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by S. Oron
Translated by David Ziants
It has been a year since his wonderful image disappeared from the landscape of Haifa and from among the city's workers.
From his youth, in his hometown of Bielsk Podlaski, near Bialystok, he showed a strong affinity for getting things done. He was a Hebrew teacher in Bialystok and Lithuania, founded schools and coordinated evening classes and high-profiled activities. When he was appointed principal of the Tel Hai School in Brisk [Brest], he quickly became involved with the public and was elected to the city council. Later he was elected national secretary of the Shulkolt educational network in Poland, where their language of instruction was Yiddish and they had a national-Zionist orientation. In 1934 he immigrated to pre-state Israel and settled in Haifa. Due to his health he left teaching and worked in a health clinic. Then he moved to the tax bureau where he coordinated the membership committee and was also a member of the management. For a while he was secretary of Mapai[1] in Haifa. He devoted all his free time to social work. He was one of the initiators of “Mishan”[2] and did much to establish summer day-camps for children, retirement homes for the elderly and clubs for pensioners. When he retired from his regular job, he headed “Mishan,” known to the people as the “Center of Troubles,” and ensured that loans and grants were given, especially for the rehabilitation of destroyed families. He established the institution “mayhaklal el hap'rat” [“From the Community to the Individual”][3] and thus helped establish[4] thousands of lives and became a symbol of devotion and welfare. In recognition of his actions, Mishan's management decided to name after him the Haifa Pensioners' Club and the Special Welfare Fund for the Elderly. In the hearts of many he will always be remembered.
Translator's footnotes:
by Aryeh Nesher
(“Ha'aretz,” February 16, 1962)[1]
Translated by David Ziants
“Mishan”[2] is a Histadrut[3] social aid institution funded by an allocation of 6.5 percent of the consolidated tax.[4] “Mishan” was intended to fulfill in an organized manner all the human commandments that Jews have observed in their communities since time immemorial – charity, visiting the sick, caring for orphans and widows, and such. But the names have now been changed. “Mishan” maintains old people's dwellings that are now known as “retirement homes.” They care for orphans, but the orphanages are now called “children's institutions.” “Mishan” also maintains “pensioner clubs.”
“Mishan” also provides loans to the needy at very low interest rates and for a long period.
There are people who have come right up to their last penny and need support. Others – including evacuees from poverty-stricken neighborhoods or new immigrants – need loans, sometimes as a first payment on a housing bill. During the austerity period[5], “Mishan” would distribute food packages at a nominal price. During the Sinai Campaign, they helped many women whose husbands were suddenly drafted and left their homes penniless. Loans are given for needs that are considered essential, and this does not only relate to the expenses of repairing a leaky roof in an “abandoned property” apartment, but also for the purchase of an electric refrigerator that, by “Mishan,” is not considered a luxury.
However, it seems that routine work crushes one's soul, and sometimes discourages those in need of help. This feeling may have encouraged “Mishan” staff in Haifa to initiate an entirely new institution for social service in industry. The new service is called “From the Community to the Individual” [Heb. “Maihak'lal Lifrat”] and for now it is the first of its kind in Israel.
The institution decided not to wait until a person became destitute, and instead approach him first.
Social Cases and Social Situations
The initiator of the project, Mr. Aharon Grodnai, said that the municipality's Department of Social Work usually handles “social cases,” but it has reached its capacity. However, in addition to social cases, there are also “social situations.” It sometimes happens that people who are employed at a job with an average livelihood encounter difficulties that they cannot overcome on their own. Such people are embarrassed to seek help from an institution or are new immigrants and do not know where to turn. There are also patients who are bedridden after an accident or illness and do not have the power, and neither do their family members, to run around between institutions and bodies that need to or can help them in times of their stress.
And of course, Mr. Grodnai adds, in addition to the social aspect, these cases have an important economic aspect. If a factory worker is concerned because of his son who has a mental impairment and is not settled in an institution, not only does the worker's labor output decrease, but because of his
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many worries, he himself may “go off track” and become a social case. Similarly, if the wife of a person who is a craftsman in a workshop suffers from a chronic disease and has small children at home, and he occasionally begins to be absent from work, the employment relationship deteriorates and his employer begins to see him as a burden who must be let go. Sometimes a person hides personal troubles that may change his entire behavior and character and cause him to have financial difficulties.
For these type of scenarios, “Mishan” is now trying to provide advice, guidance and relief through the new department. The “From the Community to the Individual” department employs social workers who visit factories, meet with personnel managers and workers committee members, and investigate how and to whom help should be provided, and then they do their best.
At first, the factory workers were suspicious, but soon they saw that with the help of the department, social problems could be solved, thereby relieving the employer and the workers' unions from serious burdensome problems. It got to the point that many factories in Haifa voluntarily agreed to participate in maintaining the new service, recognizing its benefit.
Examples
Mr. Grodnai has no shortage of concrete examples of the achievements of the institution in its first year. In one case, they made arrangements for disabled parents of a worker whose status in the factory was completely undermined due to delays and prolonged absences. In a second case, for the rehabilitation of a troubled family, they assisted the children to be accepted to an institution. In a third case, the family of a mechanic in a factory became impoverished because of the expenses of caring for a child with a heart condition who was “limited” in terms of his benefits from the national health clinics.[6] The department had to fight hard to persuade the health clinic to lift the restriction. In another case, it was enough to employ a housekeeper for a mother who broke a leg, to allow her husband to work properly.
The Idea is Taken from “Atta”
I asked Mr. Grodnai again if this service did not constitute duplication of the services of the municipality or the Welfare Ministry. He argues that this is not so. On the contrary, in many cases the treatment is done in coordination with the Department of Social Work, which is happy that there is another entity operating in this area.
Mr. Grodnai admitted that the idea for the new Histadrut department came from what he saw in the “Atta” factory, which was the first factory to provide its own social service. But not every employer can afford to have a special social worker.
Requires a Heart
Mr. Grodnai speaks of the service with great emotion. It is clear that such an endeavor requires a lot of heart. Mr. Grodnai is as if he was born for this purpose, and those who know him testify that his character did not change at all even after the establishment of the State [of Israel]. By profession he was a teacher when he immigrated to [the Land of] Israel from Poland. He did not consider himself qualified for teaching and in order to “acclimate”
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he started to work in a health clinic. While writing referrals and instructions for people [lit. “giving out slips”], he began to handle the personal problems of those seeking medical help, and through this he naturally found his way to “Mishan” in Haifa, which he has headed for half a century. His work is voluntary, after paid hours working in the tax bureau. His workday and activities are very long and, as in the past, some visit his private apartment and receive responses there.
In his opinion, there is a great deal of room left for providing humane treatment and a humane approach to the person who is alone, and especially to the person in need. He says: “As for me, there is nothing new here. The commandment “Love your neighbor as yourself” has existed with us for thousands of years.”
[The photo on page 313 was mistakenly printed here in the original book. -Ed.]
Translator's Notes:
by Edna Cohen
Translated by David Ziants
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Yechezkel son of Isaac [Yiddish pronunciation: Eissic] and Yocheved Hacohen (Yochka) was born in 1879 in the small town of Orla near Bielsk in Russia. There were several dozen Jewish families who maintained their livelihoods from shops and small crafts.
His parents had a tiny shoemaker's workshop, which did not make much of an income to support ten people, - the eight children and the two parents. Abba [father, dad] was the third of the eldest, and from the age of 13 the children had to themselves work to support the family.
At the age of 15, he left home after his father passed away and went to study at the yeshiva of Brisk[1] [now known as Brest], Lithuania. Then he moved to Brinsk, to a yeshiva that was more famous,[2] and he was not satisfied with Torah studies, but he acquired a general education.
Later he returned to Bialystok and began working in a tannery, which was one of the typical Jewish professions in which Bialystok's revolutionary forces were concentrated. Of all the revolutionary parties, he clung to the idea of Labor and Zionism. That's where the socialist Zionist idea began.
The family dispersed. Some immigrated to the United States and some dispersed to Poland. So everyone belonged to a different party. But despite the dispersion and separation of opinions, the family gatherings were accompanied by great joy.
In 1901, he enlisted into the Tsar's army. Although many evaded the draft, he went willingly with Jewish pride. He was a combat medic. When he was about to be released, the Russo-Japanese War broke out. He was the living spirit among the Jewish soldiers in his battalion. He was eventually captured by the Japanese and released in 1960 [likely a typo for 1906]. In 1908 he got married in the town of Botzki [Bocki] near Bielsk and worked in a flour mill. In 1910, his wife died, and he returned with his son to his mother in Orla, where he continued to work as a bookkeeper in a sawmill. In his free time, he began to work as a teacher for the few Jewish families in the villages who could not take care of the children's education as they lived among the forests.
At the outbreak of the First World War, he was among the first to be enlisted. He took part in one of the largest battles in Austria at the Battle of Tannenberg, in which the Russian army was defeated and his entire battalion was dispersed. Abba was injured and arrived at the hospital in Brisk and when he came out, he started
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to search for the battalion, and this led him to Kharkiv. There he left the army. Like him there were masses of Jews and many Jewish refugees, and my father took it upon himself to take care of the refugees. He was on the refugee committee in Ukraine and along with the financial concerns he also established a refugee school. Since there was a shortage of teachers, he began to teach, but he was forbidden to teach until he had prepared a matriculation certificate. He completed his matriculation exam even though his entire elementary education was a yeshiva education. He studied on his own, and even then he began to think about immigrating to the Land [of Israel].[3] He was there until the revolution broke out, and then he returned to Bielsk, since Orla was destroyed. The whole family moved there. Until then, the family did not know about him, except that he was in Kharkiv.
He was involved in public activity in the revived Zionist movement and was one of the activists in the Hebrew school, where he taught, even though he did not like the teaching profession. He was also one of those who took care of the establishment of a Hebrew library and was one of the activists in the establishment of “Tzeirei Tziyon” [The Young People of Zion].[4] He was the living spirit of the party and would participate in all the conferences as a delegate. His home was always open to intellectuals, Zionists and party activists. His activities in the diaspora did not satisfy him and he began to fight for his immigration to the Land [of Israel].
In the meantime, the Russo-Polish War broke out in 1920. The Poles, in their retreat, carried out robberies and attacks on the Jews, and it was necessary to establish self-defense. Here, too, abba was one of the activists, even though he was already older than the others. The defending men would guard and patrol at night until the city was occupied by the Russians. With the occupation, he moved to work as a paramedic in the hospital, since all public life was paralyzed.
After the reoccupation of Poland, life returned to normal. Public activity increased, and then they started talking about self-fulfillment.
In 1923 he immigrated to the Land [of Israel] and joined the Labor corps. He was in the Haifa Company for a while and then he moved to Tel Yosef, which was then a new one-year spot. Although he was older, he participated in the drainage of the swamps at Tel Yosef and in Sachna. He was active in the social life and was a member of the higher echelon. With all the difficulties and malaria (he was sick a lot with malaria) he stubbornly overcame it and managed to withstand it. He was a member of the Labor Union and an activist in the party. In 1929 he participated in the defense against the Arab pogroms in the lower part of Tel Yosef.
In 1933 he remarried and for personal reasons he was forced to leave Tel Yosef. After 10 years, he returned to Tel Yosef again with his daughter. At the same time, he took care of his sister who would immigrate to the Land [of Israel] in 1935.
On Shabbat haShachora [Black Saturday],[5] he was taken with all his friends to Rafah. Since he was already very old, he was among the first to be released.
Throughout the years, his brothers and sisters from America pressured him to join them, but he made do with visiting them. He stayed there for several months and returned with the establishment of the state [of Israel].
With the split[6] in the Kibbutz haM'uchad [United Kibbutz], he moved with the rest of his friends to Beit Hashita.[7] There, too, he found his place at work, even though he was an old man. The work was in his blood and he continued it until his illness overwhelmed him, and all the while he was aware of what was happening in the economy and in political life.
Translator's Notes:
Born in Russia 21.12.1879 – died on 23rd Iyar 5623[2]
(From “Shittim,” the Beit Hashita[3] diary)
Words at the Grave
by Reuven Levin
Translated by David Ziants
Yechezkel, when you left us today, the elder of the comrades left us.
[He was a] member imbued with Jewish culture, who came to the pioneering Zionist movement not by external influence, not by chance, but by Jewish life itself. A life imbued with the eternal ideal of the revival of the working Jewish nation and its culture.
He was one of the only individuals in his generation who himself awakened to reviving the diaspora mentality by self-fulfillment.
He went to the “Labor Corps”[4] in Tel Yosef,[5] to create a general commune in the Land of Israel, an example land of equality.
In life you were an example of a life of modesty and humility. You were not passive in the life of the movement and the corps. With strong force you fought the war of Zionistic socialism during the period of the “Left” and the “Right”[6] in the “Labor Corps.”
How pleasant it was to sit with you in a team and talk about the Labor movement and Judaism, for these were the source of your life, and like a spring, the words flowed from your mouth.
You didn't come to the “Labor Corps” at a young age, but with the youthful spirit that was inside you, you overcame everything and worked in the most difficult types of work.
The joy of the creation and the revival of the nation gave you the strength and thus you moved forward with your life. Even when you reached a ripe age,[7] you continued to work in the small and hot hut, under difficult conditions. With your last strength, you took care of yourself and did not want to burden others.
Has left us, one of the first pioneers who created the Commune.
Yehi zichro Baruch [May his memory be blessed].
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Y. Weinstein with a Circle of Friends |
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