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It is difficult to say how David-Horodok differed much from other small towns, stuck in the deep marshes of Polesye. They had the same style houses, streets, schools, shops, marketplace and the same livelihoods, troubles, cares and sorrows.

David-Horodok produced no famous men by whose merit a permanent light could be kindled in the history of Byelorussian Jewry. Kaidanov was renowned for the Kaidanover Rebbe – Avraham Reizin. Stolin had acquired a reputation with the Stoliner Rebbe. However, David-Horodok had no such luck. But, for those born and raised in David-Horodok, the town had a permanent charm. The meshchane [town citizens] would say: “Horodok solodok” – a sweet town.

Even having departed as a youth, as did most David-Horodokers who now live in America, one still carries a longing in his heart for the old home. No matter what different memories and impressions that each David-Horodoker brought with him

The Greble

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from his childhood years, everyone carried an exceptional love and memory for the Horyn River which flowed through the middle of town.

Not Yudovitz's wall, not the marketplace, the Olshaner Street, the marshes, the Olpener Street, the Velemitsher Street, the school yard or the various streets and byways round about, not the hill but only the river will be the subject of the first encounter and greeting: “from which side of the river did you come from?”

Wherever destiny takes you, whether to hot desert sands or to the shores of the Pacific or Atlantic, if you were born and raised in David-Horodok, the river will follow you wherever you go the rest of your life and take a prominent place in your memories.

The Horyn River in rising tides

How beautiful the river is in the summer time. On its shores there is ceaseless activity, both day and night.

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The shore of the Horyn River in David-Horodok

In the summer, we swim and play in and around the river. We walk along the large wooden bridge. We run to greet the incoming steamboat even if there is no one that we are waiting for.

At night, the town's youngsters strolled along the riverbank behind Mordechai-Zelig's orchard in Tchipovskes Street, from there around the church hill, along the dirt path to the Chovorsker windmill and on to the marshes.

We remember the town in its prosperous times. Famous for their wealth were such affluent men as: Yudovitz, the Bregmans, Lipman Ladezky, Aharon-Leib of Orly, Leibke Grushkin, Pesach Yashke's and many more. They were the “eastern wall” Jews of the “Great” and “Nagid” [rich man's] synagogues.

The greatest imprint on David-Horodok was left by Yudovitz. He had done much traveling in the outside world and he brought back European fashion to David-Horodok. He was less concerned with Europeanizing David-Horodok, as for example Peter the Great with Moscow, as he was interested in making improvements in the town.

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The Yudovitz wall

Yudovitz's time faded away and the Bregmans emerged on the scene with the berlina business. The berlinas [river barges] transported products from Polesye and Byelorussia to Ukraine and Great Russia and from the banks of the Dnieper back to Polesye.

The Bregmans built their warehouses from David-Horodok to Kremenchug and Ekaterinoslav. The berlinas transported wheat flour from Kiev, Poltava and Kharkov;

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sugar, salt, barley grain, oil, coal and many other products over the waters of the Pripyat and Dnieper until their very ends.

Their tugboat steamboat Montefiore would visit the town once a year. In the fall, before winter froze the river, the steamboat would tow a long line of high-bellied berlinas and leave them for the winter on the banks of the Horyn River opposite Moche Rimar's dock where they were built.

With the berlinas came the owners, Yossel, Yankel and Motel Bregman. Their expensive skunk furs lined with cat skin gave a special dignity to the eastern wall of the Great Synagogue. Even the Slonimer rabbi with his long, red beard, in his nook next to the ark, acquired a certain distinction with the arrival of the Bregmans. Their time also passed and quickly faded. All that remained of them was the glory of Yossel Bregman's beautiful daughters: Golda Reina, Shifra Sarke and the prettiest of them all, Rivkele Bregman.

The subsequent tycoons who followed the Yudovitzes and the Bregmans, such as Leibke Grushkin, Pesach Yashke's, Lipman Ladezky and a few lesser people, were already Jews whose possessions were no longer as lavish as their predecessors.

New winds began blowing over Russia and they were also felt in our out-of-the-way town.

The turbulent months of the 1905 revolutionary upheaval pass through my mind like a kaleidoscope. The almost unlimited power of the wealthy disappeared. One then had to deal with the Eserists, Iskrists and Bundists.

After a while when the youth realized that they would never attain the right of direct and secret ballot, they resolved to leave the town. They began the great mass immigration to America after the Russo-Japanese War.

Except for Mordechai Laptchevan who would on no account, leave David-Horodok, all the other “brothers and sisters” began to leave the town. The town became impoverished and, if not for the help of the sons and daughters in far-off America, they would have starved to death.

No longer were the songs and laughter of the Jewish youth heard along the banks of the river on summer nights. The orphaned ships stood tied up at the river docks. As a boy or a girl grows up, they go off to America.

An echo of the horrible pogroms which had raged through the length and breadth of the Jewish cities and towns in Russia also reached David-Horodok. A Horodoker meshchanin [town citizen] named Zuchter murdered with an axe an entire Jewish family of seven souls in the nearby village of Orly.

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The murder was carried out at night when everyone was asleep. Terror fell on the town and the surrounding villages. Everyone prepared for pogroms and the horrible murder was regarded as a “down payment.”

I remember as though it were now, the frightful funeral; the wagons with the massacred bodies and the blood-soaked bed clothes. That tragic night with the wagons and bodies is engraved in my memory to this day, like a horrible nightmare.

David-Horodok had many laborers, butchers, wagon drivers and, of course, peddlers, shopkeepers, fishmongers, brokers and religious article dealers.

In those days, the butcher carts stood in the middle of the marketplace where the church now stands. The sticks fastened to the edges of the stands on which hung the carts made the marketplace similar to a garden of babbling.

I can hear even now the clamor, cursing, screaming, the dull clang of the cleavers in the butcher stalls and the wild skirmishing of the dogs for a bone, a piece of meat or for a first claim at the butcher stall.

The butchers would come into our house for the evening prayers. Instead of a towel or handkerchief, they would use the window curtains to wipe their hands. After they had finished praying and left the house, the curtains remained hanging like pressed together horses tails. However, we couldn't complain too much because had they wished to wipe themselves on the lapels of their kaftans or on the sleeves of their jackets, they would on no account have succeeded. Their hands, covered with fat and blood, would slide off their clothing and remain as wet as ever.

Saturday night they would come to our house in order to settle up the jointly owned merchandise that they would purchase and slaughter during the week. The large black table in the dining room was covered with chalk marks of lines and circles. The corner of a half-circle was erased with a finger and a cat's ear placed above it. Such was the arithmetic which only the butchers understood. Often there would be a sudden shouting and dispute which would end in a fist fight. When they fought, they were not joking. They would try to hit each other on the full body and more than one butcher came away with a bruised chest and a nasty cough.

My father would buy the hides and the unkosher meat from the butchers and sent it to the regiment for the soldiers. Wagon drivers were frequent visitors in our house. They would transport the hides and the meat to the ships, steamboats and the train at Lakhva.

The wagon drivers were divided into groups. Each group had a monopoly on a certain route. Thus there were: “Lakhver,” “Stoliner,” “Turover” and “Pinsker” wagon drivers. One group would not trespass in another's territory. Besides these,

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there were “market wagon drivers.” They would make deliveries from the wholesalers to the shops such as a sack of flour or a cask of gasoline, or they would transport a Jew to a neighboring village.

The town's butchers and wagon drivers were not what you would call “eastern wall sitters.” For that reason, they were the only ones who were respected by the town and village gentiles.

If a gentile became drunk and unruly towards a Jew, whether in a tavern or in the marketplace, it was enough for Ezra the butcher to come over and lay his huge butcher hand on the nape of the gentile's neck and all became quiet and peaceful.

At the time when they anticipated pogroms in town, the butchers and wagon drivers comprised the greatest part of the self-defense organization. The wagon drivers prepared themselves with cleavers, revolvers and lead pipes. They had resolved that in case of a pogrom, the gentiles would pay dearly for such an endeavor and they would no longer start up with the Jews. The end result was that, despite the incitement of the priests, the gentiles did not venture to start a fight.

David-Horodok was rich in smiths who were divided into various categories. There were smiths who worked in shipbuilding at Moche Rimar's dock. They made skabkes, zhabkes, yarshes with heads like loaves of bread and shvaranes for the oars. There were those who made bells for the horses, knives for the gentiles, knives for the house, cleavers, door handles, hinges and iron doors for brick stores and cellars. There were smiths who only worked with copper. I remember one of them, Eizel the smith. Besides his work at the forge, he was an outstanding baal tefillah [prayer leader]. There were other smiths who would also belong to the burial society and catch a drink of whiskey at a burial, which was almost a daily event in town. Even in normal times, the town had more funerals than marriages. Fortunately, David-Horodoker women understood the situation and tried to compensate for the losses. A David-Horodoker woman who had no more than half-dozen children was considered barren.

The town carpenters would work with copperware. They would travel on the roads and sell the copper work and chests to the peasants. However, most of the carpenters produced furniture, doors, windows and other household items.

In normal times, drillers and sawyers worked at Moche Rimar's dock building barges. Other than this, they usually worked for the town only after a fire. Fires were frequent occurrences in our town and, if occasionally a fire was a little delayed, there were those who would “invite” this “guest.”

Cobblers worked both for high quality and for second-rate. There were those fancy shoemakers who worked with very expensive leathers and others who worked with cowhide.

The tailors were also divided into categories. There were tailors for the wealthy and for the poor. There even were those who hardly earned the grain to put in the water for barley soup.

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The poor tailors earned their livelihood by remaking the clothing of older people for youngsters, from women's garments to men's, etc.

There were hat makers who sewed caps, one of whom I cannot forget to this day. Besides being a hat maker, he served as the “town clock.” When one heard Moshe the hat maker's coughing as he came from the marketplace even before the cock had crowed, you knew that it was time for Jews to get up for the first minyan.

The only Jewish packer in town was Elya, son of Aharon Moshe the doctor. The old father Aharon also helped work in the yard. They would make various containers including long barrels in which they would pack red raspberries which the peasants would gather by the thousands of poods [1 pood equals about 36 pounds] in the forests of Polesye each fall season.

Masons and some cobblers had extra jobs to supplement their incomes. Thus, several cobblers were at the same time the town musicians. The “musician of musicians” had to supplement his income by working as a barber and photographer. The clarinetist of the band was a mason. The small trumpet, the large trumpet and the drummer would make the shoes for the bride and groom before playing at their wedding. The drummer also helped to carry shalach manos [Purim gifts], act as caller, etc.

The watchmaker also occupied with the production of galoshes. Once he was almost burnt to death when the gasoline suddenly ignited.

David-Horodok was rich in rabbis and ritual slaughterers, almost as many as Mozyr or even Pinsk. No town was more renowned than David-Horodok for starving so many rabbis. Why the rabbis picked just this town to conduct their fasts, G-d only knows!

Two of the ritual slaughterers were also cantors. The synagogue cantor, Reb Shmerl, prayed in the large choir synagogue with a choir that he trained and Reb Leibe was the cantor at the Great Synagogue.

David-Horodok had its own dynasty of “good Jews” [euphemism for Hassidic rabbis]. This was the family of the Alter Reb, Rabbi Yisrael Yosef who had come from Volhyn, from Koretz.

The street around the Alter Reb's study-house was occupied by his sons and daughters. They lived in want but warmed themselves under the broad but cooling rays of the bygone star of their grandfather, the Alter Reb.

In contrast, there was joy and liveliness in the Stoliner shtibel. They still talk about when the Stoliner Rebbe visited. Then, even the Misnagdim [scholastics who were anti-Hassidic] would go into their study-houses on the side streets and stick close to the walls in fear of receiving a smack in the neck and throat from a tipsy Stoliner Hassid. At that time the Alter Reb's Hasidim felt particularly abased and dejected.

David-Horodok was the capital for Reb Yisrael Yosef just as Stolin was the capital for Reb Ahrele.

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Reb Baruchl had his own study-house and his own Hassidim. Reb Baruchl's Hassidim were not rich Jews. They were small shop owners and laborers, but they did not let their rabbi down. Indeed, looking at the stateliness of Reb Baruchl, his beautiful long gray beard, his intelligent large deep eyes and his patriarchal Abraham-like appearance, no town would have allowed such a personage to go hungry all seven days of the week.

Between Mincha [afternoon prayer service] and Maariv [evening prayer service] in the Great Synagogue, the shadows would lengthen and darkness settled in. One hardly notices the man standing at the podium. Only his voice is heard with its own peculiar sad, sweet sounds filtering through the twilight. It is Yossel the butcher singing the Psalms.

Later, after the Maariv service, Berl the sexton teaches a portion of Talmud for the public. Then the eastern wall loses its privileged status. The wealthy, the merchants and the laborers mix together. Honor belongs to the one who can learn.

Indeed, they all sat together hand in hand; the aristocratic looking and affluent Pesach Yashke's, Yankel Shashe Gittel's, Velvel Ester Chaya's, Moshe Noah Leib's, along with the butchers Herzl the Pravik, Eizik Leibele's, Getzel and the Jewish wagon drivers such as the two brothers Wolf and Alter Archik's.

It is summer. The Pinsk wagon drivers drive to Pinsk with their sleighs only in the winter time when the steamboats are idle. The brothers Wolf and Alter earn their summer livelihood pulling lumber out of the river at Shlomo Feigele's dock where ships are built. The most they earn is 20 kopecks a day. In truth, this suffices only for sandy black bread, perhaps for a little barley to make soup or a piece of kishka. It was really a difficult and poor livelihood but all was forgotten in the evening at the Talmud lesson, for then, one was learning Torah!

The town of Slutsk took away Berl the shamash [beadle] who became their Yeshiva headmaster and Reb Dovidl took over the job of giving the public Talmud lessons. Noah Pinchas taught Ein Yaakov [a collection of legends in the Talmud] at the Alter Reb's study-house. The school teacher studied Bible and Rashi [biblical commentary] with the Jews at the Cold Synagogue. Only in the Stoliner shtibel did they revel, sing and dance because they “did not believe in sadness.”

Soon the summer is over and the High Holy Days approach. The sexton knocks at dawn summoning people to rise and say Selichot [penitential prayers]. I go with my father to the Nagid [rich man's] Synagogue. At the podium Yankel Yeshias stands. His hoarse and tearful voice begs, demands and pleads. The congregants repeat after him with tears pouring from their eyes. I look at the Holy Ark and it seems to me that the cover flutters as the Holy Spirit in the Ark cries and bewails the bitter lot of the people of Israel.

A very good Jew arrived in town from abroad. He was dressed aristocratically with a cape, a soft hat and a cane in his hand. His handsome face was encircled by a broad black beard and his black eyes made him look like Dr. Herzl.

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This was Yashai Adler. He came from Krinki in the province of Grodno and he opened a school in David-Horodok where he taught the children Hebrew in Hebrew. Instead of the old familiar children's teacher with his whip, Adler typified the modern instructor who organized the school in the modern style – clean, neat and disciplined.

After a while there arrived in town the “crooked elephant” – Helfand. That was the real name given to the man who later became famous under his literary pseudonym, A. Litvak.

With Helfand, the Bund arrived in town. Thanks to the Bund, David-Horodoker boys and girls became “brothers and sisters.” Students arrived in town to deliver speeches. They organized an illegal library, conspiratorial gatherings and divisions between the various doctrines of socialist and nationalist thought. In one word, things became very lively in our sleepy Polesyen town. Those were the years of the 1905 revolution.

On a cold and wintry Sabbath, Helfand was taken away from us by sleigh accompanied by a strong police guard to a distant prison or Siberia.

It is difficult to leave the town where one was born and raised. It is especially difficult to leave the beautiful river. This is where we played, bathed, floated in boats, slid on ice, played pranks with friends for which we were spanked and poked at by our fathers and teachers and beaten by the gentiles in the daily wars that we waged with them.

It is still deeply engraved in our hearts for an entire lifetime.

The clock strikes twelve. The day is half gone. The sun is in mid-sky. The aroma of the pletzlach [flat rolls] and fresh bulkas [baked rolls] has long since dissipated with the wind.

A new odor now emanates from the chimneys. Like the music of a stringed instrument, the aroma rises to the sky and the heavenly servants carry the “burnt offering” aloft on their wings to the Master of the World as a Sabbath gift. Thus the industrious housewives let the outside world taste the aroma of their cholent and noodle kugel.

Noah the blacksmith (he was a righteous Jew) had long since closed up his shop and walked home at a rapid pace in case he would be tardy in welcoming the Sabbath Queen. As it says in the verse: “Delay the end of the Sabbath and hasten its coming.”

In the marketplace clanging of locks and bolts can be heard. At half-closed doors, the shopkeepers stand around glancing up and down the empty

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marketplace and one after another unhurriedly (perhaps another customer might come at the last moment) close up the shops.

When Nishka the proprietor begins to close her shop, Lipa the driver rubs his back on the wagon post, shrugs his shoulders to conclude his backscratching, gives a broad and resounding yawn, slowly climbs off the wagon and his white and skinny little horse, blind in one eye, barely drags its feet. “Nu,” he says and the horse seems to understand that the day of rest is also arriving for him and he joyfully plods along.

First Lipa and then Eizik “the goat” on one side, “the brilliant” and his son Itzel (both in one wagon) on the other side, overworked Jews with hunched shoulders and formalized outfits, separate themselves one from the other. This is the way wagon drivers part, separating at the brick wall of the church on the way home for Sabbath.

On the other side of the marketplace near Kaplinsky's apothecary, the esteemed drivers returning from their trip to Lakhva begin to gather. They represent an entirely different world. The horses are healthy, well-fed and large. The wagons are tall with containers in the rear and filled with fragrant hay. They were outfitted with padded and comfortable covered seats for the convenience of their passengers. Arriving from the road, they stop to grab a quick chat.

Shaike “the kaiser” begins to tell of the “wonders” of his trip as he pulls hard on the reigns of his horse which at that moment begins to whine as if it understands the conversation.

“With my horse I don't have to be ashamed,” says Benjamin the driver with a quiet voice, giving his horse a tickle under the belly with his whip. It appears that the horse is pleased with his owner's compliment and he rears up and industriously digs a hole in the ground with his hind legs.

Asherke “the deaf” with his black and playful horse “Pupike,” which was tied with a rope, jumps down while holding up his pants. He does not hear the conversation but pokes his way into the middle staring with a pair of jovial, sparkling bright eyes. He shrugs his shoulders, pulls his right ear to the side and asks quietly, wanting to participate in the conversation: “Well? What? Are you talking about something?” “Nothing, nothing,” says Yossel “the blond” with a muffled voice. “Leibke doesn't mean you, he means the horse.”

The resounding laughter of the drivers reverberates through the half-deserted marketplace. However, Asherke is not dismayed. He twists around, cracks his whip in the air and laughs good-naturedly together with all the others.

The old David Chesnok, who is a little late, comes along the road. He stops his horse and wagon awhile and, without getting down from his wagon, he says with dignity: “Jews, it is already late. There is no time. It is already Sabbath eve. We must give our horses some oats and drive home.”

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Meanwhile, his horse takes advantage of the opportunity, raises his tail and empties his bowels. He swishes his tail right and left driving away the flies and he is ready to go into his stall for the Sabbath.

The drivers decide that it is definitely time to drive home when they see from a distance Shlomo Pinchas hurrying to the bathhouse with a pack of white linen under his arm.

There was a certain charm about the David-Horodoker bathhouse. I can see before my eyes the long building with red bricks and the high narrow windows with small square bracketed panes.

In the first anteroom, a pile of branches lay prepared. The oven was heating up so as to warm the water in the steam boiler which would convey the hot water through pipes into the two large casks which stood on high iron railings near the ceiling.

The dark corridor led into the first wardrobe room where, on the left side, stood a closet containing cubicles for the clothing. On the opposite side there were wooden benches for resting. From there, a door led to the “thrashing bath.”

The bathhouse in David-Horodok

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The “thrashing bath” or, as others called it, the “sweat bath,” constituted another world. The door opened with great difficulty because of two heavy stones bound to it with rope which held it back.

Not everyone could go in there because some could not tolerate the heat. Every once in a while, someone would pass out and they would pour a bucket of cold water on him and lead him by hand into the cold room where they would lay him on the cool concrete bench until he came to himself.

It is really no wonder. The thick steam was intermingled with the stench of dirty underwear hanging from sticks inserted in the overlying rafters. Not every heart could endure it. Indeed, this is the reason that such a frail Jew as Baruch “the healer” never experienced the zest of being steamed-out in the Jewish David-Horodoker “sweat bath.”

The only one who felt better there than at home was Moshe Mordechai Zelig's “the digger.” The heat was never enough for him. When he got together with Meir-Hersheln the butcher, things then really were spirited. First Meir-Hershel would shout in his husky voice, “Throw on another bucket!” To pour a bucket of water on the boiling hot stone in the oven required great skill and Moshe “the digger” was an expert.

One bucket after another and the heat increased. The steam could be cut with a knife as it was thick enough to simply choke a person. At this point they both climbed up to the highest step and their work began. They raised and lowered their branches to clear away the steam on all sides. One thrash and then another, a third, a fifth and a tenth.

“Ah, ah, ah,” cried one of them with great pleasure – “a little higher…there, there, there…harder….even harder…good…good…ah!” Now the other one lies down and the first one gives him a double measure. Thus the two beaten Jews leave the “sweat bath” to the mikveh [ritual bath]. In the mikveh room it was a little quieter. Only the screaming of the small children, who were splashing in the water, disturbed the silence.

From the mikveh room a door led to another room which contained a row of white tubs intended for the wealthy.

And now we see a tall broad-boned Jew enter the mikveh room. This is Mordechai Leib “the general.” He confidently descends step-by-step until he remains standing in the middle of the mikveh with the water reaching his chest. He puts his hands on his head, bends down, turns right and left in order to make circlets of waves which draw off the leaves still stuck to his body after the “sweat bath.” He immerses himself three times then gets up and stretches his entire length and straightens his long yellow beard.

After him comes the old Rabbi Wolf Hillel's

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with careful steps, bent over almost to the ground. Before he descends the last step, he covers his ears, nose and eyes with the fingers of both hands. When he leaves the last step, he stands in the water with his head barely visible. He is immersed as he stands. Nevertheless, he bends three times and, barely catching his breath, he comes out cautiously wiping his face with one hand.

The day doesn't linger. Time flies. The bathhouse empties. The streets become filled with the Sabbath spirit. Through the windows the gleam of the brass candlesticks can be seen and the covered challahs on the clean, white tablecloths.

Washed and outfitted with shining shoes, the small children wander about the streets peeling kernels which their mothers have put in their pockets in honor of the Sabbath. Girls, with braided pigtails on their radiantly shampooed heads, show off to each other their pretty Sabbath clothes.

With white pressed shawls on their heads, the grandmothers go out on the porch to wait for Velvel Raishke's who walks along the streets with a stick in his hand knocking on the shutters and announcing that it is time to bless the candles.

The sun begins to set. The day departs giving away for the town's heartfelt Friday evening. From the synagogues one can hear the melody of “Come, let us sing to the Lord; let us shout with joy to the Rock of our salvation…”

Long Tevet [December-January] evenings. Outside, the frost was burning cold. The window panes sprouted various snow-capped mountains and thick, deep birch forests through which you could barely see the street.

In the house by a small flickering kerosene lamp which threw shadows on the walls that children were afraid to look at because grandmother had said that one must not play with shadows because demons can give them nightmares, on such an evening, grandmother sat on a short footstool next to the stove, surrounded by her grandchildren and looked into the fire which danced cheerfully, throwing tongues of fire into the black soot-filled chimney. From time to time, grandmother threw a long thin piece of kindling into the fire, causing it to crackle, throwing sparks onto the wooden floor which was grooved with shadows.

From time to time the scraping of feet on the white, frozen snow could be heard, slowly receding into the stillness of the night.

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In such a dark and idyllic silence, Grandmother Bashe told her grandchildren that once…a long time ago…her grandmother had told her…that the Horyn River had been far…very far away from town…and year in and year out, the river with its ice flows slowly cut the banks and, with the slow pace of generations, it neared the town.

And the grandchildren swallowed the enchanting tale word-for-word from grandmother's mouth, and little children's heads could not understand how the river could move.

The rectangular clock with its ancient flowered dial and long brass chains with heavy weights which propelled the shiny pendulum back-and-forth with its never tardy tick-tock, tick-tock, put the children to sleep in grandmother's lap, dreaming sweet dreams of water fairies and with the question “how could it be..?” on their lips.

The years fly by and children grow up in naive, contented and quietly dignified simplicity. They grow up in streets where the puddles never dry out during the entire year, not having a chance to look even through the smallest window at the wide world and not knowing what is going on out there.

It is really no wonder that we grown children could not imagine a taller person than Itzik of Nirtcha, a richer Jew than Moche and a feebler man than Maltchik.

Could there possibly be a better matzo shmura baker than Shmerl Beyez's? And where could you find such a hearty singer, psalm-reciter and hakofot-distributor than Avraham Yossel?

What town in the entire world possesses a better cantor and choirboys than Shmerl Lansky and his choir?

And who can compare to the piety of Malachl who never complained, enduring the torments of Job with a constant smile?

What Jewish community was blessed with such a saint as Reb Dovidl?

Who else had the honor to taste the pleasure of a Hassidic melody on a Sabbath afternoon at the rebbe's table when Yossel Kolozny would roll his eyes upward and, with a thin voice, would fill the air of the Hassidic shtibel with Sabbath songs?

Who else could dance with such fervor at the rebbe's table than Shia the tourier?

Or does there exist anywhere a smarter cobbler than Eizel “Chupchik” and a better tailor than Yossel “Podrick?”

And more….and many, many more Jews, of blessed memory!....

That is how “far” children looked and how very much they understood…happy, naive, hearty childhood years.

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On spring days when the sun would emerge from its wintry mantle of clouds and warm up the winter-long cake of ice which had reached the open mouth of the well on the street, when the yellow icicles hanging from the straw roofs, which were shaped by the winter into various artistic forms, would begin dripping rapid drops into the container which would also serve as a sitting stool on summer nights – on such spring days, children with happy, smiling faces would go out to the Horyn River and watch how the river outgrows the banks and, with immense force, pulls hunks of ice which are split with a frightening noise and are drawn into a pile, one on top of another, to later slide off and disappear into the deep abyss only to be propelled later to the surface where they are eventually sliced by the ice cutters which protect the bridge from destruction.

Also torn along by the powerful current were bones from the graves of the old cemetery and wooden beams which were ripped out from the foundations of houses along “Egypt Street,” leaving the houses precariously close to toppling into the water.

The river tears at the high bank making deeper and deeper inroads and then the children understood Grandmother Bashe's story of the past… that once… a very long time ago… the river was far away… very far.

Were it not for the dark black Hitlerian clouds which covered the skies of the Jewish communities, wiping them off the surface without leaving even a memory, then grandchildren in David-Horodok would still be telling their children today that once… a very long time ago… there was…

May G-d remember their sacred souls!

Would you like to become acquainted with our town? Would you like to get some its flavor?

In the books of Sholem Aleichem and Mendele Mocher Sforim, you will find a large part of what our town possessed.

After all, what didn't our town possess? Poor people, sextons, synagogue trustees and ordinary community workers; moneylenders, providers of orphans and ordinary benefactors; a poorhouse, a bathhouse, a ritual bath and above all… mud! A sea of mud! It seemed as if there was no spot in the entire world that was free of mud. Mud in the street, in the yard, on the sidewalk and mud right up to the house.

What wasn't done to try and get rid of the mud? In my time, I recall that they fixed the streets three times. And who doesn't remember how the gentiles would lay a thick cover of gravel along the length of the street and then overlay it with dirt? Do you think that it really helped? Forget it [literally: a yesterday day]!

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After all the gravel and dirt laying, when one had to cross the street, for example near Moshe Yehuda Lifshitz or Yudel Shatsky or Shimon Leichtman, it was truly deadly dangerous!

And if one of the residents was good-hearted enough to lay a couple of boards across the street, do you think it was already an easy matter [literally: Torah noodles]? Now you cross with dry feet? That is not the way it begins and that is not the way it ends! As soon as you put a foot on a board, it slides forward and sinks into the mud as the other end of the board rises up into the air and you remain stuck in the mud with your shoes. You lose your composure, no longer regarding the presence or absence of a board and you wade in the mud to get to the other side as quickly as possible. When you finally get to the other side, you look around to be sure that no one is looking and you anguish over your shoes and long trousers which are now covered with mud up to your knees.

Around Gittel Yonah's house, it was true chaos! If you recall, her house was next to the marketplace. There, at the marketplace, all the David-Horodoker Jews ran in the morning and there was real reason to run.

There were plenty of good things in the marketplace: pokers, water troughs, kneading troughs, shovels, tubs, pails, soaking dishes, shoes and boots – ask what not!

Today, who talks about food? Whatever the mouth could desire! As for example, Eizel Lubitsch loved big fish, so he ran to buy big fish… Mendel “the Bratsker” could only afford small flat cakes so he also ran to grab a pile of small flat cakes.

Very early, at dawn, the two brothers Eizik Berush's and Shmuel Michal are already walking on the street. They are coming from the first minyan with their prayer shawls under their arms. Where do you suppose they are going? To the marketplace!

One buys a bundle of hay for his cow and the other purchases a ball of plain thread to sew the clothing of the peasants.

Many Jews would often love to go to the marketplace and observe what was being bought and sold and perhaps they too would grab a bit of a bargain!

Just an example, Moshe'l “fyetshkalip” simply loved to go out with his cane and derive pleasure from everything; he always had plenty of time, blessed be the Name. Berl “fista-let” also didn't mind such pleasures. In fact, when they met each other at the marketplace with empty stomachs, they would pick out a convenient and strategic spot and trade witticisms, laughing at the world.

In such a manner, the entire town was there, some running and some walking.

Chaya-Leah Shmaya's ran to sell fried goose skin and fat; Shashke Korman ran to sell fresh bagels; Nache Sarainke's ran with a wagon of apples and Nache Katz went with quick steps perhaps to buy some boar bristles.

Just as in my father's vineyard, there flourished Simcha “the Japanese.” A broad shouldered and big footed man with a pair of fisherman boots pulled up to the armpits, a rope tied around his coat from which hung two ends on either side like a Hassid's gartel [belt worn during prayer] – he would whirl around the marketplace looking for a livelihood. It seems that he had large lips while his nose was always a bit swollen

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and his speech was a little slurred. However, this didn't prevent him from carrying a sack of potatoes on his shoulders for someone, or Feigel Betzel's basket into her house. In truth, he was cut out to be a wagoner but he had never acquired a horse.

G-d forbid. I am not consumed with jealousy but the women had it better than everyone. First of all, a Horodoker Jew loved his wife and secondly, she did not work hard.

A sack of potatoes, a cask of cabbage and berries and a keg of sour pickles with dill were stored in the cellar. Millet, beans, barley, and buckwheat groats – everyone kept a supply. A kneading trough of bread was good for an entire week. Milk? What David-Horodoker Jew did not have is own cow in a stall? Well, besides bringing in an armload of wood, heating up the oven, warming up the food and sweeping the house, there was nothing to do.

There was plenty of time to stand at the window and look at who was passing by in the street. The mother stands at one window, the daughter stands at another and they gossip about the street. If the cantor passes with a few people, the daughter says: “You see mother, someone is probably having a bris.” Yossel the smith with his patched eye passes by: “Mother, who died?” If they saw a policeman approaching from a distance, they both disappeared – mother and daughter, quickly away from the windows, rushing out through the back door with brooms in hand and they begin, whether they need to or not, sweeping the street because they are sure that he is coming to give them a citation.

There passes Elya Yafa's with a charity box, shivering from the cold. Israel “the lazy,” a hat-maker by trade, carries a pair of hides to cut out warm jackets for the gentiles for the winter. He drags himself along, bent over like a barrel. Moshe'l Leizer's springs along continually shrugging his shoulders. He snorts and spits and talks to himself. Velvel Kushner strides along with his long legs, raising his head high. He hardly says good morning to anyone. He carries his fiddle along and goes to entertain Rivele Yudovitz with a concert.

Then Sara-Leah “the bride” passes by with a large pack under her shawl. She walks carefully, step-by-step, as if she were counting her footsteps. Her son Zelig follows her. He walks straight as a string on a violin, as though he had swallowed a stick. He doesn't bend at all. You could put a glass of water on his head.

And so they pass, young and old, men and women, idlers and workmen. Moshele Menachem's with a tool box and a saw in his hands; Shlomke Ben-Zion's carries a suit to take measurements on someone. David Bielke's hurries to the steamboat and the old “boy” has already put on his black winter overcoat with the yellow, worn-out skunk skin collar which dates back to Chmielnicki's times, sidling along with his hands

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pushed into his sleeves and shaking his head.

Understandably, there was something to say about each one: Chaim Yankel “the honey squeezer” is too short; Isser Gurevitz is too tall; Abrahaml Levin is too fat and Shmuel “the fetshkur” is too thin.

It was a unique and beloved occupation to stand at the window and it wasn't bad even standing there for hours. Occasionally the window-watchers would be saddened by the sight of Dr. Shalkaver running past with hurried strides. Probably someone is good and sick.

In all, we had only one doctor in town. What do you think? We had enough. First of all, God had bestowed him with strong legs so he was always running in order to satisfy everyone and secondly, everyone knew what to do for their sick.

If one of us became sick, we knew that the first thing was to withhold food. If he became weaker and feverish, the second step was to place an ice bag on his head.

As the patient became even weaker from hunger and properly chilled from the ice cap, the neighbors would then mix in with their advice – step number three was to apply leeches.

After the leeches had sucked up the last drop of blood and the Angel of Death was already standing at the head of the bed, we would then run to the synagogue and knock on the Holy Ark and beg for mercy. Afterwards, they would run to the doctor and ask him to save the moribund patient.

Nevertheless, Horodoker Jews were generally healthy and satisfied. Most of the illness was caused by the “evil eye.” We had a special “doctor” for this – Feigl the blacksmith. She would continually talk and spit, snort and spit and her incantations really helped. Not only that but if someone had a swelling on the eye, a stye or some other such sore, Feigl the blacksmith would lick it with her tongue and her lick would really help. Nowadays, who still talks about cutting a rose? For that, there was no one like her! Whether it helped or not, the important thing is that they believed it would help. Horodoker Jews were believers!

Did not Horodoker mothers believe that there was a kind-hearted Sara sent down by heaven to protect the Jewish woman in childbirth and her newborn infant? And really, why should one not believe it? It is clearly written in the Yiddish Bible!

And one also believed in the devil's camp – Heaven protect us that would try by various means and tricks to entrap the child in sin. Indeed, there were Horodoker Jewish mothers who would routinely distribute goodies to small school children in order to encourage them to say their nightly prayers

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without fail. In addition, they would hang placards containing psalms on each window and door in order to prevent the entrance of imps and evil spirits.

Horodoker Jews believed in everything except one thing! They did not believe that there could come a time when beasts in the form of people would rise up against them and ruthlessly murder them.

Good-natured, naive, friendly Jewish mothers and fathers, children and old folk, merchants, artisans, laborers and toilers! With “I believe” on their lips, they were led to the mass slaughter.

How great is the calamity when we must write about them in the past tense!

David-Horodok was a small town, a small island of culture in the black and remote sea of Polesye. Near to G-d and far from people, because getting there was no easy matter. With the wagon from the train station, it was a 25 kilometer journey over muddy roads, or with the steamboat from Pinsk in the summer, it was a 14-18 hour voyage through the wild dreamlike forests and swamps of Polesye.

A new arrival would notice nothing special. Small houses cling to the Mother Earth as if they want to unite with her. Incidentally, there was a street popularly called “Egypt Street” where the houses were sunk halfway into the ground.

Outwardly, the town had nothing to recommend it. But when one of its own people looked at it, an inhabitant who would have experienced the local way of life, the sweet kernel under the external gray husk, the life of the small houses with their cares and joys, it appealed to him with a special zest.

In general, David-Horodok was a unique and interesting town. There were about 18,000 inhabitants of which about 7,000-8,000 were Jews and the remainder were Byelorussians with a small number of Poles.

A hundred years would go by with many assaults and battles with various gangs who would pass, and the life of the town did not change. In general, the relationship between the inhabitants was not bad. During World War I, when Balachowicz and his band entered the town, the Byelorussians saved the Jews from death by hiding them in their own homes. The solidarity of the people was also demonstrated when the Red Army arrived and wanted to requisition the cattle of the Polish landowners. The Jews and the Byelorussians opposed this and they set up armed resistance. The town was

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then visited by a punishment expedition which shot to death the most distinguished people in town. This is how Betzel Yudovitz, of blessed memory, was killed. Later, when the first Poles came into town, also “fine young men,” the Polish inhabitants hid many Jews.

Thus, many years passed. Lands were wiped out; regimes changed but in David-Horodok, life flowed on without alteration. Calm reigned – a pleasant calm. Even the “gods” lived at ease…next to the church stood the Jewish synagogues and study-houses and all was normal.

If there were positive qualities in Jewish community life, these were to be found in David-Horodok.

Politically active but with ethical content, all parties and organizations were permeated with feelings of brotherhood. The Mizrachist and the Communist would meet in the synagogue on Yom Kippur. There were no great “leaders” – all were equal; young and old stuck to their jobs. Everyone knew his place. It is truly a shame that Sholem Aleichem was never there because he could have found as many original folk themes as in Kasrilevke [Sholem Aleichem's fictional prototype of a shtetl]. Each and every individual was unique. Each one was a living Noah Pandre [heroic fictional character penned by Zalman Schneour] with many similar examples such as Abraml “the bastard,” Shia “the kaiser,” David “the brilliant,” Yude “the scholar,” etc. etc.

Simple, unassuming, poor but always cheerful, each with its own wit and mannerisms, one could write a book about them.

One cannot overemphasize their uniqueness and modesty; the most pious wore no ear locks or kaftans; the most intelligent spoke the mother tongue. There were two valuable libraries with the newest books which were read after a hard day's work. Work and culture went hand in hand.

An exemplary youth was brought up in the well-organized Tarbut School – all in the Hebrew language. After the eight classes of school, many of the graduates went elsewhere for higher education. In Pinsk and Vilna, some 100 David-Horodoker youth went to intermediate and high schools. That is the way it was until the war.

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