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A grey stream bubbles through a circular week, On narrow sidewalks, it gravitates densely. Bent over Jews carry the yoke, Their eyes cannot see the light of day… The grey stream chases the merchant's hunt, All in all, a few meagre pennies: “bought!” …” sold!” … It is one's fate to carry packages all day; And whoever has exchange rates from the Stock Market runs. Someone “credit” – “debit” we see hurrying in the street; It is someone's head covered in cloth or groceries… Quick! Quick! Gallop! It's Spring and cold in the street – Not important! The sun does not provide a livelihood for them… Only “business, business!” – Fate is chased by horses. Quick! Quick! “bought”! “sold”! A circular week! And somewhere fields are growing green, and somewhere the earth is black; In old forests there are tempting carpets of moss - - - Warsaw 1931

Avrom Zak, poet, story teller, novelist, memoirist, journalist, translator from Russian. Born in a small town near Grodno in 1891. Form 1909, with small breaks due to various reasons, he lived in Warsaw until 1939. Went through the First World War as a soldier. During the Holocaust, years of woe and wandering in Russia. 1946, Lodz, 1948, Paris and since 1952 in Argentina. The author of many collections of poetry, short stories and autobiographical memoirs of dramatic and tragic experiences which were widely read and critiqued by literary critics. His book “On the Chaotic Roads” received the Louis Lamed Prize in 1958. A. Zak was for many years an active member of “Tlomacki 13”, and poured his heart and soul into the “Seventh Kingdom” of Jewish Warsaw.

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Nomberg's Funeral By Avrom Zak Translated by Janie Respitz The funeral goes through the streets of Warsaw, Continuing slowly, piously and still, Wreaths - - chrysanthemums white as shrouds - - The funeral goes to the last asylum. The funeral goes through Dzike, through Genshe. The sky is cold, the ground snow covered, His grave awaits him, nirvana and rest… Eternal worlds, are destroyed. A sea of hearts carries this sadness – A final reward behind the coffin, The funeral goes through the streets of the city, Warsaw is wearing his golden crown.

Returning to Warsaw after my arrest and three months in jail in 1910, I immediately learned about the sensation in the world of Yiddish newspapers: Tzvi Prilutsky finally broke away from the publisher of “Undzer Lebn” (“Our Life”), Shaul Hokhberg, and became the editor and founder of a new paper: “Moment”, in accordance with the name of his daily editorials in “Our Life”. Zvi Prilutsky is not alone: his co- founders are: his son Noyekh, the lawyer and writer, on one side, and on the other side, the pedagogue Magnus Krinsky, the owner and director of the high school on Miodove Street. M.Krinsky was also a publisher. His publishing house published Hebrew textbooks (some his own), a Hebrew children's journal, the Yiddish journal “Novel – Newspaper” (edited by H.D. Nombert) of blessed memory.

Many well-known writers and journalists were attracted to “Moment” run by Hillel Zeitlin. At that time Hillel Zeitlin was very popular due to his “Letters to Jewish Youth”. Besides this, at the same time the collaboration was announced with the great writer and humourist, Sholem Aleichem. Pamphlets about “Moment” were distributed throughout Warsaw, hung up on walls on Warsaw streets and alleys.

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The publishing of “Moment” was a happening in Jewish Warsaw.

Truth be told, before I was at “Our Life” I was drawn to my first editor Zvi Prilutsky. I went up to the editorial office where a worldly writer was sitting and prepared the first edition. Sitting at the secretary's desk in the editorial office was my friend A. Kh. Sheps (A. Almi). I knew this before. Since I was not in Warsaw, Zvi Prilutsky hired A. Kh. Sheps as secretary.

Prilutsky asked me what had transpired.

“Were you already at the bandit?” he finally asked.

When he said “bandit” he meant Hokhberg…a sign that he really got on his nerves…

“Not yet”, I replied, “but I will most probably have to go see him”.

“If you have a story, bring it to me. Perhaps later there will be work for you”. This is what he said to me as we parted, apparently feeling obligated toward me, his former secretary at “Our Life”.

I postponed going to see Hokhberg for a while. First of all, I wanted to wait out the few weeks until my illegal status in Warsaw ended. Perhaps the Okhrana (Secret Police) was keeping an eye on me in my previous work place? A good question…

At the same time “The New World” was being published in Warsaw. This newspaper was started a year earlier, in 1909, by Mordechai Spector, when he, even before Prilutsky, broke from Hokhberg and went out on his own to begin a new newspaper. Spector had a lot of energy and enterprising spirit. He found a few Jews with money and desire for a newspaper. When he left “Our Life” he took a few contributors with him, among whom were Moishe Taytchn, and brought them to work at “The New World”. One of his top contributors was Alexander Kapel (Dr. A. Mukdoni). He wrote editorials, political reviews, short stories and theatre reviews. As a critic, he did not lack courage and ripped apart the trashy plays in the Yiddish theatre of the day. A victim of Alexander Kapel's harsh critique was the play “One of Them” written by Paula R. (Noyekh Prilutsky's wife): a play which described the life of the underworld: prostitutes and more…Mukdoni saw this as cheap trashy entertainment and had the courage to say what he felt. This was apparently,

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the regular wrath between Noyekh Prilutsky and Dr. Mukdoni. He was not lacking enemies at this time in the world of cheap trashy theatre…He was however one of four speakers (Peretz, Nomberg, Vayter and Mukdoni), who at that time, at two Saturday commemorative gatherings at the Philharmonic, stormed the trash theatre in Warsaw.

When “Moment” first appeared, it immediately won over the Jewish streets. The older “Haynt” (“Today”) was its main competition; however, the young “New World” took a knock and declined from day to day. The Yiddish press in Poland did not only survive on advertisements, but also from circulation, and when a newspaper lost readers its foundation was on shaky ground. “The New World” breathed with difficulty for a few months until it finally shut down. This is when Mordecai Spector joined “Moment” as a main contributor.

“Our Life” was still around although the competition strongly squeezed. Sh. Hokhberg did everything, in spite of the competition to keep his newspaper going at all cost.

When my illegal status finally ended and I was now considered “Kosher”, I immediately registered at 13 Dzhike Street for my own personal documents. And that is when, one early morning, I walked into “Our Life”. I did not approach Hokhberg in a light mood. Hokhberg, the hardened man with little eyes, in which a mean fire always burned, never appealed to me. And certainly not his arrogant wife, his “woman of valour,” with the angry face of a despot, who was used to looking at her colleagues as her subjects…

But I had to go to him. I had to swallow that bitter pill…

Contrary to my expectations, Hokhberg greeted me with a special friendliness, totally against his nature. Perhaps because he was feeling a bit defeated by the competition?…

He brought me into his office, asked me in detail about what I had experienced and my arrest and by the way, as if in passing, as if I was “Kosher” for the “Okhrana” …

“You know” he said in his Germanized Yiddish, “we must be careful” …

I assured him I was already officially registered according to the law.

Then he asked: “Are you ready to continue working at “Our Life”?”

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“Certainly, why not?”

“Good. Now I can work independently without Zvi Prilutsky… You will guide the province; you will handle all the correspondence in the country. I will also give you, from time to time, the foreign letters. Besides this, I will entrust you with the provincial Russian press. If you find interesting Jewish news, you will translate it.

“Excellent!” I said enthusiastically.

The next morning, I was once again sitting at the table in the editorial office of “Our Life” and I was “back in the game”. I loved the editorial work. However, more than everything, I was happy to have the opportunity and place to publish my stories, poems and occasionally a scene or feuilleton (under the pseudonym A. Ben-Yakov). There was however, by the way, something to show my girls, “my admirers”, in the “literary tree lined avenue” of Zak's garden…

In the editorial office a met a new co-worker: the poet Y.A. Lazerovitch, who wrote daily editorials under the pseudonym Isidore Lazar. Although Hokhberg, as always would sign every text in the newspaper “editor -publisher”, he would always, nevertheless, give the material to Lazerovitch to review.

Zvi Cohen continued to work, supplying his feuilletonism, weekly “Sabbath Eves” and provincial scenes (which had previously been Mordecai Spector's column).

I also saw, once again, Ba'al Yaush (who would later become B. Yuzhan – Itchele). He still wore his long caftan with a slit up the back and a narrow Hasidic cap. He arrived every day as if coming from a Hasidic prayer house, with good humoured smiling blue eye.

His scenes of Warsaw which he wrote were often risqué and spicy. No one would have ever thought they were written by a Hasidic young man…Ba'al Yaush was widely read. It is no wonder “Moment” grabbed him away quickly.

Among the old contributors was the artful reporter -writer Shloime Biber. Biber knew Warsaw very well. he knew all the peripheries of the city as well as the underworld. He would deliver his sensational, piquant reports und the name “Warsaw Cellars and Attics” and “The Mirror of Warsaw”. Biber was no simple fabulist and the clowns in the editorial room would make the blessing over his writings “on falsifications and lies” …BIber was capable of making up bizarre fictitious stories that would astound you, (of course only those that did not know him…)

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For a short time, A. Riklis (Lyric) worked at “Our Life”. Riklis revised the foreign press and “made” a newspaper novel in daily installments, signed with a made-up name from the Torah portion, or “Haftorah”. Riklis, a man with great ambition, also could not agree with Hokhberg and left, abandoning his serialized novel in the middle, not completed. Hokhberg found himself in a predicament. After a few days without instalments, he discussed it and suggested I finish the novel.

“How is that possible?” I asked naively, “how can I do this, I haven't even read the novel…”

“Doesn't mater, you don't have to read it, I'll tell you what its about. In editing everything is possible. Do you want to be a newspaperman?”

Hokhberg then briefly told me, in only a few minutes, the content of the novel. The plot up until the last installment.

“The main character, the lover, we will have commit suicide, and she, his lover, will run away to the Land of Israel after the tragedy. We will provide a Jewish ending in five or six installments. Get to work immediate. Leave everything else for now”.

“I'll try” I stammered, not quite sure of myself.

Then I thought, what choice do I have? I must show them I am a newspaperman.

I thought of this assignment as a sport. How bizarre are the things you must experiment with in editing…hopeless, I looked over the last ten installments, rolled up my sleeves and began the continuation of the novel. By the way, I wrote without heart, without emotion, yet nevertheless, I achieved something. The plan was realized. Already the next morning I had the next instalment. I continued like this until the pathetic end, when the main female character, who was a passionate nationalist, swam to the shores of the historic Jewish homeland…

When Riklis met me later on he asked: “Tell me, I beg you, who wrote the ending of the novel in “Our Life”?”

“This is a secret of the editors” I replied. However, at a later meeting I told him that I wrote it and we both had a good laugh.

After this episode with the novel, Hokhberg paid attention to me. He now allowed me to review writings that arrived daily in the editorial office. My desk was always covered with writings, stories, songs, poems, articles, feuilletons,

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in all genres. Everyday the editorial basket was full. I wrote a column called “Answers from the Editor” where I would respond to many “writers” in a humorous style about their “works” …

Hokhberg however, would condescendingly make me review and prepare for publication materials which belonged to the editor; however, given that he always played politics with his editors, it was worth his while to behave like this and minimize their roles in editing, so they would not feel they were running the world…just as Prilutsky…and he did not want to set this precedent. He also did not want his editors to develop an appetite for high salaries. This is why the editors at “Our Life”, after Zvi Prilutsky left, did not remain for long. They were always changing: when Lazerovitch left he was replaced by Dr. Shimon Milner, who sat on the editor's bench for an even shorter time. After Milner the Hebrew and Yiddish writer M. Ben-Eliezer (M. Lazarson) arrived; later, Dr. Yehoshua Gotlieb. There was constant change of editors and “Our Life”. This was not a good sign for the newspaper. “Our Life” suffered from major competition from two large newspapers; the older “Haynt” and the newer “Moment”. They both attracted a staff of good contributors and won over readers. Masses of readers. Hokhberg also made efforts: he tried to buy material from well – known writers; but he was not generous and the newspaper struggled. At that time there was a hunt for light newspaper romance novels. Yatzkan, the editor of “Haynt” created a sensation with the trashy novel “In the Net of Sin”, which a year earlier appeared in installments in the columns of “Haynt” and won readers by the thousands. Even Sholem Aleichem could not compete with a “real gem” like “In the Net of Sin” …

“In the Net of Sin” evoked a strong reaction in Yiddish literary circles. They criticized “Haynt”, especially Yatzkan, for offering such shady, trashy merchandise to their readers. M. Vanvild (Sh. L. Kaveh) published an open vicious critical pamphlet against Yatzkan, who set off down a cheap trashy road and demoralized the Yiddish reader. This reaction did show some results. The future novels published in “Haynt” were more solid and “modest”. However, the fashionable light novel continued to support the Yiddish press. The publishers believed that the suspenseful novel was the main provider of success for a newspaper. The romance novels declined and as the works of more solid writers arose.

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A group of clowns compared this to Sholem Asch's “God of Vengeance”: Upstairs, Yekl Shapshovitch showed his daughter a Torah while downstairs he ran a brothel” …

From the books: “Years of Wandering” and “The Beginning of Spring”. Buenos Aires, 1962.

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