likewise but one branch of a broader cultural current that flowed through Poland and across the Jewish world. Yet aside from Vilna – whose remarkable development of Yiddish had entirely different roots – no other city but Bialystok succeeded, under catastrophic conditions, in sustaining a sprawling network of Yiddish schools. And on top of that – a Gymnasium!
The orphan crisis became one of the most vital branches of Jewish social care after the First World War. Yet no other city had someone like Mrs. Rabinovitsh – a cauldron of bubbling energy – who built a vast network of orphan institutions, despite their truly precarious existence. And when the end was already in sight, she, the only local activist of her kind in all of Poland, traveled to America and brought back aid.
One could point to dozens upon dozens of examples of social and private creative force in Bialystok – expressions of a distinct local atmosphere, one that was quite literally saturated with myazmen [invisible emanations] of human vitality. One person would ignite the next, each striving to emulate and surpass the other – and great works were born.
I refrain from further detail, for this matter surpasses the limits of what words can truly convey.
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[This photo also appears in the “Bialystoker Photo Album,” compiled and published by David Sohn. There, the caption beneath the photo lists the names of the individuals depicted.]
From right to left: Front row: M. Rubinshteyn, (?) Semyatitski, Nachman Lin |
Translator's notes:
by Avraham Reisen [Avrom Reyzen]
Translated by Beate Schützmann-Krebs
English Proofreading by Dr. Susan Kingsley Pasquariella
At the beginning of the 20th century, I arrived in Bialystok as deputy editor, or rather, secretary, of the “Bildung” publishing house, founded by Avraham Kotik. By then, Bialystok was already influential in the Labor Movement, albeit not legally.
Its two currents had a close relationship at the time. Among the freedom fighters, however, there were also many employers, entrepreneurs, and even factory owners who longed for freedom and fraternity. I was under the impression at that time that Bialystok had a considerable number of liberals who, in view of their struggle for freedom, were generally close friends with socialists.
In this respect, Avraham Kotik could also be counted among the socialists, and as a campaigner for Yiddish, Yiddish literature, and science in the Yiddish language, he actually leaned toward the “Bund.” The Bund was already playing a major role in Bialystok at that time, three or four years after its founding in Vilnius, despite operating illegally–perhaps partly because of its illegality…
Avraham Kotik was a graduate pharmacist with a higher education. He had previously worked as a pharmacist in Warsaw and gave tutoring lessons to Jewish youths in wealthy Bialystok homes. The students were preparing for higher grades in technical high school and even university. Although he pursued his teaching career out of idealism, he primarily did so for his then-small family and his highly educated and talented wife, who was a member of the upper-class Lapidus family of Bialystok.
Kotik spent most of his time at the Jewish Lending Library, which he founded in Bialystok for the Jewish working class. Because of the large number of books it contained, primarily in Russian, the library attracted the more radical and liberal intelligentsia.
Subsequently, as the director and administrator of the “Bildung” publishing house, which was also founded on idealistic principles, Kotik attracted a considerable number of upper-intellectuals and Bundists to his modest apartment, including the young Ana Rozental and her husband, Dr. Rozental-Anman. Dr. Rozental-Anman was already famous among the working masses for his Yiddish pamphlet on socialism.
Among all these visitors to the Kotik's home was Rafalovski, an ideologically entrenched Bundist who, at the beginning of the 20th century, brought “heaven and earth into motion “ to build them in his own image.
Even then, his work in the Bund was a blessing for exploited workers, even in amiable Jewish cities like Bialystok, which were naturally kind and welcoming. After all, Bialystok was the second city after Vilna, even though it didn't have a Vilna Gaon. However, it boasted great personalities including the Zabludovskis, Rabbi David Suchovalski and Dr. Joseph Chazanowicz, may his memory be blessed. Dr. Chazanowicz was a remarkable figure, and all sorts of legends about him are still told and written by Bialystok residents today.
As for Rafalovski, his courage as a young man may have been legendary, but his actions were real. His participation in and agitation for strikes in factories and even among bakers and other industries made the young Rafalovski a pioneer.
When he visited Kotik in his apartment during those days of great struggle, it was almost like a gift to the Kotiks and their guests. For those who spoke of the author's “Shures,”[2] it was a joy to see the young worker hero in person…
One must not forget that the author of “Shures” was, at that time, on the verge of publishing his first book of poems. A single copy of the book had been published, and the author had brought it back to Bialystok as a souvenir. However, it initially remained “just before” publication because the remaining two thousand books were seized and held by R' Yekhiel Meir Halter in the printing house at 11 Nalevki Street in Warsaw. The book was supposed to be published by the first publisher, Abraham Gaselnik from Vilna; however, his publishing house, which served and was supposed to serve the Jewish working class, no longer had any financial resources.
A year later, Yaakov Lidski, a real publisher, redeemed the books and published them under the title “Tsayt-Lider” [Time Poems].
At that time, Rafalovski was already familiar with the authors' [Avraham Reisen] first anthology, “The Twentieth Century,”[3] because he had edited it and it had actually appeared on the threshold of the twentieth century. He might now continue it for the better, with a truly liberated humanity.
The anthology was available at Kotik's lending library for “higher-class” readers, who were, in fact, mostly Jewish workers. After all, who still spoke Yiddish in Bialystok, where the majority of the Jewish intelligentsia lived out their intellectual lives in Hebrew or Russian?
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However, Rafalovski had already studied the anthology from cover to cover. Of course, he had also encouraged the other worker brothers to read it.
The collection almost became a legal guide for workers in the second half of the 19th century. Examples include “Yontef-Bleter”[4], “Literatur un Lebn”[5] by Peretz, and the Hebrew collection “HaKhets,”[6] or “The Arrow.” In fact, because of my merits, I had the honor of meeting a guest in Kotik's apartment.
I had my own personal corner there as secretary of the “Bildung” publishing house. The guest was the famous Noyekh [Bas], the still young Bund fighter. However, I had already met Noyekh before in Warsaw on the occasion of [reading?] my poem “Di Vant”[7], after marching with the large masses of workers through the most beautiful streets of Warsaw to Aleksandrovski Square on May Day in 1900. There, Cossacks and gendarmes appeared with clubs and naked swords, beating, chasing, and driving the courageous and persevering mass of one hundred thousand people.
In Bialystok, where Noyekh worked and lived very secretly “somewhere in the city,” he asked me to write a poem for an issue of the “Yidisher Arbeter” [Jewish Worker]. Unfortunately, I was not inspired at the time, but I promised him that I would write something specifically for the Yidisher Arbeter, which, to me, meant specifically for Noyekh. Just as God sends wine to the drinker and flax to the spinner, my worker friend sent me “a theme” in the form of Bialystok. After all, it is a city of Jewish workers and affairs.
My second poem, “Shtimen” [Voices], was inspired by “Pawiak”[8]. I worked on it as much as I could. Of course, it wasn't as good as “Di Vant” and “Kirkhn-Glokn!” [Church Bells] - “Yo, tsi zikh, tsi zikh, arbetsfolk”[9] – Noyekh had seen these poems before, even before Bialystok. But he didn't reject my Bialystoker poems.
On the contrary, with a radiant face and shining eyes–Noyekh's, in fact–he thanked me for them in a revolutionary, conspiratorial, and pious manner. He escorted me out of his room, which seemed mysterious to me at the time. I still remember the house, the street, and the room.
At that time, a great guest was in Bialystok: a revolutionary of a completely different kind. Yosef Khayim [Chaim] Brenner, may his memory be blessed, the great Hebrew author, was this guest. It was in Bialystok that we really became aware of each other. However, we had already met in Warsaw at the Tushiyah publishing house when he was a novice and his first collection of stories was being printed.
The private restaurant in Bialystok where I ate lunch every day, almost like a yeshiva student, made a strong impression on me.
Although A. Kotik ordered lunches for me at the expense of my “very meager salary,” it was still too much, considering my lack of diligence in translating a history of Egypt by a radical Russian historian with a heavy writing style. Incidentally, Yosef Chaim Brenner completed this translation, which certainly satisfied Brenner later on.
I used to come to the restaurant every day and eat a delicious, albeit not particularly rich, three-course meal. It was so good that it seemed as if my mother, may she rest in peace, had cooked it. I was the only person sitting at the long table, enjoying the food. In fact, this led me to leave after the meal without paying or tipping because the owner–a friendly woman with a motherly expression–served me the dishes herself without speaking. It was as if I had eaten “tog”[10] with a lovely Jewish family.
In general, I lived in Bialystok as if in a commune, with no cash on hand. A. Kotik provided me with “alem gutn” [all good things], as the Jews say. This included cigarettes, not to mention breakfast and dinner. Sometimes, he also gave me small change “on account of my salary,” which, as far as I can recall, I never received.
With the small change, I would sometimes go to one of the nicest coffeehouses, where they sold Russian and Polish newspapers and magazines. Over a glass of coffee and a “tshaste” (cake), I would experience the “mitzvah” of sitting in a coffeehouse, especially alone. That is, until I met the young Joseph Melnik.
Joseph later wrote an essay for the daily edition of “Fraynd” [Friend], which was published in St. Petersburg. Subsequently, he became a German writer, lived in Berlin, and contributed to the “Berliner Tageblatt,” the richest and most liberal newspaper in Germany at the time. Incidentally, I met Joseph Melnik again in Berlin in 1907 while passing through on my way to America for the first time. He was happy to see me. He was a connoisseur of the highest artistic standards, always impeccably dressed. He was a young man with a real sense of humor, and he was generally very charming. I loved talking with him.
He spoke longingly to me about his time in Bialystok. He asked me, with a wink, of course, as was his way, if I remembered the beautiful blonde young lady with the wealthy parents. He had once taken me to her house, where she played the piano for me in the lavish hall…
I can't explain why I didn't make friends with other families in friendly Bialystok. It was obviously due to my reserve, especially at that time.
Translator's notes:
by Imanuel Novodgrodski
Translated by Beate Schützmann-Krebs
English Proofreading by Dr. Susan Kingsley Pasquariella
The Bund flourished in Poland, with over a hundred organizations. There was hardly a single Jewish yishev [settlement] in Poland without a Bund presence. All these organizations shared one program, one goal, one idea. Discipline within the Bund was a shem davar – a byword – both in the country and abroad.
And yet, each major Bundist organization had its own face, its own aromat [aroma], its own individuality. There was something unique in the Bundist organization of Vilna, of Grodno, of Białystok, or of Warsaw, Łódź, or Częstochowa – something you wouldn't find in any other city. Even when it comes to individuals, the saying “all Greeks have one face” does not hold true. But it was especially false applied to the urban Bundist collectives. Each such collective possessed not only its own life, but also its own color, its own scent, its own appearance. Together, they formed the great and colorful garden – the General Jewish workers' Bund in Poland.
The Bund of Białystok was old and well-established, with strong and deep roots in the Jewish population. The organization possessed an ancient and distinguished yikhes-briv – a pedigree of honor. Once, long ago, when Poland still belonged to the Russian Empire under Tsar Nicholas II, Białystok served, for a certain time, as the seat of the Central Committee of the illegal Bund.
In those legendary years, a Bund gathering was held in Białystok, with delegates from all across Russia. It was in Białystok that the first major arrest of Bundists took place, carried out by the Tsarist Okhrana [secret police] and gendarmerie. And it was in Białystok that the first great mass strikes of Jewish weavers erupted – led by the Bund. On the walls of the Białystok prison were inscriptions from several generations of Bundists, and on the walls and bote-medroshim [houses of study] of Białystok, traces still remained of the earliest Bundist proclamations, pasted up in the cold dawns by the calloused hands of a Jewish worker, in whose chest beat a burning heart: the heart of a Bundist, of a revolutionary.
The revolutionary year of 1905 – the year of the first Russian revolution – swept like a storm through the crooked, quiet alleyways of Jewish Białystok: onto Khanaykes, Pyaskes, onto Suradzher [Suraska] Street and the fish market. More than a few well-bred children were torn by that storm from their old gvirish lineage – [their wealthy, socially prominent Jewish heritage] – and drawn into the ranks of the freedom movement, that stormed the palaces of the Russian Tsars.
Not far from the town clock, at the entrance to Suraska Street, with its shops of old and new iron, still stood the house from which a division of Jewish workers' self-defense – armed with bombs and weapons in hand – successfully protected the Jewish population in 1906 against Tsarist Black Hundreds, who, with the help of the military and police, had resolved to carry out a pogrom against Jews – as punishment for their participation in the revolutionary liberation movement.
Beneath the city lay the forest, which people called the Zverinets.
That same forest was the traditional site of illegal Bund gatherings in Białystok – not only during the Russian period, but also later, during the years of the first German occupation.
In the tshaynes [taverns] and beer halls of Białystok – those places where the Russian weaver, the tanner, or the porter would come after a hard day's toil to grab a shnepsl [ a nip of spirits], sometimes even a quarter of genzns [roast goose] – people would sit and tell one another stories about the Bundist representatives: their virtues and their flaws, their physical strength, and their koyekh ha-diber – their power of speech.
There, in those natural clubs – and in the factories themselves, during arbet-hafsokes [work breaks ] – political discussions took place between the Bundists and their opponents: the anarchists, the es-esovtses[3] [ SRs, Socialist Revolutionaries], and the Poale Zion.
The proud Jewish worker of Białystok – whose grandfather and great-grandfather had already been weavers, who was deeply and firmly rooted in familiar soil – had little regard for those opponents of the Bund. He made khoyzek of them – mocked them – in a good-natured, Białystoker way.
Everyone knew in the city: a worker was a Bundist. A bourgeois young man was an eserovets [SR] or a Poale Zionist.
The years of the German occupation during the First World War (1915-1918), and the later years of the Polish–Russian war – during which Białystok passed from one sovereign to another before ultimately becoming part of Poland – did little to alter the outward face of the city. But beneath the surface, a profound transformation took place in the life of the population as a whole, and in the Jewish life of Białystok in particular. The Bund in Białystok, too, underwent a radical change.
The great textile factories of Białystok lost their vast Russian market. The Białystoker manufacturers began searching for new outlets for their garments. In the meantime, chronic unemployment
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broke out among the Białystoker weavers and other textile workers from the large factories.
The crisis in the textile industry struck hard at the entire economic life of the city – for Białystok had been, and remained, a quintessential textile center.
As the Polish–Russian war of 1920–1921 drew to a close, the first envoys from the Central Committee of the Polish Bund arrived in Białystok, seeking to reestablish contact with what had once been a stronghold of Bundist activity. But what they encountered was a true khurbn – a devastation.
The aristocratic arrogance and antisemitism of the new Polish authorities further worsened and embittered the situation. The country was teeming with dozens of Communist emissaries and agents, who carried out systematic agitation against affiliation with Poland. This agitation and propaganda fell on very fertile ground.
The old Bundist activists were no longer in the city. The Bundist youth had become deeply colored by Communist ideology, leaning toward a Polish leftist, revolutionary orientation. For many of them, recognizing the leadership of the Warsaw Central Committee of the Bund was seen as a chain – something that would bind them more tightly to Poland, an organizational act that ran counter to their revolutionary, leftist convictions.
Only a handful of Jewish workers from the old Bundist kheyder remained loyal to their democratic beliefs and were not infected by the Communist fever.
I remember my very first visit to Białystok as an emissary of the Central Committee of the Polish Bund. One of the few comrades with whom I could speak Bundist to Bundist was the weaving laborer Yosef Zakharitsh. When I met him in Białystok, he was living in a modest apartment on Lipowa Street. His wife, Rive, was a seamstress, and Yosef Zakharitsh served as manager of the arbeter-kikh – the workers' kitchen – at 19 Lipowa, in the house of A.G. Koletski.
Yosef Yuda Zakharitsh came from a distinguished line of Jewish weavers. Even as a young boy, he had been drawn into the Bundist movement. The Bund had been, in the most literal sense of the word, his school and his university. By nature, he was endowed with a logical mind. He had remained untouched by Communist propaganda and left on me the impression of a steadfast, solitary rock in a sea of Communist encirclement.
Yosef Yuda Zakharitsh took it upon himself to help me integrate the Białystoker organization of the Bund into the broader family of the Polish Bund. He introduced me to the few remaining Bundist activists.
In that first period of Białystok's affiliation with Poland, the Bund's local headquarters was located at 23 Lipowa Street. The rooms had one housed a Jewish bes-medresh – Edas Yeshurin [the Congregation of the Upright]. It was a modest and small party office. Few people visited it in the evenings.
The influence of the Jewish trade unions in Białystok lay firmly in the hands of the Jewish Communists. The small group of Bundist activists in Białystok – among them Shaul Goldman, Leyzer Shopfish, Yekhatskel Anakhovetsh, Binyamin Floymenboym (all of whom were later murdered by the Soviets during the Second World War), as well as Yakev Vaks and Binyamin Tabatshinski – found themselves having to build a Bundist movement virtually from scratch.
This difficult and painstaking work of rebuilding the Bund in Polish Białystok was continually disrupted by the Communists, who did not shy away from the vilest gossip and the most disgraceful tactics in their efforts to discredit the Bund in the eyes of Białystok's Jewish working class.
The small group of Bundist activists took upon themselves a heavy burden, a tremendous task – fully aware that they risked not only being slandered and spat upon by the Jewish Communists, but that they were truly risking their lives and health. After all, the power of a vast state, with all its means and resources, stood at the disposal of the Communists in their struggle against the Bund.
Yet they did not shrink back. Each one, in his own role, fulfilled his Bundist mission.
In Białystok, during the quarter-century between the two world wars, the most favorable conditions were created for the influence of the Jewish Communists – and the most unfavorable ones for the Polish Bund.
Despite everything, the Bund nevertheless succeeded – under such difficult conditions – in building a powerful organization in Białystok. It won a large number of votes from the Jewish working population in municipal and communal elections, and developed a broad network of schools and cultural institutions that earned a reputation throughout all of Poland. With Bundist majorities in the trade unions, this stands as the clearest proof that the natural, historical party of the Jewish working class was – and remained – the Algemeyner Idisher[4] Arbeter-Bund.
Białystok was not just any Jewish city. The Jews of Białystok were true Yiddishists. They loved their mother tongue, Yiddish, and took pride in their language and culture. The Bund in Białystok, too, took pride in its broad and far-reaching Yiddish cultural and educational work.
The Bund's four large day schools, with hundreds of students, were all located in the densely populated Jewish working-class neighborhoods of Białystok. Even their names alone proclaimed to all around them that these were not merely Jewish folk schools, but truly Yiddish-socialist, Bundist institutions.
The former school of the Yugnt-Fareyn [Youth Association] on Branicka Street was named the Y. Chmurner School.
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The school at 18 Rabinska Street bore the name Bronisław Grosser School, and the one on Khanaykes was called the Beynesh Mikhalovitsh School. The fourth, located at 6 Koshtshelne [Kościelna] Street, was named after the grandfather of modern Yiddish literature – the Mendele School.
But the true pride of secular Yiddish schooling in Białystok was the mitl shul, the gymnasium, with Yiddish as the language of instruction!
The Yiddish mitl shul in Białystok shone across all of Yiddish-speaking Poland. A network of children's clubs, parent auditoriums, reading circles, and pedagogical courses supported these schools and helped educate the students in the socialist Bundist spirit.
The secretary of this large and far-reaching educational institution, which had blossomed under the auspices of the Białystoker Bund, was a quiet and devoted comrade – Fishel Katsenelenboygn. Suffering from tuberculosis, he gave all his strength and abilities, his entire temperament, exclusively to the work of the schools.
Fishel Katsenelenboygn was, in a personal sense, more fortunate than other Bundist school activists in Białystok. He was not murdered by the Hitlerists during the Second World War, because he had died several years earlier of natural causes.
It was truly a remarkable group of Bundists who led the secular Yiddish school system in Białystok. In addition to the constant decrees from the state and municipal authorities, in addition to the chronic lack of funding – and the ever-present threat that the school would be evicted from its premises due to unpaid rent – this devoted group of school activists and builders of secular Yiddish culture often had to endure attacks from within – from the teachers themselves, who, after months without receiving their meager salaries, had lost patience.
It must also be mentioned that the Jewish Communists did everything in their power to incite the teaching staff and technical personnel of the secular Yiddish school system in Białystok, in order to present the Bundist school activists to the public as a band of bloodsuckers who cared nothing for the fate of the pedagogical and technical staff.
It truly required an extraordinary enthusiasm, a deep faith in the creative powers of the Jewish masses, genuine Bundist self-sacrifice and loyalty, to stand at the helm of the Bundist school system in Białystok under such conditions.
Let us here mention the names of those school activists who entered the administration of the Bundist schools and were murdered in their posts during the Second World War by the Hitlerite bandits:
H. Psakhye – a garber-worker, Hertske Lubel – a weaver, Rubin Khayot, Temstilavets, Zeydl Novinskivalker, Shamai Benker – owner of a trading business, Dovid Radin – bookkeeper, Ele Domoratski, the respected B. Tabatshinski – longtime chairman of the Białystoker school system, Kh. Yakev Vaks – whose advice was indispensable; no major decision was made without it.
I also wish to mention the unforgettable comrade Shaul Goldman – the soul of the Bund in Białystok – who rendered such extraordinary service to the Jewish school system in the city.
One could write an entire book about the secular Yiddish school and educational system in Białystok – about its struggles and achievements, about its activists, teachers, and students.
But I am writing only a short article. Therefore, I will content myself with adding a few lines about the Sholem Aleichem Library in Białystok.
It was renowned throughout all of Poland as the largest Jewish library, possessing the greatest number of Yiddish books. There was not a single Jewish publication that could not be found in the Sholem Aleichem Library in Białystok.
This true treasure was gathered over the course of many years. The founder and builder of the library – a man who devoted all his free time, his extraordinary knowledge, and his passionate temperament to it – was the Bundist Yitskhok Rivkin.
All of Białystok knew: he was not merely the administrator of the Sholem Aleichem Library – he was its soul and its mind.
Yitskhok Rivkin had inherited a paint shop from his father and was a man of means. But he neglected his business. Paints never occupied his thoughts. What did paints, colored chalk, and similar merchandise mean to him – to the Bundist Yitskhok Rivkin?
Yiddish books, rare Yiddish manuscripts, the constant effort to expand the holdings of the Sholem Aleichem Library – this was the mission of his life.
He would often travel to Warsaw to purchase new books for his beloved child – the Sholem Aleichem Library. He engaged passionately with everyone, unable to understand how people could be occupied with other matters and not devote themselves to the library…
He was murdered by the Hitlerites, together with his comrade Khayim Levinski – an activist of the Yugnt-Bund [the Bund's youth organization] Tsukunft, who had worked in the library distributing books and managing the catalog.
Shaul Goldman was the soul of the Białystoker Bund – but he was not alone.
Whenever I think of him, I see before my eyes the fellow members of the Bund committee in Białystok. They were a loyal and devoted group of Bundist activists.
Together with Shaul, they elevated the Bund in Białystok, wrested the Jewish trade unions from Communist control, and restored them to the influence of Jewish socialism under the banner of the Bund.
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Moreover, both in the Białystoker city council and in the Jewish community of Białystok, the Bund once again became the vortzoger – the spokesperson of the Jewish working masses and their undisputed guide.
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[We learn from the “Bialystoker Photo Album,” p. 118, that in the second row, from right, are the active Bund members B. Tabatshinski, Yakev Vaks and S. Goldman]. |
The proud and courageous appearances in the city council by the Bundist Yakev Vaks – speaking out against Endecja-style nationalism and Sanacja-style antisemitism –or the fiery speeches by Bundist Binyamin Tabatshinski in the Jewish community, denouncing clericalism and religious fanaticism on the Jewish street, and advocating for secular Jewish mass culture – undoubtedly contributed greatly to the fact that, during elections, the Białystoker Bund emerged as the strongest and most impressive party among the Jewish population of Białystok.
At public appearances of the Bund in the city's largest hall – the Palace Theater on Daytshe [German] Street, which could hold 1,500 people – the hall would be filled beyond capacity.
But I do not think only of them. I think also of the greater part of the Białystoker Bund committee, who perished during the years of the Second World War.
Among them stood out – through their talent and boundless dedication – the respected comrades Leyzer Shopfish, Yekhezkl Anakhovitsh, Pinye Faygin, Binyamin Floymenboym, Hersh Lev, H. Kimkhe, Gute Yavarovski, and others.
It was truly a source of deep satisfaction to work alongside with them. Although they were all workers and tradespeople without formal education, we understood each other perfectly. Even the most difficult and tangled problems they would grasp immediately.
They all belonged to the so-called worker intelligentsia, which the Bund had conjured forth from the very midst of the Jewish working population.
Raised in the traditions of the Bund, they knew how to organically connect practicality – a realistic approach to the needs of the moment – with a far-reaching vision of the future, with a romantic attachment and love for the socialist ideal.
With such a party committee, and with an inspired group of Tsukunft youth activists of the finest kind – like the carpenter Hersh Lev, the textile workers Rivke Interman and Esther, the seamstress Gitke Yavoravski, the ever-thirsty seeker of knowledge Khayim Lewinski, and many, many others – the Bund in Białystok succeeded not only in resisting the Communist radical drift of the Jewish working street, not only in repelling the Communist assault, but in reclaiming one position after another in Jewish working life and in Jewish social life as a whole.
When the Second World War broke out in 1939– turning Jewish Białystok into a heap of ruins – the Bund once again became the recognized leader of the Jewish working class in Białystok.
Its overwhelmingly large majority returned to stand under the banner of the Bund.
The trade unions of the Jewish workers in Białystok were under the political influence of the Bund, which held majorities
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of its supporters in the administrative bodies.
The chairman of the Jewish porters' union was the Bundist Zalmen Bialistotski. The chairman and longtime leader of the tanners' union was H. Psakhye. The union of Jewish commercial employees was led by Bundists such as Leyzer Shopfish, H. Kimkhe, and a number of others.
The largest and most important trade union of Jewish workers in Białystok – the textile union, which included the weavers from the major cloth factories – was wrested away from the Communists and returned to the Bund.
In the leadership of that union were elected Bundists such as Pinye Faygin, Hertske Lubel, Rubin Khayot, and many others.
Only a few small, insignificant Jewish trade unions remained under Communist control.
There is, however, no doubt that they too would have eventually removed their Communist overlords.
In the last elections to the Białystok city council in 1938, the Bund succeeded in electing eight council members – more than all other Jewish parties combined.
On the 1st of May 1939, when the Bund led its supporters into the streets for a traditional May Day demonstration – for the last time – at the head of the Bundist procession marched the Bundist city fathers, the elected councilmen: Yakev Vaks, Shaul Goldman, B. Tabatshinski, Binyamin Floymenboym, Leyzer Shopfish, B. Melodovitsh, H. Kimkhe, and Yekhezkl Anakhovitsh.
In the year 1939 – the final year of Poland's existence as an independent republic – the gathering point of the splendid May Day demonstration of the Białystoker Bund was the open courtyard on Shenkevitsha (Sienkiewicza) Street, where the Sholem Aleichem Library was located.
From there, the Bundist May Day procession – growing ever larger and denser – marched through the streets of Sienkiewicza, Warszawska, Market Street, and German Street, until it reached the Palace Theater, where the first May Day meeting was held.
The women's organization YAF [Organization of Female Jewish Workers], the socialist children's organization SKIF, and the inspired young guard of the Bundist Tsukunft were splendidly represented in the May Day procession.
Dozens of proud storm flags surrounded and accompanied the old red banner of the Białystoker Bund – that banner tested in so many struggles.
None of the thousands of Jewish working men and women who took part in that first May Day march of the Bund in 1939 knew that, in the secret chambers of the Kremlin in Moscow, the shameful Hitler–Stalin Pact was already being prepared – a pact that, within a few months, would unleash the Second World War, that dreadful catastrophe which would reduce to rubble a thousand years of Jewish life in Poland.
Translator's notes:
by David Klementinowski
Translated by Beate Schützmann-Krebs
English Proofreading by Dr. Susan Kingsley Pasquariella
Just as in all other cities and towns of Russia and Poland, so too in Białystok did the Poale Zion – the adherents of Labor Zionism – emerge from the ranks of the General Zionists, or, as they were called at the time, the bourgeois Zionists.
Young people from chasidic or misnagdic families, almost all raised in a kheyder, where they received from their rebbes a national Jewish education – whose fathers were, to a greater or lesser extent, connected to the Chovevei Zion (Lovers of Zion) or to the broader Zionist movement – had, from a young age, formed circles in which they:
The Bundists, who had succeeded in organizing themselves in Białystok several years earlier and had gained influence over the Jewish working masses, would often reproach us – in private conversations and public discussions – that we ourselves were petty bourgeois, and would, at every opportunity, dismiss our movement with the contemptuous label: petty-bourgeois party.
At the time, we felt no small amount of anguish over this. We took it as a deep insult, and made efforts to draw into our organization more members with calloused hands and Russian blouses.
Back then, we did not yet clearly understand that this was a natural phenomenon – the simple fact of our origins in a petty-bourgeois environment.
We carried within us the innermost sense – and logical experience– that our rooted national feelings as Jews –the hatred of political and economic oppressors, of the ruling tsarist regime, of the spreaders of antisemitism and hooliganism – and our understanding of the distinct class interests of
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workers and balebatim [Jewish householders and proprietors]–that these forces must be brought together, coordinated, and unified.
How to connect, to unify, to find the synthesis between Jew and proletarian, between Zionism and socialism, between national and international elements within the class struggle – this tormented the minds of Jewish intellectuals in those years. And indeed, from 1901 to 1906, they met with ideological dead ends.
Dozens of ideological approaches emerged. In every region – a different method. In every major city – a different program. Around every intellectual – a different circle.
The territorial solution to the Jewish question, the workers' problems that surfaced in daily life, the revolutionary political struggle against the government – which played out in the streets and swept up each of us – all of this called forth a search for a firm program. And that search often took the form of heated fraternal strife – a struggle among the various factions of Poale Zion themselves, which spread from Yekaterinoslav to Vilna.
And alongside that, the great common struggle against the Bund continued.
We in Białystok, too, had to untangle the ideological knot. And at our workers' birzhe [exchange], the struggle played out day after day – often bitterly – against the Bund, against the Minskers, who had a fair number of supporters among us, against Jewish P.P.S-nikes [supporters of the Polska Partia Socjalistyczna], and against the anarchists.
After proletarian Zionism – the synthesis of revolutionary socialism and practical Palestinianism – had more or less crystallized, we in Białystok received the first proclamation from the Committee for Southern Russia of the Jewish Social-Democratic Workers' Party (Poale Zion). The proclamation was issued in January 1905 and addressed the events of January 9th.
For the first time, we publicly and officially declared: “In our general demands, we stand fully aligned with the Russian Social-Democratic Party.”
Our Białystoker group enthusiastically embraced this political ani maamin [Hebr., “I believe”; used here as a political credo] – and even though we knew that the R.S.D.R.P. (Iskra)[3] would not quickly accept our partnership or grant us official recognition, we now had, for ourselves, a clear path and direction – where and how to proceed.
In our political demands, we stood as yakhsonim – men of pedigree – just like the Bund. But beyond that, we had our own national demands.
In contrast to the Minskers and the S.S. [Zionist Socialist Workers' Party], we stood for active participation in the political class struggle, while they recognized only passive involvement.
And in our national program, we affirmed a concrete, practical Palestinianism.
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[We learn from the “Bialystoker Photo Album,” p. 64, that from right to left are to see David Klementinowski, Kh. Oldak, Yosef Antokolski, Jack Yanovski, Fayvel the Weaver (Shreybman)]. |
At that time, we began an intensive propaganda effort among Jewish youth. At “public gatherings” – often held in various bote-medroshim [study houses] – our group's leader, Yankl Yanovski, would regularly lead the discussions: a fine speaker with a sharp mind, small in stature, but a young man of great energy.
In more intimate circles, we studied with boys and girls: cultural history, political economy, and the kinds of questions that were often debated at the birzhes [labor exchanges]: Palestinism, territorialism, our relationship to the Zionist Organization and the Zionist Congress, as well as issues of economic strikes and political struggle.
Active in this field were our comrades: Lipe Sukenik, Yosef Antokolski, Khaykl Oldak, Max Khmelnik, David Klementinovski, Anna Alperin, Khashke Feinsod, and Avrom Liberman.
We ourselves – the lecturers – drew intellectual inspiration from our gedoylim [great ones], who often came down to visit us: Aleksander Khashin (Borukhson), Zerubbabel, and yes, even he himself – Ber Borochov, the theorist and architect of “Our Platform” [i.e., the ideological synthesis of Marxism and Zionism developed by Ber Borochov].
They visited us frequently, for Białystok was the transit point between Warsaw and Vilna – the very route along which, that year, people chased after the Sejmists, who had infiltrated the ranks of Poale Zion and betrayed the young movement.
They were confronted in Grodno and Brisk, in Yekaterinoslav and Vitebsk. And a strong attack from their side on Białystok itself was successfully repelled.
In the process, we learned a great deal, benefited much, and gained material with which to teach others – and in this way, fulfilled our mission.
At the forefront of our organizational work stood a deeply energetic and devoted comrade: Moyshe'ke the printer (Krayndels). He was a simple worker, without formal education – but through his idealism and revolutionary spirit, he became the soul of the organization.
With his consistent, logical manner of leading discussions and conducting one-on-one propaganda,
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he influenced not only workers, but also semi-intellectuals, realists, and gymnasium students.
He oversaw the practical work: negotiating disputes between workers and balebatim [employers], purchasing and distributing weapons for self-defense, distributing literature, and organizing konspirative skhodkes [secret gatherings].
He died suddenly in Białystok in early 1906, from a cold. His funeral became a Poale Zion demonstration.
We all felt that in him, we had lost not only a comrade – but a future leader of the workers.
Among the active comrades who remain vivid in our memory were:
Zelde Kagan – a girl full of fire, Mikhle Fridman and her brother Hirshel, a tanner, Betzalel Marantz, a weaver, Noske Pam, a printer, Yekusiel Dzivak, Avrom Kagan, Leybl Liberman, and one of the Lurye twins – one was with us, the other with the Minskers, and they were often mistaken for one another, which, from the standpoint of deep conspiracy, was highly inconvenient.
We were far fewer in number than the Bund – and even smaller than the Minsker and the S.S. [Zionist Socialist Workers' Party] – but we developed a stirring activism.
We took part in joint May Day demonstrations and in workers' masovkes [mass gatherings] in the forest, where, in October 1904, the first major clash with the police took place.
Our comrades marched together on October 18, 1905, to the prison, when the Białystok working class stormed the gate in an attempt to free the political prisoners.
During the police and military gunfire – in which dozens of Jewish workers were killed or wounded – our comrade Leybl Liberman (son of teacher Tsvi Hirsh Liberman) was seriously wounded.
We carried out several independent small strikes, and on occasion, daring expropriation raids on postal couriers in the small towns around Białystok – with the goal of seizing bloody Tsarist funds for party purposes.
We issued our own proclamations and arranged to obtain weapons for the self-defense group.
I myself took part in one such journey to Grodno. There, in a conspiratorial apartment belonging to our Grodno comrade “Brayne-Moyshe,” we held an important consultation with several Poale Zion groups from the region.
She was called “Brayne-Moyshe” because she was tall and strong, looked more like a man, and was, in fact, the natshalnitse – the commander – of all our self-defense groups in the Białystoker region.
In 1906, the Białystok organization assumed a more solid organizational form. This followed the regional conference in Poltava in December 1905, and again in February 1906 – also in Poltava –with the first founding assembly of the Y.S.D.A.P. [Jewish Social-Democratic Workers' Party, Poale Zion].
At this assembly, in which more than twenty-two delegates took part, the Southern Lithuanian region – with Białystok at its head –was represented by our comrade Yankl Yanovski.
Soon after that assembly, which firmly laid the theoretical foundations of our party program, the first Russian-language organ appeared: Yevreyskaya Rabotshaya Khronika [“Jewish Workers' Chronicle”], featuring the lead article Nasha Platforma (“Our Platform”) by Borochov, who signed it under the pseudonym Postoyanny [“The Constant One”].
The arrival of Yevreyskaya Rabotshaya Khronika in Białystok was truly a holiday – especially for the more intellectual comrades, for those who had to teach others and carry out propaganda work.
For the rest of our comrades, Borochov's articles were too strictly scientific, not popular in tone. We had to not only translate them into Yiddish for our comrades, but also popularize them, explain them, offer commentary on every sentence, and study with them as one studies a page of Gemara.
Despite this, the journal itself became very popular, and was read not only by our friends and sympathizers, but also by many party opponents – the Minskers, the S.S. [Zionist Socialist Workers' Party], the Bundists, and even the bourgeois Zionists.
This raised the prestige of our organization in Białystok. It gave us courage, and our practical organizational work grew stronger and more intense.
In April 1906, a regional conference took place in Białystok, with participation from Grodno, Brisk, Grajewo, Volkovysk, Horodok, and other small towns. I don't recall whether the entire conference was held there, but I'm certain that part of it took place in the home of Litman Rosental.
Litman Rosental himself was a bourgeois Zionist, personally far removed from Poale Zion – and we were even further removed from him. To us at the time, he was the factory-owning exploiter. But he belonged to the Zionist idealists – those who understood that Zionism must become a popular movement, and who wanted the Zionist Congress to become the Jewish parliament, where Jewish workers would also participate and have a voice.
We made use of these sympathies for our conspiratorial work, and Rosental's house became our safest place against a police raid.
Our literature, proclamations, and journals we kept in another secure location – in the Linas Hatzedek office on Rozhanski Street, where the administrator for many years was my father, Yehoshua Heshel Klementinowski.
I always had access there, and was, in a way, a bit of a balebos.
The Białystok conference of 1906 consolidated the organizations both in the city itself and in the
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surrounding towns, and elected a regional committee, which included the comrades: Yankl Yanovski (a former soldier, who at the time drowned – whether accidentally or intentionally is unknown), Yosef Antokolski, Khaykl Oldak, Fayvel the weaver (Shreybman), and myself.
The committee did not last long. Its work was disrupted by the great pogrom that took place in Białystok from June 1st to 3rd, 1906.
The pogrom so drastically altered the general situation in the city that party work, as such, had to take on a different form.
One clearly saw the common enemy, and for a certain time, all other activities had to be set aside – to carry out the struggle for defense in a unified way. At the same time, one had to take part in relief efforts for the victims – in which nearly every party group had its share.
In July 1906, after the dissolution of the First Duma, and as reaction began to rage more fiercely across the land, we in Białystok received word that our Central Committee had been arrested in Poltava.
For us, who received this conspiratorial news, it made a tremendous impression. In that moment, we felt like orphans – like a ship without a rudder.
But it soon turned out that only Borochov had been arrested; Zerubbabel had escaped. That night, he happened not to sleep at home, and when the police came looking for him, his mother declared that she had never had a son by the name of Zerubbabel.
At that time, Zerubbabel departed for Vilna via Białystok, where he stopped for a certain period.
In Vilna, he organized a new secretariat, bringing into the work comrade Zalman Rubashov, who undertook the translation of Nasha Platforma into Yiddish, prepared a Yiddish-language organ, and above all, began preparations for a new party assembly.
We made use of Zerubbabel's presence in Białystok to prepare a regional conference. However, we convened the conference in Grodno, since Białystok was still under the heavy pressure of the pogrom, and the political situation there remained highly unstable.
Besides, Grodno was closer to Vilna, where party work had become concentrated.
At the conference, which took place at the end of October, Białystok was represented by Yankl Yanovski.
In 1908, activity in Białystok declined sharply – as did the entire socialist movement across Russia. Many of our comrades emigrated abroad.
At that time, the work of the Białystoker Poale Zion consisted mainly in financially supporting the party's publishing efforts, which were being directed by Zerubbabel.
Later, the Białystok group began to show greater activity again, and Białystok once more became a regional center.
But this period, too, did not last long. A major collapse followed, and nearly all active members of the organization were arrested. The work was again weakened.
Only later – after the First World War and until the Second – did Poale Zion carry out significant activities in Białystok.
Translator's notes:
by Osip Dimov
Translated by Beate Schützmann-Krebs
English Proofreading by Dr. Susan Kingsley Pasquariella
Memory draws for me a picture like this: a hot, beautiful day in Białystok. I, a student at the Lesnoy Institute in Petersburg, have come home on vacation to see my mother, brothers, sisters, and friends.
Though still young and just a student, I am already the author of a drama – Sh'ma Yisroel [“Hear, Oh Israel!”].
I stroll along the lovely Lipowa Street, when a young man with beautiful intelligent eyes and a pointed black mustache stops me.
I don't know him; I've never seen him before. But somehow, he knows me.
“Allow me to translate your drama into Hebrew,” he says.
I look at him, surprised – and inwardly quite pleased.
“With the greatest pleasure,” I reply. “Who are you?”
“Nahum Zemach,” says the young man. “And what do you ask in return for your permission? What will it cost?”
“If it's in Hebrew – nothing,” I reply, a bit embarrassed.
He presses my hand firmly and disappears.
Zemach went on to organize a dramatic troupe and staged my play. But the Tsarist government hindered him greatly, and naturally, he could not achieve major success.
A few years later, we met again in Vienna, at the time of the Zionist Congress. In his repertoire was also my play – well rehearsed and beautifully, intelligently performed.
But it was not yet Habima[3] -like. It was only the beginning, the first step.
I did not see the Habima performance in its full splendor and glory until Zemach and his troupe arrived in New York.
But even before the troupe arrived, I had already received a greeting from Habima – and precisely from a man who had very little to do with Jewishness.
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It was the famous singer Feodor Chaliapin.
This was during the time when the civil war was raging in Russia. Chaliapin had just arrived in America, and we saw each other in a half-darkened theater, in the middle of a performance by Anna Pavlova. The first words the great artist spoke to me were:
“Habima is in distress. Something must be done.”
And later, when I attended the Habima performances, when I saw – no: inhaled – The Dybbuk[4], I understood why a “stranger,” and yet such an artistic soul as Chaliapin, had cared so deeply for Zemach's child – Habima…
Here in America, the tensions soon appeared, which later led to the breakup of the troupe – that wonderfully cemented, or better said: Zemach-ted troupe. The beautiful collective was shattered.
Zemach withdrew – or was made to withdraw.
“I shouldn't have come to America,” he told me once, and again.
And soon he set to work on new plans – which remained unrealized.
“I want to create a kind of revue,” he said, “called Malka Sheva[5], with a character befitting the name. There should be song, dance, and short one-acts, sketches. Could you write me a few such sketches? Please try, I'm asking you.”
Can one say no to Zemach?
I wrote a few one-acts, read them to him and to his actors – but nothing came of it.
Malka Sheva remained a dream. Few people even know that Zemach carried such a thought within him.
Instead of Malka Sheva, Zemach entered the weekday reality of American life. Well, one must live, after all – he was in California, worked for the English theater, worked in film…
At that time, I was in Germany. When I returned to America, we met again.
“You must go to Eretz Yisrael,” he told me – in a tone that was more a friendly command than mere advice. “There you will write the true drama for us.”
He probably said the same to other writers as well, because Habima was in need of a new repertoire.
“When a horse falls out there in the field – that's a drama, a tragedy – but what of it? It must be artistically brought forth.”
In Zemach, the artist always spoke – the creator, the builder.
Like a flaming whirlwind, Habima swept across the world. In every major city, the performances stirred waves of enthusiasm. It had been a long time since the artistic world had been so shaken.
Russians, Germans, French, English, Americans – Christians and Jews – all sang the same songs of praise – and, if I'm not mistaken, the Christians even more so.
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[We learn from the “Bialystoker Photo Album,” p. 64, that in the first row, from right, are to see Y. Kamen and Sh.Schwartz; second row: Y. Grinhoyz, Nahum Zemach, Sarah Pat, Nitsberg; third row: Paylet(?), Grokhovski and Y. Glagovski.] |
Only a small percentage of Habima's audience and admirers understood the language – and yet they grasped the beauty, the grandeur of the word that Zemach and his actors spoke, sang, danced, and painted before the world.
The fact that the language was unfamiliar – a “dead” language, as people used to say – didn't bother anyone. On the contrary – it may even have helped.
The beautiful, ancient sounds were new and fresh to the ear. The “dead” language came alive – and was more vibrant than all the modern, living tongues.
The language of Habima and The Dybbuk suddenly became a kind of world language – one that everyone understood – a kind of Esperanto, an international medium for uniting people and nations through art, through spirit.
Once again, in our Białystok, an Esperanto was created.
The first time, it was Dr. Zamenhof. The second time – Nahum Zemach.
It sounds like a wonder – but it is so. It is a fact, a reality, a living truth – and a beautiful, elevated one as well.
Generations will come and go, and people will wonder: How could this have happened? How could Habima have been born, have existed – and conquered the world?
The name Zemach will resound with a new tone and shine in a new light.
People will say:
“A day before the black, terrible fascist hand descended upon the Jewish people, Habima was created. The performances of Ansky's Dybbuk took place. They showed the world – in Europe and in America – the cultural beauty that lived within a people so unjustly persecuted.”
But Zemach's later life was hard. Forgotten and disappointed, lonely and silenced, he died on Friday, September 8, 1939, at the age of 52.
Translator's notes:
For anyone interested in learning more about the history of Habima, I recommend reading To the Great World by Chayele Grober, one of Habima's founding members. My translation from the Yiddish can be downloaded as a PDF for free here: To The Great World.pdf Return
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by M. Babitsh
Translated by Beate Schützmann-Krebs
English Proofreading by Dr. Susan Kingsley Pasquariella
The first Jewish art exhibition in Białystok took place in 1919, shortly after the First World War. Poland had become independent, and the Jewish population – especially the youth – was seized by a wave of national awakening.
The Jewish school system then blossomed, alongside a growing number of Hebrew schools. The Sholem Aleichem Library expanded significantly. Various artistic groups were founded, and a number of gifted artists and singers emerged.
On the streets of Białystok, Jews from all walks of life spoke a rich, juicy Yiddish. Jewish political parties – from the far left to the far right – were highly active and competed in their initiatives.
Jewish life was filled with belief and hope – a new Jewish life.
At that time, the Jewish Culture League existed in Białystok. It was represented by delegates from workers' parties and Yiddishists. The executive committee then consisted of:
Yakov Pat (S.S.) [ Zionist Socialist Organization], B. Tabatshinski and Katsenelenboygn (Bund), Sh. Goldman (Youth Association), and the author of these lines (Folks-Partey, Folkists).
The Culture League had the task of popularizing Jewish culture and art in all its forms throughout Jewish Białystok. It was among the League's activists that the idea arose to organize the first art exhibition in Białystok.
But this was a very original and daring initiative in Białystok, a city of manufacturing, commerce, and practicality.
Young people from the bourgeois classes had ambitions to study for intellectual professions, to establish their own textile warehouses, or to work their way up to owning a few weaving looms.
But the majority of youth from the poorer classes, along with a small segment of the intelligentsia, fought – just the opposite – for social justice.
That is why we had such a strong contrast and such a large number of combative workers' parties in those years.
But for ordinary dreamers and artists, the atmosphere in Białystok was not especially favorable. Painters, poets, and writers could not settle in Białystok, and left for Petersburg, Warsaw, Vilna – and the wider world.
Białystok had almost no painters of its own. At that time, the painter Razanetski lived in the city. He would stroll through the streets of Białystok dressed in a uniform, with long hair. He certainly did not make a living from painting, and earned his livelihood by giving lessons in painting at several schools.
That same Razanetski deserves credit for teaching and encouraging the now-gifted painter Benn, who lives in Paris and is very popular.
So the Białystoker Culture League turned to painters from Warsaw and Łódź to organize an art exhibition in Białystok. The artists there gladly accepted the invitation. It was decided to bring over the majority of collections from the gifted Jewish painters of the time.
And to popularize the art exhibition, the Culture League invited to the opening the most prominent painters of the time– Minkowski and Berlevi from Warsaw, and Adler from Łódź.
Many years have passed since that festive art exhibition took place. But just as if it were today, I remember the enthusiasm of the cultural activists surrounding this original undertaking.
For me personally, it was a very significant event. Every time, in earlier years, when I happened to visit Warsaw, I would set aside time to visit the museum there and and take joy in the presence of various works of art. So I simply waited with impatience for our own Jewish art exhibition in Białystok.
We chose the most suitable location for the exhibition – right in the center of the city, in the Worengoltz [Warenholz] Passage, which belonged to a German with that name. He hadn't had much luck with the inner shops, most of which stood empty. For the exhibition, we chose the upper floor, which consisted of a large hall.
Finally, the guests arrived: Minkowski, Berlevi, and Adler – bringing with them many crates filled with various works of art.
With what joy we unpacked the crates, regarding them as precious treasures. We carefully adorned the walls with them, decorated and embellished everything so that it would appear inviting. The number of artworks was very large – truly a genuine museum.
Yakov Pat was brimming with enthusiasm. Binyamin Tabatshinski put in much effort to make the exhibition as beautiful as possible. The earnest and kind-hearted Sh. Goldman warmly welcomed the artists and helped them feel at home in our city.
The modest Katsenelenboygn consistently ensured that the exhibition would be not only a moral success, but also a material one for the artists – to encourage them in their future creations.
The exhibition was officially opened on September 20th, 1919, and lasted for ten days.
On display were paintings by a number of Jewish artists from the “Warsaw Jewish Artists' Circle” and Łódź's “Young Jewish” group.
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Hundreds of visitors, from all strata of the Jewish population, came to the art exhibition. Entire Jewish folk schools arrived, with their teachers at the head. Various groups from semi-professional associations and organizations attended. There were even guests from nearby towns, who came to share in the joy of Białystok's first art exhibition.
The largest section of paintings was by Minkowski. A small-built man, with sparkling blue eyes and blond mustache – he looked like a Pole. Minkowski was a man of vivid motion and emotional intensity, and he worked wonders with his hands when painting his pictures and portraits. He possessed a great number of creations. His subjects were deeply Jewish – quite the opposite of his appearance.
He painted Jewish women: as they blessed the Sabbath candles, walked to synagogue, danced at weddings, how they looked during the week, and how they appeared on the Sabbath.
He created a number of portraits of Jewish children. Especially striking was his painting Children's Home, in which a group of homeless children were painted by him – each child a world unto itself. Jewish suffering, homelessness, looked out from each little face.
Minkowski was also an artist of painting human eyes. Apparently, this had something to do with his deaf-muteness. If in every painting the human eyes appeared alive, he was less successful in painting human lips, which tended to look stiff and closed.
Very striking was his painting The Wanderers, in which a group of Jews leave the shtetl and set out on the road.
Minkowski was also a refined master in bringing forth the most delicate combinations of color. Minkowski would always be found near to his creations – and with such love and devotion he would illuminate them – in his quiet, wordless way. While in Białystok, he painted a number of portraits of well-known Białystoker Jews.
The second important section belonged to the painter Berlevi. He was a slender and fair young man, with dreamy eyes. He spoke little. But when one discovered understanding in his creations, he became very talkative and intimate. He possessed a large number of drawings, black and white, with various subjects from Jewish life and Jewish types.
He drew in a very realistic manner, so that everything was clearly comprehensible to the viewer. With just a few strokes, Berlevi could bring forth a complete figure, with all its nuances and characteristics.
But not so easily understood was the third guest, Adler, with his paintings of Futurist art. Adler looked like a typical painter – a fellow with black hair, long sideburns, a pair of sparkling eyes, and always a smiling mouth. He was very open to new acquaintances.
In my friendship with the three painters, Adler was always like quicksilver. But as much as I personally liked him, I must say today, after many years, that I was never in love with his Futurist art.
Adler gave a lecture for all those who were curious, to shed light on his Futurist art. He explained that only in a dark atmosphere could he better bring out all the hidden nuances of Futurism. He spoke and spoke – and neither then, nor even to this day, do I understand Futurism.
But Adler was a capable painter and a warm-hearted friend.
There were also a number of paintings by Zaydenbaytl [Seidenbeutel], Lindenfeld, and others. Each one painted images with Jewish content. The art exhibition presented a complete picture of Jewish life. What was missing, however, were paintings of landscapes, of the sea, of nature in general.
But the painters were, after all, children of Eastern European Jews, for whom such things were foreign. And they painted what their eyes had seen and their hearts had felt – Jewish life in Poland.
As mentioned, the exhibition was a great moral success, but very far from a material one. The great Jewish Białystok – with so many wealthy Jews, so many well-to-do intellectuals –purchased only 24 paintings at the exhibition. The majority of the sold works were by lesser-known artists and at modest, accessible prices.
Berlevi sold ten paintings, Seidenbeutel six, Lindenfeld three, Adler three, and Minkowski two paintings.
Today, decades later, I reflect on that art exhibition in Białystok – on the joys and sorrows of our lost hometown, on its faithful and devoted youth, who dreamed of a more beautiful and better Jewish life, and who perished so tragically along with all material and spiritual values…
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Tell the new generations of the Jewish destruction and resistance in Hitler's time. |
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