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[Pages 445-446]
[Pages 447-448]
by Noach Mishkowski[1]
Translated by Anton Avdeev
Although I was born in the town of Kopyl, I still consider myself a Mirrer, since my parents moved with me from Kopyl when I was one and a half years old. Although Kopyl remained completely unknown to me from those years, I spent my entire childhood in Mir until I was seventeen years old.
I remember well the main streets Vilenskaya, Zhukhovichskaya and Mirskaya. I also remember the synagogue courtyard with the cold synagogue, the Beit Midrash[2] and other small schools and colleges, and all the alleys leading from the synagogue courtyard and a little further to the new city, where our urban poor lived in indescribable hardships. I also remember parts of the city of Padal and Yurzdike, as well as the streets where the city's townspeople and Tatars lived, whom we called, according to the expression from the Pentateuch, Kedarim[3]. In particular, I remember well our fortress, which in the old days protected our city from attacks by foreign troops. Napoleon destroyed everything around this military castle during his campaign against Moscow, and since then only ruins have remained from it. But from time to time, counts and nobles lived in it, to whom our town belonged. The castle was a real fortress, adapted for the wars of the Middle Ages. A large fortress wall with very thick walls, three or four meters high, with towers on all sides, built with a broad hand and a strategic head.
Below, as they said, there is an underground road along which you can take a carriage drawn by four horses to Nesvizh, which lies twenty-eight miles from our city. Shady hills stretched around the fortress, and a little further our river, Miranka, flowed. We children came to the castle every Saturday after dinner for fun. We went inside, walked through huge ruined halls, climbed floors, walked along wide long corridors, climbed the “dizzying staircase”, and then climbed up the destroyed walls, although this was very risky. About the slums, the children told each other different stories about the “bad guys” who spend their orgies there every night, about beautiful witches, about how they seduce innocent men there and about the grief that falls to those who fall into their clutches. They play with him, kiss him and hold him until he dies in their arms. And with great fear, the children told how they had recently caught a guard and that same night he died in the arms of beautiful girls from the castle. We never went there alone, but always in groups, so that the witches would not have any power over us.
About half a mile from the city was the “court” of the princes to whom the city belonged. In my time the town priest was the old Pole Fusiato. He lived there with his large household and his servants. Then this courtyard passed to the new owner of the city – Prince Svyatopolk Mirsky. This courtyard
[Pages 467-468]
was a very strange and even hostile kingdom for us children. We were afraid to go there because, firstly, we were afraid of his caretaker (guard), who liked us to take off our hats, and secondly, we were afraid of his big dogs. There were rumors in the city that at the entrance to the yard there was a terrible wolf with bared teeth and, as soon as he saw someone entering the yard, he attacked him and tore him to pieces…
At the other end of the village, on the road to the “Kedarimovskie graves” (Tatar cemetery), there was another princely courtyard. There, in the second courtyard, he administered “justice.”
When I was sixteen years old, I had the “privilege” of working as his unofficial secretary because, as a Jew, I was not eligible to hold such a high government position. The town, as we called it, belonged to the Minsk province. Not far from us was our district town Novogrudok, and fifteen miles from the city was the Gorodzey railway station, or Horodziej, as we called it. Five thousand people lived in the city, most of whom were Jews. Jews mainly occupied the city center with the market, but were also distributed in other parts of the city, although not in such dense numbers as in the center. The population of five thousand was divided into three races: Semitic – Jews, Caucasoid – Belarusians and Mongolian – Tatars. But not everyone had equal rights. According to religion, the population was also divided into three separate groups: the Tatars were Mohammedans, the Belarusians were Orthodox, and the Jews naturally believed in the Mosaic Torah. At that time, there were three separate worlds that had almost nothing in common, except that they maintained trade relations with each other. The busiest part of the city was the market square. There were the most beautiful buildings here, there were two churches, the richest Jews lived here, all the shops and stores were here, and at night the market was illuminated with kerosene lanterns.
In Jewish areas the streets were paved. However, this did not prevent the fact that in spring and autumn there were so many leaves that it was impossible to walk along the streets.
Among the most beautiful buildings in the city were two churches and a cold synagogue, in which they did not pray in winter because it was not heated. Also the Beit Midrash in the courtyard of the synagogue, the building of the Russian elementary school and the Catholic sixth-grade school, as well as the house of the Kamenetskys and Lewins.
Not far from the synagogue courtyard was the world famous Mir Yeshiva[4], founded in 1815. In my time, the head of the yeshiva was Rabbi Chaim Leib[5]. I still remember Rabbi Chaim Leib very well. He was the most respected and prominent Jew in the city. I instinctively feared him, since my parents were not pious, did not have a kosher kitchen, and I was always afraid that, God forbid, he would curse us as a “saint.” Both in the city and in the surrounding area they paid much more attention to him than to our Rabbi Lipele, who also had a reputation in what was then Belarus. Rabbi Chaim Leib did not interfere in the affairs of the shtetl, and devoted himself entirely to running the yeshiva. He was a Jew not of this world, but of a completely different world, a higher, noble and moral world. He soared in the skies and moved only
[Pages 469-470]
in the world of the highest Jewish morality. He did not withdraw into himself, and spent most of his time with the yeshiva boys, of whom he always had 400–500 people.
In our city there were already Jewish teachers, doctors, a pharmacist, and two lawyers. Some of our youth have devoted themselves to reading secular books. From those times I remember the Zeldovich brothers, who independently studied not only Russian and German, but also English. I remember the Jewish students Jacob Halfern, Solomon and Thaddeus Levin, Shmuel Leder, professor of mnemonics Feinstein and the most learned Vera Levina, a friend of A. Lesin[6] in his Minsk period. Advanced Russian intellectuals such as teachers, judges and priests received more pleasure from communicating with intelligent Jews than with their coreligionists.
We already had a library in the shtetl, consisting of a large selection of books in Russian, Yiddish and Hebrew, first in the house of Shai Rozovsky, and then in the house of Isaac Schwartz. In addition to the library, there was a girl in our town named Miss Feder who wrote Jewish books, novels, and story booklets and lent them to her regular customers. Then, when Jewish literary collections began to appear, she bought them and rented them out. So she spread light and knowledge in our town.
Russian newspapers and magazines also came to our home; my father had an excellent library of Russian classics and translations of European literature.
However, I must add that there were few readers of books in Russian, Yiddish and Hebrew in my shtetl at that time, about forty to fifty people. Mostly women read, and their favorite books were the “most interesting” novels of Shomer[7]. In general, the Jewish life we were in at that time was glorified. The vast majority of the Jewish population was very devout and all lived according to the old Jewish tradition.
In our shtetl, Jews were valued not for their wealth, but for their learning. The “wealth” of the individual took second place.
The economic situation of the shtetl Jews was terrible. Almost eighty percent of the Jewish population did not have enough bread. The Christians forced them to engage in agriculture, but the Jews did not agree to this. The government took away all sources of income for the Jews, and I still cannot understand how the poor Jews did not simply starve to death. We only had bartenders, a few rich shopkeepers, a few moneylenders, forest merchants, forest officials, etc. Farmers, peasants and Jews with similar “means of subsistence” had to feed themselves all their lives and never received proper food. Fortunately, the tsarist government did not interfere with market days, which were held every Sunday, and fairs were held in the city twice a year. The Jews considered them manna from heaven. Thousands of farmers came from surrounding villages. They sold their products and used the proceeds to buy tobacco, kerosene lamps, linen, various materials, agricultural implements and gifts for women and children. After every purchase and sale, farmers went to bars. The Jews prepared for the fair several weeks before it began. And everyone became merchants. They borrowed a few rubles and traded. We bought and sold eggs,
[Pages 471-472]
hay, grain, a bushel of apples, and there was something left in our pocket. Richer people bought sheep, calves, and horses and had income from this trade for six months. The Jews also looked forward to the whole year for the time when “strangers” would come to the city from all the surrounding areas, because then the bartenders and shopkeepers were doing very well. True, very often the appearance of visitors ended in fights among themselves or between Christians and Jews. In such cases, strong Jewish guys and butchers came and drove away the drunken attackers.
The Jews of my shtetl differed from all the neighboring Jewish towns in their nobility and learning. And the Jews always boasted of this when the inhabitants of Kletsk, Stolbtsy, Nesvizh or Lyakhovichy came to the Mir. And we were all really proud that we were Mirrers.
My father, being a former yeshiva student, was able to study well and was very fond of secular education.
He was, in the full sense of the word, a modern man with a warm Jewish heart. As a lawyer, as a matter of principle he never defended a criminal and never recognized the trial of a Christian over a Jew. My father spoke and read several languages and was a great lover of fine literature. He also wrote extensively in Yiddish. Great work: “Palestinian Emigrant” remains forever in my memory. As far as I remember, it was a literary work with a strong patriotic content, in which he put forward the ideas of the “Lovers of Zion.”
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He also wrote dramas, comedies and short stories. Very often he read something from his works to his mother, to us children, and to guests at home. However, at that time there were no Yiddish periodicals and publishers, so he could not print them. Only after his death did my mother, who at that time was already eighty years old, being left alone and not wanting all the works to end up in someone else's hands,
[Pages 473-474]
destroyed everything herself.[b]
From that time, I also have almost no memory of the first era of the “Lovers of Zion” movement in the eighties. I remember my father fiddling with the “campaign.” He was the chairman and secretary of the organization in Mir. There were often meetings in our house at which my father spoke. I remember how on my birthday, the “loving one” who lived in our house left our city and went to the Land of Israel with his family. Because of this, there was a buzz in our house, everyone was talking, and the next morning all the “loving” people saw him off from the city. Then I lost my roommate. He was a strange boy who went with his father to the Land of Israel and in my childhood fantasies I imagined how my friend would become a shepherd on the mountains of Zion, and I was very jealous of him…
When I was five years old, my mother took me to my first teacher, Kiva Kugel. I also studied with two other teachers. I went to them for almost four years. During this time I learned about Joshua, the Judges, Samuel, and with this my old Jewish education was almost complete.
At that time we lived with Dodgen (David), a Jew who wrote petitions to Russian officials. He was a widower and loved bitter drinks. He always came home very late. His son Berl, a thirteen-year-old boy who was already attending a Russian district school, became my first Russian language teacher. Soon my parents sent me to a Russian elementary school. While attending public school, I studied with two private teachers. I studied Hebrew with teacher Weiner and went so far as to translate the story of Robinson Crusoe[8] from Russian into Hebrew. I also studied German from a German woman, Fraulein Tetz.
Most of all I loved the evenings when my father read his stories or we listened to a novel about life in the Mir, written at that time by the watchmaker Mendel Tsirinsky. As far as I remember, it was written with great talent. His coming and reading was a real holiday for me. My parents had to be upset about this affair. In the middle of writing the novel, he left for America and what's more: we never heard anything more about him…
At that time my father was very busy creating educational courses for our poor youth. He argued in one of his speeches that the whole problem of the Jews is that we are engaged only in unproductive labor, and we have more shopkeepers, innkeepers, bartenders and peddlers than we need. One competes with the other and snatches the last piece from his mouth. Anti-Semitism, he argued, also stems from the fact that we derive our happiness from the smell of the market, from the wind. We must open a vocational school in our city, where our youth should be taught to cultivate the land or train to become good tailors, shoemakers, and mechanics. Let our vocational school, he concluded his frequent sermons, serve as an example for neighboring cities and towns of how to move from air pollution to productive work. But he not only campaigned, but also stepped forward with iron determination to realize his dream. Through the Jewish Society[9] of Craft Labor, then located in St. Petersburg, he obtained money for this purpose and also, after long negotiations in high government spheres, agreed to build a house
[Pages 475-476]
for such an institution.
However, when everything was almost finished, a major economic crisis occurred, due to which all work was stopped.
I remember a guest who stayed in our house for a very long time. He was my cousin on my mother's side, Shmuel Shmurak, and at the same time he was the nephew of our classic Mendel Moyher-Sforim[10] . At first, Shmuel lived in the house of his uncle R. Mendel in Odessa and came to visit us directly from his house as a 21-year-old youth. Mendel wanted to make him a useful Jew and enrolled him in the Trud vocational school [11] , where he was the director. Shmuel always loved to brag about his great-uncle and always told stories about his uncle's house. But personally he was not interested in any questions; he spoke only Russian, dressed like a Tyrol's German. For some time he was a teacher in our city. And then he taught in Baranovichi, from there he left for Warsaw.
Original footnotes:
Translator's footnotes:
by Yosef Rolnik
Translated by Chanan Zakheim and Eileen Zakheim Fridman
I was introduced to the Yeshiva through my last teacher.
I personally did not have a great desire to continue learning the Gemara, and the supervisor of the Yeshiva, who interviewed me, was also not too keen to accept me; however it was almost a tradition, that every village boy, from the most prosperous to the poorest boot maker's son would be accepted. Nevertheless he was accepted as long as he was an adequate student and then studied a few terms in the Yeshiva.
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Yosef Rolnik, born in 1879 in the village of Zuchevich (Zhukevichi), close to Mir. Until the age of fifteen he studied in the Mir Yeshiva. In 1899 he emigrated to New York. He returned and lived in Minsk. In 1908 once again he emigrated to New York, and remained there until passing away on July 18, 1955. He was the editor of several books of poetry as well as a book of memorials (1954). |
My father was hopeful that I would turn out positively. On the other hand, the supervisor could not refuse accepting me. My father was a respected homeowner amongst the nearby residents; every holiday we would invite a Yeshiva boy to our home for a week, and for the High Holidays, for the whole month. When I grew up and had acquaintances with the Yeshiva students, I personally would choose which Yeshiva student would come to us for the holiday. We, and the other hosts, welcomed them very warmly. Some of them had a pleasant voice and could sing cantorial
[Pages 477-478]
pieces and would entertain the family. We used to refer to them by the name of their villages, as they referred to each other in the Yeshiva.
The Yeshiva was located in a large building not far from the area of the synagogues. In the Yeshiva, there were twelve tables; ten near the walls and two in the middle of the Yeshiva. In between the two middle tables, there were two thick, wooden pillars that supported the ceiling. The two tables were known as; the “the guard table” and the second one was called “the table behind”. At these two tables' people studied day and night. As soon as one Yeshiva boy left a second one came along. Several learned until dawn, and others would awaken at dawn and they would replace them.
The other ten tables also had names; amongst these tables which faced the eastern side and stood on both sides of the Holy Ark, and the one table on the right was named with the name of the head of the Yeshiva, “Reb Chaim-Leib's table”. The table on the left side of the Holy Ark was named “the Rabbi's table”, in memory of the previous rabbi. These two tables, had “subsidiary tables”. I say they were “subsidiary” tables and not “back tables”, because they were a little lower in importance compared to the first two tables; behind Reb Chaim Leib and behind HaRav's tables.
The best students with brilliant minds sat at these eastern tables, and also students with important backgrounds. Behind them at the southern and northern walls there were two long tables. The one was named “the clock table”, and the second table by the northern wall, was called the “village table”. The mature students would sit at these tables. There were more tables which were lower in importance; the Supervisor's table; the Reb Peretz's table; the oven-table and the door-table. In total – twelve tables.
In the front of the building there were two separate rooms – a little synagogue and in the second room there was a private office for the Rosh Yeshiva.
Studying began at nine in the morning. At that time the yeshiva students
[Pages 479-480]
would “prepare” the page of the Gemara, upon which the Head of the Yeshiva would give his lesson. Precisely at one o'clock the students from the “the clock and the villages tables” would all suddenly move their tables to the middle of the hall, and would push themselves into the two “guard tables” which stood on the east and west side, and they created a square with four little walls.
The Rosh Yeshiva sat at the eastern table and delivered the lesson and the yeshiva students would seat themselves around all four sides, and those who did not have where to sit, would stand overlooking the heads of those sitting and they would hold the open Gemaras in their uplifted arms. The Rosh Yeshiva would deliver the lecture from an open Gemara, however, the top students would continually interrupt him with their questions which they had previously prepared, and in return the Rosh Yeshiva would either reject or would reply to the questions.
Not all of the yeshiva students would remain in the yeshiva for the lessons; many would leave the yeshiva until the afternoon. At three o'clock they would once again sit down to study at the tables, and studying continued until nine in the evening. Afternoon and evening prayers took place in the yeshiva hall both in summer and in winter.
I was seated at the “clock table”, at which the mature students would sit, but not in the same row with them, but on one of the small benches at the end of the table. When the lesson was given, the “clock table” was pushed towards the “guard table”, and the small benches were removed, and I did not know whether I belonged to the “clock table” or not.
The heads of the Yeshiva were the following: Reb Chaim-Leib, the head of the Yeshiva, with a snow white little beard. He would walk around the yeshiva with little steps, and glancing in all directions. Suddenly, he grew large behind the back of one of the yeshiva students, who was swaying over the Gemorra, and asked him a question, exactly from the page that he was learning. (He never approached me, because one required to be privileged).
He was neither disliked nor liked – we were petrified in his presence. One would say; “he can cause pain”. Not looking directly at him, they would answer him confidently, and those who received a good word from him were happy. He gave a lesson four times a week.
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Located in Shanghai In the synagogue “Beit Aharon”, Museum Road, 50 years, 5702 – 1941/1942 |
The son of the Head of the Yeshiva; Reb Avraham, who was tall, gave the lesson on the other days of the week.
The more worldly and younger yeshiva students, had a separate little synagogue, next to the Yeshiva
[Page 480]
where they would pray as a congregation. One of the students would lead the morning service, the second would lead the additional service and a third student would read from the Torah and the others – who wanted to pray would remain inside, and those who did not wish to pray – would stand outside and gossip.
There was another quorum in a house in the vicinity of the synagogue. There we would come to the synagogue, as if to pray on Saturday morning. But, in actual fact, we would exchange with each other Hebrew booklets. It was a kind of exchange location.
I learnt in the Yeshiva for one year – a winter followed by the summer. At the end of the summer, the Yeshiva burnt down, and not just the Yeshiva but also three quarters of the village. The morning after the fire many of the Yeshiva students left to go home, each one
[Page 481]
to his town. They stood next to the transporters' premises with their salvaged boxes in their hands. Amongst them there were many close friends of mine: Der Pinsker, Der Oshmyanyer, Der Marzirer and Der Bialistoker. I missed them terribly for many years, and searched for them all over the world.
The Yeshiva had twelve “mishulochim” (emissaries) that is what they called them, who travelled all through Russia and also to various other countries. They reached Siberia, the Caucasus, England, America and even Africa. They collected funds in order to support the Yeshiva, its leaders and also “weekly stipends” to the Yeshiva students.
“The weekly stipend” was paid monthly, according to the amount of money collected from the village from where the student came. Obviously a bigger town gave more than a smaller town, but as it turned out, that there were four or five yeshiva students from a big town and only one or two from a small town. Thus the student from a small village received more than the students from the big towns. The “weekly stipend” amounted to one and a half ruble, and reached a maximum amount of four or five ruble a month. In extraordinary cases, when the student was a conscientious student or had another positive merit, he received a large “weekly stipend”, although his village only brought in very little.
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The bookkeeper, Reb Heshel Elishberg, oversaw the “emissaries”.
In our Yeshiva, there were students from all parts of Russia; Lithuanians, from the nearby towns; from Warsaw, with long caftans and side locks; students from the Baltic areas, who brought with them German books; a very pale Siberian boy – Yoshe, with snow white teeth, and very tall, with a gray fur hat; and a student from the Caucasus, who brought two hats with him, as the inhabitants of his country wore; one a red, round hat (feske/peske) with a brass handle and the other a rectangular sable streimel with fringes on all four sides
The number of names of the towns and villages was in the hundreds, and the age of the Yeshiva students – were from the age of fourteen until the mid twenties. There were no qualified rabbis amongst the students; anyway I did not know of any. Subsequently many of them later became rabbis and leaders of Jewish communities.
In later years there were many changes in the Yeshiva; other than the method of learning – there were no longer any tables, studying took place on a “shtender” (lectern); as well as the method of supporting for the Yeshiva and its students. However, I am expressing the general picture and the leadership of the Yeshiva during my times.
by Yosef Rolnik
Translated by Chanan Zakheim and Eileen Zakheim Fridman
When I was a school boy between the ages of twelve and thirteen [1], I would borrow books to read from our library, or rather, from our librarian “Fraulein Feder”[2] as she was jokingly called. This “Fraulein Feder” was a short, unattractive and dark girl, who lived in a rented room with her brother, (also a person short in stature and unattractive as she was), in an area close to the synagogue.
In this room where there were two beds, there was also a wall, covered and piled up with books and booklets, Yiddish and in the holy tongue (Hebrew). The Yiddish books were novels written by “Shm”r (Nahum Meier Shaykevich) and Blaustein” as well as “Zushel Verns”, (Jules Verne) who described stories about travel. The Hebrew booklets were written by Mapu, Kalman Shulman, Mordechai Aharon Ginsburg and more very thin booklets, which she (the librarian) purchased from a travelling book seller.
Adult young men and married young men did not dare to “sniff” their noses into this library. Only maidservants and working girls, who wanted to improve themselves for their bridegrooms, and older women who were unable to read Russian books would come to the library. When I became a few years older I also stopped borrowing books in that library and stared at a poor girl, who hid a book under her headscarf with the corner of the book protruding.
One would pay five kopeks for reading a thick book, and two kopeks less for a thin book.
I borrowed from local landlords and in particular from cultured townspeople who were enlightened and wrote books about Warsaw or books written by Yeshiva students who came from large and different cities, and brought with them Hebrew and German books. Hebrew books such as “Haknesset” by Shp”r (Shaul Pinchas Rabinowitz), “Ha'asif” written by Nahum Sokolov as well as old and abandoned volumes “Hashachar” written by Peretz Smolenski.
When I turned nineteen years old[3] , I left for Warsaw, in search of a position. Having spent half a year there and with a job, or with many jobs, which I could not maintain, I returned to Der Mir and found a new library on Miranker Street. The librarian arrived from another town, a blonde young man with almost completely white hair with innocent blue eyes and a crestfallen appearance. He had three small children aged between four to eight years. His wife ran a small general store. During the week he stayed at home running his library, except on Monday, which was market day, he would come from the village into town, in order to assist his wife in the store and left the children on their own. The house was very untidy as is expected wherever children aged between four and eight are around all day, alone without parents at home.
The front door was unlocked, and there was no need to knock on the door. When I entered the house, I was particularly cautious looking closely at the floor and watching my footsteps. I would approach the table, place down the book which I had already read, came close to the wall where the books were kept, and took another book, the name of which appealed to me. I then wrote down my name
[Pages 485-486]
on a piece of paper as a record that I was here and changed a book.
There were many books in the library, and most of them - good. There were the entire volumes of Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, other Russian classic works and other relevant volumes.
There were also translations from German and French. That winter I occupied myself with reading all of Tolstoy, as well as his philosophical works.
I do not know how long the library existed in Der Mir, as I left for America soon afterwards. After being in America for two and a half years, I returned home, and found a new town with a new library.[4]
The population of the town had grown. The little boys and girls had grown up and became bookworms. There were also workers and students from other towns that had settled in our town. The library was now situated in a separate house. It was a rental of half a house in the middle of the market. It consisted of a large room facing the street which contained a desk with a systematic management according to the rules of librarianship. There was a “committee” which consisted of young men and women, who managed the library. (During the two and a half years when I was not in “der heim” (at home), my fellow townspeople learnt to speak and would refer to items by using European words).
There were always members of the library who would pay a monthly membership fee. Truthfully, the managers were a little behind in their payments, but the “people” paid punctually.
Once the library sent a letter to Gorky in Moscow, who during that time published for a magazine called “Znanie”[5] as the library in Der Mir was in dire need of new books. Soon afterwards, a large, wooden box arrived from the publisher.
The joy and pride of all the people connected to the library was indescribable, that such a beloved and famous author behaved in such a friendly manner.
I know that this last library existed for many years because, twenty five years later, after I left Der Mir, I received a letter written as if to an old, fellow countryman, from the library's secretary, whose name was already unknown to me, but also signed by my childhood friend, Shlomo Cynkin.
They requested books from the new Yiddish literary world in America. I collected over one hundred books of well known authors, packed them in small 4 pound packets and sent them by mail to Mir, and was very pleased with myself that I am taking a small part of “our library”.
Translator's footnotes:
by Yosef Rolnik
Translated by Chanan Zakheim and Eileen Zakheim Fridman
In our area there was a tradition of maintenance and support.
If a Jew possessed a mill, workshop or a tavern, and the landlord removed him from his business because the Jew could not pay the rent, or if the landlord became envious of the Jew, he was evicted from his business. No other Jews would take over the business from another Jew, only when a gentile took over – usually the gentiles did not do this kind of work.
Not far from us, approximately eight or nine kilometers away, in the village known as Prostsi, a Jew named Yona Aharon possessed a mill. This Jew lived there for many years, had a large family which consisted of adult sons and daughters, daughters-in-law, sons-in-law and younger children who he supported.
Then it occurred that the landlord removed the Jew and his family.
The Jew moved to town. The adult children rented stores and the younger children were dispersed all over the world. One of the boys, a little older than me, came to us as a teacher for the younger boys and girls of the village. We became friendly, and in the early summer evenings we would stroll along and would discuss what we would become when we reached adulthood. We only wanted to become professors dressed in long capes and wearing small gray hats with a peacock feather.
We did not know that these “professors” with the gray hats were simple “land surveyors”.
On another road approximately one or two kilometers away was the village Barshevitz, and another Jew lived there, named Berke. He had a small tavern and three talented sons. The oldest, Itzche, was a very tall, thin, dark haired and good looking youth with a very smooth tongue.
Although he did not conduct any major dealings with the local gentry, and only occasionally purchased a small amount of grain which he sold to the local millers, nevertheless, the local gentry knew him well and he was one of the “crowd” because of his well spoken Polish.
When the landlord Prostshevitz, “threw out” the Jew Yona Aharon from the mill, no Jew wanted to approach the mill. However, in a little while, we found out that the landlord started operating the mill on his own account, and as a manager he appointed Itzche from Barshevitz with his smooth-tongued Polish.
The local neighbors, and in particular the ones who operated mills, were angry with Itzche, but they could not take him to the local Rabbi (for a hearing), because he did not lease the mill, he only managed the landlord's business. Nevertheless, we all very well understood that Itzche accepted the task of manager, so that eventually the mill would be registered in his name, and so it was. A few years later Itzche became the occupier of the Prostshier mill.
In the meantime he got married to a very pretty local girl from a well known family, and they had two sons. He began leading a respectable life in the town.
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In order that people should forget his previous sins, he presented himself as a staunch and religious upstanding member of society. Whenever a donation was called for, his was always the largest. On the eve of Passover when the mill had to be prepared kosher for Passover, he was not satisfied with the rabbinical court judge, the way we behaved, he brought the local rabbi and presented him with a large sum of money as his fee. He was always the first (to help and to do).
As time passed people forgot about his early years in the mill.
Things went well for him. His two boys studied in town with a Gemara[a] teacher, and his wife was pregnant once again.
Once in the winter time, on a Sunday morning, millers from the town came to us and they told us that on the previous day, Saturday, during the day, young students were skating on the lake, close to where the water was exposed, and two boys, brothers, fell into the water and they drowned. These were the children of Itzche.
We all were in total shock. We saw in this the hand of the G-d, punishment for consuming his neighbor's livelihood.
The pregnant wife, Esther, hearing of the tragedy, lost her mind and was placed in asylum and Itzche was left all alone feeling that G-d has punished him.
When the Poles entered Mir after the Russian-Polish war (from 1919-1921), Itzche was hanged in the middle of the marketplace, because he was found guilty (of a crime) – either a real or an imaginary crime.
Plundering a House
This occurred when I was still a young child and possibly even before I was born.
There was a drought in many areas of our country and also in other areas. Because of starvation, the impoverished population and the tradesmen perished. There was a prosperous Jew named Shlomo Rashkashe, who possessed a large house and an even larger stable and barn at the back of the house. He travelled around the fields of the landlords, and slowly purchased grain from them, brought it to his home, locked it in the barn, and retained it as a source of wealth. The tradesmen and the impoverished population could not purchase bread at any price. When the little children started screaming “bread”, and there was nothing available to give them, all the starving people gathered together and broke the doors of the barn, and stole the grain, and also caused a “pogrom” (destruction) in the house as well as its contents.
This Shlomo Rashkashe, was, in fact, a worldly person and knew how to study (the Gemara) and sent his five sons to the high school and to the university, and they became doctors and engineers.
Assaulting the Assessor
This is another incident which I remember.
In our town there was a tradition that during the day on Simchat Torah[b], all the boys that lived in the vicinity of the synagogue would bring the branches of many succot[c]; placed them in the middle of the courtyard of the synagogue and set them on fire. It was an old tradition and the leaders of the town did not intervene. That year the assessor of the town lived in a large house with windows facing the courtyard of the synagogue. Thus, when he saw that the children wanted to light a fire in the town, he was worried that the smoke would cover his windows, so he ran out of his house and started screaming at the children that they must disassemble the huge pile of branches, and stamp out the fire with
[Pages 491-492]
their feet. When the children did not obey, he started to beat them.
At that point, two local youngsters, had come to watch how they burnt the branches.One of them was Moni, (Motti Rives), the son of a bartender, who was accustomed to receive and to give a good punch, and the second young man – Hershel Kazshai, a tailor, and nevertheless, very strong. These two young men asked the assessor to stop beating the children, but when he did not obey their request, they attacked him, ripped off his insignias, and gave him a good beating.
The next day they were arrested, but they were released on bail to await their trial. In a short while they both “jumped bail” and left the town – one to South Africa and the second to America.
They remained there for the rest of their lives.
Assaulting a Teacher
In 1936 a young Jewish man from another town arrived to become a teacher to young girls, while others were seamstresses who worked for respectable tailors.
He was a political person, and a member of Poalei Tzion[d], and he, thus, probably wanted to influence his students to become Zionists and revolutionaries. On a warm Saturday before mincha[e] seven tradesmen who were self-employed workers, and who employed young girls, beat the teacher up in his house, and afterwards they dragged him to the fields and there also continued beating him.
This occurred in a house in the market place; we, the young Jewish and sympathetic workers, had a feeling of revenge in all our hearts. Small groups of young men began gathering in the streets and quietly started repeating what had occurred. By the time it was dark our group consisted of a large group of about seventy or eighty people. We knew the names of all the perpetrators. The first step was to go to Gershon, the tailor, in the area of the school yard – a self employed tailor, who employed eight girls. When we entered his home, we occupied his kitchen and the entrance, and a large group remained outdoors, because there was no room for them.
I was one of those that remained outdoors. I did not really make an effort to take part in the “war”. I was regarded as a studious young man and therefore I was afraid that my brothers and sisters would be upset when they would find out that I was one of the first in the action.
However, my friend and comrade, Shleimke Cynkin, who himself was the son of a wealthy father and grandfather, and was already orphaned, lived off the interest of his inheritance and card playing. Although he was a bookworm and introvert, he nevertheless raised his little fist against the large Gershon's nose, and he, Gershon, became very frightened when he saw the large group on the other side of the road and in the entrance to the house. He promised us that he would no longer start up with workers and intellectuals.
Thus, we, the whole group, went to the self employed assaulters and they gave their word that from this day on they would be well behaved and upstanding people and will no longer be bullies.
All these self employed people possessed their own beautiful homes with gardens. We went to the house of a tailor on Zuchavische Road. Some of us chatted to the owner and the ones who could not enter the house, spread out in the garden and destroyed all the growing vegetables.
Everyone in the town discussed this matter but in a very quiet way.
Everyone was afraid to raise their voices and no one went to the authorities to report the revolutionaries.
[Pages 493-494]
The synagogue courtyard was located on the western side of the town.
It was a large square area, surrounded by seven or eight synagogues as well as private homes. The synagogues were as follows:
The old wooden synagogue was the highest Jewish building in town. Externally and internally it was very well decorated with all sorts of objects. There was a large holy ark, filled with tens of Torah scrolls, with silver crowns and velvet mantels, embroidered with silver, as well as dowels decorated with silk fruits which every week was swapped – fifty two times a year.
The white plastered synagogue with the thick walls had large closets which were part of the wall, packed with Gemaras, and as well as old works of commentary.
The old Vatikim (elders) little synagogue was attached to the white synagogue and one entered it through the same entrance as to the white synagogue.
The tradesmen synagogue, with a corridor painted green, had been painted by the local tradesmen.
A Talmud Torah building was attended by boys from poor homes and orphans. Their singing on Friday during the day, about that week's portion of the Torah, was heard in the whole of the synagogue courtyard.
There were two Hassidic little synagogues – one a Lechvicher and the second a Lubavitcher. In the Lechvicher synagogue the poor hassidim would pray, who would travel to the Koidenover and Lechvicher Slonimer rabbis. In the Lubavitcher synagogue the wealthy of the town would pray, all were hassidim and learned. (I do not know to which rabbi they would travel to.)
The other residents in the area of the school yard and the surrounding little streets, were poor tradesmen and all kinds of teachers, from Kiva Kugele (his wife baked kugels for children) who was a teacher of kindergarten age students, all the way to Eli Hirschel the teacher of Gemara, who charged twenty five to thirty rubles per child for a lesson.
Behind the big synagogue in the yard there were numerous kinds of equipment. When the large fire broke out, which began in the synagogue courtyard, the first things that went up in flames were the ladders and the vessels which were used to bring water from the river in the event of a fire.
In the synagogue courtyard near the big synagogue, there was an abattoir, and the blood of the slaughtered cattle and calves would flow outside to a lower area. The blood was combined with discarded dishwater and formed a big pool, where pigs would lie and soak themselves the whole summer. The stench that emanated from the pool during the warm summer days penetrated through the open windows of the school room where I learned.
When I was a young boy, around the age of eight or nine, I would sit every Saturday morning at the table which was next to the window and look out at the rich women, who would leave the synagogue after praying, dressed in their expensive fox furs, with large folded collars. They either walked in pairs or a threesome, slowly and pleasantly speaking to each other. The velvet, the diamonds and the diamond earrings would shine in the bright winter sun. The elderly lady in charge, (sitting next to me), would tell me the names of each individual woman.
In the synagogue courtyard, in the 'Vatikim' synagogue, a relative of mine, a tall boy, argued on my behalf with my friends, school boys, as they did not bring the Gemara's which they were supposed to bring for us all to learn together during the evenings that occurred after the 15th of the month of Av.
When my mother passed away and I had to say kaddish[f] in the synagogue that was foreign to me, during the winter Shabbat evenings, the local boys pushed me between the 'bima' (reading table) and the door, and I stood there completely lost and frightened, as one who was imprisoned an enemy's jail and had no idea how to escape.
[Pages 495-496]
When I started studying in the Yeshiva, every Shabbat morning I would come to prayers and join the 'minyan' (quorum of ten men in the synagogue courtyard). I came as if to pray, but truthfully I met up with yeshiva students similar to me, and we would exchange Hebrew books which we would read.
When I stopped attending the Yeshiva near the synagogue courtyard, I studied at the synagogue and in the little closet of the lectern (shtender). I put my head into the closet of the lectern, and there I wrote my poems in the holy tongue (Hebrew).
The first young girl with whom I fell in love lived in an alley which led to the synagogue courtyard. We were both aged about sixteen or seventeen. Her parents were elderly and very religious people and when they were in the synagogue, every Shabbat morning, my friend and I, the yeshiva boy from Bialystok, who lived in their home, were both in his room and she, this girl, brought us chicory and babke (yeast cake), and this is when I really fell in love with her.
When I returned from America, and I thought I was an anarchist, I once joined a meeting in a house situated in the synagogue courtyard and there I presented my ideas, but the leaders of the local Bund[g], were socialist-democrats and we argued with each other.
From the age of seven until seventeen I was connected with the synagogue courtyard. When I was seven I was first introduced to the synagogue courtyard, when my father brought me to the Hebrew school, to Yasha, the feather cleaner. All my teachers, either lived within the synagogue courtyard or maintained their school houses there, and almost all my locations were there.
In one of the little streets near the synagogue courtyard lived one of the two slaughterers of the town; two bakers – our millers; one mortician; a grocer – Mordechai Aharon, an enlightened man, who studied Guide to the Perplexed[h], as well as Zissel, his father-in law; Mer also a miller who lived in a small apartment which contained a small book case. However, he had all the latest books, which he acquired from a publisher in Warsaw by the name of Achi Assaf. I would often visit him and read a book or two. The whole street was occupied by decent people.
Thus, I spent my young years from the age of seven to seventeen in the synagogue courtyard.
Notes relating to English translation compiled by Reeva Jacobson Kimble:
About the author Yosef Rolnik (1879 – 1955) and details of his life and work see: https://congressforjewishculture.org/people/719/yoysef-rolnik-joseph-rolnick
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