[Page 132]

Among the many great men and women who were active in recent generations in Drohobycz, Dr Leon Tannenbaum z”l, a man of illustrious character, was prominent.

Our generation – a Zionist and nationalist generation – will always fondly remember Dr Tannenbaum as a leader of the Jewish community of our town for many years. As the head of the kahal and as deputy mayor he was always concerned with the interests of the individual and the community.

We remember Dr Tannenbaum as head of the Zionist movement who participated in all its meetings, conferences, and congresses. Dr Tannenbaum was a close friend of Dr Leon Reich, Dr Michael Ringel z”l, and most of the leadership of Galician Jewry. People looked to him for his opinions and his advice.

The Jews of Drohobycz thrived during his tenure as the leader of the community organization. Many institutions were established and a Zionist atmosphere was dominant in the community, in contrast to what happened during the absolute reign of the assimilationist Dr Jacob Feuerstein and his cronies.

Many of us still recall the 1911 Austrian parliamentary elections when thirteen Jews were killed and many others wounded under the orders of the assimilationists Feuerstein and Löwenstein, who were supported by the civil authorities.^[1]

Major changes occurred after the First World War. Young lawyers who came to town – Backenroth, Tannenbaum, Adlersberg, Schneider, and others – brought with them a new and refreshing spirit. From then on, the victory of the Zionists in all areas of Jewish life was assured.

Heading all these activities was Dr Leon Tannenbaum. His heart and his house were open to assist any Jew in the town. He never tired and was available twenty–four hours a day. His life was dedicated to his brothers in the town and to Zionist activism.

Leon (Leib) Tannenbaum was born 4 April 1884 in Borysław – Wolanka.^[2] His parents were Samuel and Debora (Mansberg). When Leon was sixteen, his father was killed in an accident in a wax mine in Sołotwina (present day Solotvyn).

In 1902, the family moved to Drohobycz where Leon, paying his own way, completed his studies in the local high school. In 1906, he graduated from the university in Lwów with a doctorate in law (Juris Doctor). While a student, he worked as a tutor and helped support and educate the rest of the family. In 1909, he married Sissel (Zosia) Lichtenstein.

After completing his internship in the courts and training with other lawyers, the family settled permanently in Drohobycz, where Dr Tannenbaum's son Samuel, who later lived in Tel–Aviv, was born in 1910.

Leon Tannenbaum had already begun to participate in Zionist social activities while he was at the university. Some valuable historical documents have been preserved in his personal archives from that period. He especially treasured a personal letter from the renowned author Sholem Aleichem, which contained the sentence, among other comments; “This is the first time Sholem Aleichem has laughed at Sholem Aleichem”.

During the First World War, Dr Tannenbaum and his family lived in Austria.^[3] There he befriended Dr Leon Reich z”l. The two remained friends until Dr Reich's untimely death.

In 1917, the family returned to Drohobycz where Dr Tannenbaum's daughter Lusia was born in May 1918. During the period of Ukrainian rule in 1918–1919, the family suffered many sleepless nights when Dr. Tannenbaum, as a public activist, had to deal with the Ukrainian authorities. Dr Tannenbaum described a horrendous scene from that period. An old Jewish man, who was accused of spying and sentenced to death, was brought to Dr Tannenbaum's house. The authorities were going to carry out the sentence in the hallway. It turned out that when the wife of this person, who lived on the corner of Solna and Mickiewicz streets, had lit her Sabbath candles. The flickering flames seemed to the Ukrainians like a code to the Polish army camped on Szwolezerów Street. Due to Dr Tannenbaum's insistence and his wife's pleading, the man was saved. However, he was not allowed to return to his home and had to stay with the Tannebaums for a month.

After Dr Tannenbaum's wife died in 1942 and his daughter and son–in–law were murdered by Ukrainians, he was taken in the third Aktion with the rest of the Jewish community and led to the place of internment – the court house. He was holding the hand of Rappaport's granddaughter. He shared the poison he had with the little orphan.

His life dream to live in Eretz Israel did not materialize. He had visited in the 1930s, but his efforts to settle in Israel did not work out at that time.

May his memory be blessed forever.

Editor's Notes

1. On 8 June 1911, elections for members of the Austrian parliament were held in Austria. In Drohobycz, there was great animosity between those supporting the Jewish nationalist party and those who supported the incumbent Nathan Löwenstein, a member of the Polish Club in the Austrian House of Deputies. In previous years, Jacob Feuerstein had been the Vice Mayor of Drohobycz and leader of the kahal; he was a strong supporter of Löwenstein. On election day, the crowd surrounding the polling station became large and restive. Various parties in the city accused the electoral authorities and Feuerstein of fraudulent electoral practices. The army had been called to maintain order, but for reasons never fully understood, it fired into the crowd. In the subsequent official investigation, the officer in charge said he heard a command to fire, although no one gave that command. Eight people were killed immediately and eighty were wounded, twenty–five of whom died of their injuries. The victims included people of all the national groups in the city. Return
2. Leon Tannenbaum was not born in Wolanka, but Mrażnica, another village close to Borysław. Return
3. Although the author has written Austria, it is likely that he meant Vienna, or possibly another city in the western part of Austria that was not occupied by the Russian army during the First World War. In fear of the anti–Semitic brutality of the Russian troops, many Jews left the province of Galicia for their personal safety. Most went to Vienna. Return

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A.

It is difficult for me to describe the many contributions of the Zionist youth movement in Drohobycz. However, as someone who was educated and matured in this movement from my late teens until the Holocaust, I will try, to the best of my ability, to describe these organizations so that future generations will not forget the youth who lived in our town and were active in this movement.

Unfortunately, I am unable to write a monograph^[1] about all the youth organizations in Drohobycz. The interested reader can find much information on this subject. My goal is to contribute personal memories, specifically about Hashomer Hatzair, where I had my initial Zionist and socialist education, and then Hitahdut Poale Zion, the party in which I was an activist during the ten years preceding the Holocaust.

The Zionist youth movement in our town began to develop during the period before the First World War. You will probably read in another chapter of this book about the “bloody elections” in Drohobycz in 1911. I am aware that Zionist youth participated in the struggle between the Zionists and the assimilationists.

Under the influence of Poale Zion, youth groups were organized even before the First World War. No doubt, many Drohobyczers still remember the call by one of the youth members to “take the post office” in 1919. The Zionist youth probably intended to take over the government during the struggle between the Ukrainian army and the Poles.

Hashomer was first organized as a scout group for Jewish boys. Their activities began at the end of the First World War. Probably these young people were those who established Hashomer Hatzair in our town. At the time, the movement had no political identity; it was purely an organization of Nationalist–Zionist Jewish youths. As can be seen in one of our publications, the report about the group's Saturday outing in the Górka forest was about the Mincha prayer.

I and others of my age were first introduced to the idea of pioneering youth and Eretz Israel around 1920. That's when we saw the Halutzim (pioneers) passing our street, Truskawicka Street, singing Ukrainian folk songs. They had long dark hair and probably had a haircut no more than twice a year. Their shoes were always dusty and for pants, they wore breeches. We were told these were pioneers from Russia training on a farm on Jura street in preparation for emigration to Eretz Israel. These were the young men who trained in agriculture and suffered many hardships. Although I do not know who and where they are I am sure that they were among the first to drain the swamps and pave the roads in Eretz Israel.

That is how I and my peers saw them when we were eight years old. I often thought about them when I joined the pioneering youth movement as a cub. Then and even years later, we could not comprehend that it was possible to live in Eretz Israel and not be a farmer, agriculture worker, or wagon driver.

A Jew, who owned a pub, attended the synagogue of the rabbi of Sambor, Yehoshua Herschel, where I prayed with my father. His son was a field watchman in Eretz Israel; he sent his father a photograph showing him riding a horse with a rifle in his hand. I remember the sensation and the pride in the entire synagogue that “our Herschele” was a watchman.

Another memory from my childhood is of the only Jewish parade I ever saw. Parades were usually the monopoly of the gentiles. I was a young student at Talmud Torah

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when we were taken out of the school and led throughout the town with students of the Hebrew school Beit Yehuda and other children. The parade was led by Hashomer members wearing scout hats and holding long scout sticks. The entire town could hear the Yiddish song “We come together and the masses of the Jewish people are at home.” This was on the day of the Balfour's declaration.

These are the memories of my childhood and when I was growing up. I saw the youth movement of Hashomer Hatzair and Halutzim (pioneers). Naively, we thought that the Halutzim were without any party affiliation. But later we learnt that they were adults, previously members of Hashomer Hatzair who, for some reason, could not continue in the educational movement.

There is so much that can be written about Hashomer Hatzair in our town. The members were special people with a special mentality; they even used special language.

I was introduced to Hashomer Hatzair when I was thirteen years old and had started my studies in the government high school. It was natural, since the meeting place of Hashomer Hatzair seemed like the high school's branch for the Jewish youth.

The meeting place was in the yard of the Ratz family on Sobieski Street close to Łan. In time, this structure became well known in town. It was well suited for its purpose. Can you imagine a place like that – probably still remembered by many of you – a large hall where several group conversations were taking place simultaneously without interrupting one other? Forty people could dance the hora at the same time in this hall. There was also a stage for plays and an alcove for coats. The fact that there was no electricity and no heating in winter did not bother us. We were happy with kerosene lanterns. And we did not feel the cold as the place was always full. It is interesting that even the noise late into the night did not bother the neighbors. Nobody thought that anything else could be expected from this place. Sometimes, the meeting place had to be moved because of police persecution. But as soon as we could go back, we went with great enthusiasm – as if we were going back to our homeland.

I must also mention another meeting hall – Beit Yehuda which was called by all Dom Żydowski (Jewish home). All the youth felt they belonged to this home. People came there even if there was no special occasion. It was sufficient to sit in the yard, sing together, and dance the hora. And when the youth decided to dance, they were not bothered by the yelling of Mr Schwartz, the housekeeper who wanted to keep the place intact. He could turn the lights off, but nobody was bothered and the dancing continued in the dark.

Originally, the entire Zionist movement met in this house, mainly because of its vast yard. Even after the movement grew and smaller gatherings were held in many other areas in town, this home continued to be the main gathering place during holidays or during troubled times, such as the Arab riots in Palestine or anticipation of anti–Semitic pogroms. On these occasions, youth from all over town gathered in Beit Yehuda, the fortress of the Hebrew youth in the town.

Many Halutzim (pioneers), even families left these places to train for Aliyah. It is truly hard to imagine that these places no longer exist – the whole area does not exist, the Jewish population and the youth no longer exist …

The location of the headquarters of Hashomer Hatzair had to be moved from time to time due to persecution by the Polish secret police. They saw the movement not just as an educational organization dedicated to pioneering and emigration to Eretz Israel, but as a threat to the authorities due to the increasing socialist awareness among the youth.

Despite attempts by anti–Zionist movements, Hashomer Hatzair thrived in our town and educated a whole generation. If you visit Hashomer Hatzair kibbutzim such as Merhavia, Gan Shmuel, and Mizra you will find many of the original pioneers from Drohobycz. More can be found in newer kibbutzim of the movement.

However, it is painful to think of those that did not make it.

Some characteristics of this movement were:

Immediately after joining Hashomer, you would change. Your posture would straighten, you would hold your head high, you would walk with more confidence. Your clothing would be different as well. You would dress more simply; even in winter you would wear a shirt with an open collar, and if at all possible, no hat. Even your manner of speech would change. These changes became part of your character. That's how a whole generation of youth was educated and forged in our town, specifically in Hashomer Hatzair.

Other youth organizations also existed during this period,

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such as Poale Zion and Hitachdut and for a short period Gordonia. But THE youth was organized in Hashomer Hatzair until 1928–1929; even after the establishment of other organizations, it remained the strongest and most important.

The many Zionist parties did not ignore our town. Between 1928 and 1930, all the youth organizations existed in our town from Hashomer Hatzair through to Betar.

Nathan Bistricki visited our town in 1929. I believe he was a delegate of the KKL–JNF (Keren Kayemeth Leisrael–Jewish National Fund). His message about uniting the youth in town under the Zionist flag had a great impact. For a few weeks, the youth would meet and hear about the country of their hopes and dreams. They spent time together until after midnight and then would sing and dance until the early morning hours.

The bloody events in Eretz Israel in 1929 increased national awareness among the youth. Zionist youth movements became dominant due to this increased awareness and the various movements competed to bolster activism and education.

Hashomer Hatzair, which was focused originally on high school students, started to become more involved with working youth around 1930. The Zionist movement focused more on those who did not accept the nationalist ideology at first. Even the religious youth could find its place in the Zionist organization Bnei Akiva.

Halchud, the local branch of Hitachdut Poale Zion, which was established in the town in 1932 had an important impact. Until its establishment, the main organization that worked for Eretz Israel was Hashomer Hatzair, but it was limited to education and the collection of donations for Histadrut (General Organization of Workers) industries. With the establishment of the Ichud branch, the political outlook of Jews changed.

The branch recruited many of the workers in the Galicia and Nafta refineries and through this activity, became a major player, not only among Jews. The socialist parties, the PPS^[2] and the Ukrainian socialist party, were aware that in their political activities they had to consider Ichud as a representative of the Jewish workers. As a result, Ichud youth became friendlier with the non–Jewish socialist youth. These connections became invaluable during the anti–Semitic pogroms in Poland. When Ichud started in 1932, it sublet a room from Yad Charutzim. In time, it expanded to include many organizations which occupied an entire house on Mickiewicz Street, where the party held all its political and cultural activities. The Ichud branch was instrumental in establishing much of infrastructure of the movement in the town. Among its major achievements were the establishment of pioneering youth organizations, Gordonia and Buselia, Haoved (the worker) which attracted many craftsmen, Z.S. (Ichud), which was focused on emigration to Eretz Israel, the sports organization Hapoel, and labour organizations, which sent representatives to the labour unions. Prior to the establishment of the Ichud branch, the Zionist movement had had no influence on labour unions. Ichud had a major impact in making Zionism part of the labour movement, as well as in the issue of emigration.

I thought to mention specifically one person who had a major impact on the Zionist youth in our town. Aunt Idelka was the secretary of KKL (Jewish National Fund) and the dominant figure in the organization and in the town. She was the apolitical organizer of youth from all political parties. All representatives gathered around her; she educated them in practical work and contributions for Eretz Israel. Under her influence, the collection of money for the Jewish National Fund became a labour of love and great pride for the youth of our town.

These youth movements provided national education to school–age youth and increased the awareness and the educational level of working youth. They developed mutual help in the Jewish population and gave people confidence and preparation for self–defense. Just before the Second World War, anti–Semitic outbreaks were a common occurrence in Poland. However, the anti–Semites did not dare touch the Jews of Drohobycz; they knew that the youth was prepared and would retaliate. Those who were in Drohobycz at the time may remember that this is not an exaggeration. During one of the anti–Semitic outbursts, a reinforcement of Endek students from Lwów arrived in Drohobycz to start pogroms in town^[3]. Their initial plan was to destroy Beit Yehuda. Upon hearing the news about this plan, the youth, as well as the adults, immediately organized for self– defense. In addition to barricading themselves in Beit Yehuda, they surrounded the rioters from all directions. At the end, the Endek students had to retreat under the protection of the Drohobycz police. Such was the Drohobycz youth.

The Zionist youth, and specifically the youth working for Eretz Israel, had a great impact during the last half century of Jewish Drohobycz. It is sad that only few of these youths could fulfil their dreams and emigrate; most remained in the diaspora … and actually, they did not remain there…

Editor's Notes

1. A monograph is a treatise on a single subject or an aspect of a subject, usually by a single author. Return
2. PPS (Polska Partia Socjalistyczna), the Polish socialist party. Return
3. Endeks: The National Democrats (Endecja or ND in Polish) was a right–wing political party founded by the Polish politician Roman Stanisław Dmowski. A controversial personality during his life and since, Dmowski believed that only Polish–speaking Roman Catholics could be good Poles; his opinions marginalized other minorities. He was vocally anti–Semitic. Return

[Page 136]

A.

We are walking in the snow. We are walking among many people. At night. In the light of torches. They are carrying a Torah scroll that had just been copied. A new Torah scroll. Under a moving canopy, in the light of a large torch, someone is dancing with the Torah scroll in his hands. Fire and snow – a man dancing with a Torah. We are walking in the snow. In the dark. Many people.

It is Saturday afternoon. Late summer. Chickens peck in the yard. The bucket rests on the bar of the well. Nitoli Tita, the drunken gentile man leans against the fence, bending his head slowly down to his chest, then in a vigorous movement is suddenly erect again. And so on. His name is not Nitoli Tita, but Nitoli Dida. But his mother was Polish and his father German. His mother taught him to speak Polish against his father's wishes. So, the father cut his tongue. Thus, Nitoli Dida became Nitoli Tita. That's how he says it. Now he leans against the fence, bending his head slowly down to his chest and bringing it up again in a vigorous movement. In the hot air, flies are buzzing. The trees near the gate seem unreal. Suddenly the figure of a Jew with a bleeding head is revealed; he is fleeing from two gentiles chasing him. One has an axe in his hand, the other an iron bar. Like shadows they disappear on the path of the garden opposite. Nitoli Tita raises his head in a vigorous motion, rolls his eyes, and slowly drops his head down to his chest, as if he's falling asleep.

Whoever climbs the ladder behind the synagogue window at night sees old men busy peeling potatoes, rolling cigarettes, and knocking a pipe on a table covered with books. He hears names, words that have no meaning. Sadigura^[2] and Belz.^[3] His Excellency Franz Josef^[4] and the Tsar,^[5] may his name be erased. Those who died in the riots enter an empty synagogue, wrap themselves in a tallit, and start to pray in public. Demons banished by the pipe of the Tzaddik. The window is misty. The Jews inside are divided into twos, threes, into limbs. Eyes sparkle. Pipes flicker.

The one standing on the ladder at night behind the synagogue window suddenly understands that the stories are true. Indeed, the dead are those who sit here. Indeed, there is a demon behind him. His fingertips touch his shoulder. Should he shout? It's impossible! Should he look back? It's also impossible!

He should descend the ladder with his eyes closed, step backwards, step by step, and faint…

He is the only one in the world. No one knows what is hidden within him. Even he himself does not know. He leans over himself sometimes and hears something and understands something, as he sits in the tree canopy in the yard, watching the bar tilted on the well, clinging to the top of a tree in the garden, as the sky and earth move before his eyes. Yet he will see and understand only a minor part of it. He will ignore the rest, drawn into himself from afar. Mute, alone, the only one in the world.

A wedding in the old man's yard, the wedding of his only daughter. New huts, tents are prepared for meals in the yard and garden. Long wooden tables with slaughtered ducks upon them, row upon row. Their bleeding necks rolled upside down. Baths filled with live fish, naked with big eyes. Hasidim walk with their sleeves rolled up, filthy with blood, covered in scales from their shirts to their boots, holding long knives in their hands, sawing, dissecting, crushing, chopping, and cooking in large pots, on strange stoves, in the open air.

Twelve gates of honor representing the twelve tribes of Israel have been built for the guests. Each gate is decorated with tribal flags. Near each gate are two men mounted on horses, armed with swords, dressed for war.

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Masses of people, masses. Singers, entertainers, and Klezmers. A stage in the middle. On the stage an old woman is dancing. An old woman from Israel. A handkerchief in her hand and a scarf on her head. She moves slowly, she bends slowly to the rhythm of the clapping. Her eyes are closed. Her mouth opens upwards. The slender, old body moves with the dance. What longing. What movement. What sadness. Tears, hanging in her eyelashes moisten her mouth. What a dance! What a dance!

He awakens from a dream. In his dream, poor Jews sat at a long table and he served them food. Braided challah. Stuffed fish. P'tcha (calves' feet jelly).^[6] The poor Jews are hungry; those who have not yet received their portion twist their faces with sorrow.

And he awoke - and the poor Jews remained sitting there hungry … forever …

In winter we wear furs, get on a train, and travel from one grandfather, the Rabbi in Galicia, to the other grandfather, my mother's father, the Rabbi in Poland. Hassidim sit in train carriages, remove tallit and tefillin, and drink l'chayim. Women bring cakes for dessert.

Someone enters and demands something. A passport! A Jew starts to stutter; he shows something. In return, he gets a fist in his eye. A woman screams. The Jew begins begging. Many policemen enter the carriage, making a fuss, making noise. After they leave, one place is empty. The place of the Jew who stuttered and begged, and now – is gone…

On Holy Friday night everything is sanctified. The great hall is full of Jews with wet beards and side locks, and boys, their faces shining, their eyes burning. Many candles are on the table; the candle wax drips on the silver candlesticks. Grandfather sits at the head of the table and gives a sermon, while everyone holds his breath, making no sound. Occasionally a sigh or a cough will escape. Further away, in the women's room, the face of Shifra, the shamash's^[7] daughter, is shining. Closer, to the right of the old man, as if mirroring her, is the fiery face of a man, a broad, beardless face, with two sidelocks like bottles on each side, like two guards on duty. And close to him, on the floor, lies Reb Yudl, penitent, his hands and feet spread out as he lets himself be trampled, while they gather to hear the Torah from the rabbi. Two boys with long caftans and open collars step on him in silence, on his black body, with a beard and eyes that protrude upwards.

In summer we would return to the old man in Galicia, spending the late summer with him in the mountains, the Carpathian Mountains; travelling there in carriages, men women separately, and the children and the maids separately. At the end of the caravan, in the carriage with all the belongings sits Nitoli Tita, holding the cage with the parrot, the one called Sugar.

In the house of the hassid who hosts us, a calf is slaughtered for the guests and roasted over a fire. Another hassid herds and milks the cows in front of the guests. In the distance, wild boars prowl.

At nigh, the old man, the rabbi, ascends the mountains with everyone to watch the sunrise from the summit. We walk through a thick forest. We meet a Jew who is burning charcoal; he gives us hot bread from the oven between the trees, and we can see the fire. We gather on the top of the mountain, pray tikkun chatzot,^[8] and watch the sun rise in the green valley among the mountains of pine. The old man says, “My soul longs for God more than those who wait for the morning to come.” Suddenly clouds cover the sky. Lightning, thunder, rain. We return home on endless paths. Between the damp tree trunks, dripping leaves, swamps, and puddles, until we arrive wet and confused. We dry our clothes, socks, and shoes in front of the lighted oven. The room is like a drainpipe, water dripping from everywhere. The rain outside does not stop.

One of the heroic sons of Jacob in the Torah there, in my father's home, was Selig Werdinger, who visited the village on Saturdays in the summer. A Jewish man, with a large body and a full, round, red face adorned with a short, grey beard. He danced with a barrel of liquor in his hands. When we sit down to rest, he carries a table and everything on it with his teeth. It is said of him that all the Jews of his village are alive because of his battles, the terror he inflicts on the Mazurs,^[9] the bloodthirsty people who live there and deal in oil. Once, his house was set on fire while he and his family were asleep. Selig Werdinger burst out only in his shirt, and in one hand took the shaft from the cart. He struck hard and wounded everyone there. Since then, they never bother him. When a Jew is in danger, surrounded by robbers, he has only to mention the name of Selig Werdinger and he is immediately saved; his attackers flee in terror. In recent years he has a bandage on his cheek. They say it is a kind of ulcer, “a small wound that does not heal.” Some say he will die.

A mountain overlooks the abyss is in this village. A bridge clings to the mountain and in the evening, a train passes there. Smoky sparks are carried away in the dark.

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A whistle.

Did the whistle come out of his heart?

Here he is waiting all day to speak. That whistle was the thing. He thinks all day long about God - and now they have met and become one. And this one is his past and his future, his riddle and its solution, his ear that listens to the well of the world.

A Jew riding a horse enters into a yard in the Carpathian village. He dismounts, ties the horse to the porch railing, burst into Grandpa's room, and kissed his hand. He comes close, whispers words into his ear, leaves, mounts his horse, gallops away, and disappears. Grandpa, as if waking from a dream, looks out the window; his face turns pale. He has a message in his hand: As long as no soldier armed with a rifle stands on the bridge, there will be peace in the world. When a soldier armed with a rifle stands on the bridge, war will break out. And there is a soldier on the bridge with a rifle in his hand…

He sat and studied with his rabbi on the porch by the garden. They learned the psalm “Why do the nations rage and the people imagine a vain thing.”^[10] The sun's rays flickered among the garden leaves. Next to the fence stood the blond Regina, the neighbour's daughter; her bright eyes looking at him and her ears listening to the melody of his study. “Why do the nations rage and the people imagine a vain thing.” Mother entered in a panic. She took him away, saying nothing. She dressed him in a coat that was not his. She took him with her, actually dragged him. The teacher turned pale, stammered, and asked why. “The Russians are by the river” – mother cried out to the frightened teacher - “The Russians are by the river.” In the cart, in the dust, near the maids' feet, Zechariah reflected, trembling at the meaning of these words.

Walking in a dark forest. The entire family. Many families, with packages on their backs. The children are holding on to the edges of their parents' clothes. They are walking quietly in terror. They were told that guards are hiding in the woods and when they hear the shout “Stop,” they must not move, or they will be shot at immediately, will be killed immediately. They walk quietly, barely breathing, in weak steps. Familiar faces appear and disappear. A foreign face slips in and out. They fall over uprooted tree trunks and get up again. Among the branches of the pines, they see falling stars, dark lumps, dwelling in the darkness.

Suddenly a voice calls out, “Stop!”

They stand frozen, fossilized. They stop breathing.

People live in cattle cars. They are hungry. They travel from one city to another, and yet do not reach their destination. But where is it – their destination?

In those days they pass through abandoned stations. Hungry dogs greet them and accompany them, wailing. Shattered windows are seen in the empty, deserted railway stations.

Sometimes they stand in a field. An army camp is in the distance. Near the railroads soldiers with their sleeves rolled up slaughter bulls and cows. They drop the beasts with one pull of a rope tied to their legs. In front of amazed eyes they slaughter them with one knife cut over the tensed neck. The blood spurts. From several necks at once. Streams, streams of blood. The blood flows on to the railroad. The train travels on streams of blood.

The girl is gone. There is darkness in the carriage. We travel and travel. Perhaps we travel to Israel? All the roads passing through darkness, tunnels, underground, lead there. There is the resurrection of the dead. There is Carmel and there is Jordan and there are Jews harvesting grapes, and the sun shines on the faces of those Jews. This is how he saw them in the film they showed at home, the only movie he has ever seen in his life. This is how he has seen them ever since, in his dreams and while daydreaming, too, whenever he closes his eyes.

There he meets with everything and everyone that was lost to him on the way.

Darkness and snoring in the carriage. We travel and travel.

Clouds, rain, snow, wind. Sleeping, sleeping, and awakening. Are those the days that pass? Are these the years?

Someone knows in his heart, there is a place that he needs to reach. There is a goal.

Someone knows in his heart, not a single spark of his soul will go out, before it ignites and becomes a flame…

A.

The land of Israel has been my life's dream since the day I became aware of what was happening in the world. When my feet stepped on Israel's soil for the first time, it was as if I awakened after a deep sleep of generations. I wanted to live in it, die in it. I hope my people will continue to live in it even after my death.

The word “homeland,” taken from other countries, is not enough to contain the concept of Israel.

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It is not appropriate; fate, a destination, a desire – all these words are weak … Even in my childhood, the spring that flowed within me was from the land of Israel. And the first girl I sat next to in the refugee carriage, who was taken from my rib forever and ever – her name was Israel in my heart. And the first tears I remember were shed to the sound of a song about Israel … The man was a wandering singer and he was wonderful. White-faced and white-bearded, his hair fell in curls on his shoulders. He sat in the living room of our house in front of the burning fireplace. Men, women and children stood around him; there was darkness in the hall. Only the burning coals illuminated his face as he sang and played the harp. And my soul was uplifted when he sang, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, my dear holy land.”^[12]

But Israel was not my only dream. I am the speaker for generations in my family back to their origin. “On the rivers of Babylon where we sat and wept in remembrance of Zion”^[13] is the first song that my father taught me. “On the main road, where there is a red rose” … “Please, have mercy on me, take me in your hands to the garden of Eden, my garden.” This is the lullaby that my mother sang to me, to my brother, and to my two sisters. And I knew that the rose on the main road is the Jewish people and that “Please, have on mercy me; take me in your hands” is directed towards the nations of the world, and that the garden of Eden – is Israel.

On the first Seder night that I remember, the hall was full of Chasidim; the silver and gold utensils on the tables sparkled in the light of dozens of candles and candelabras; the red wine, the wine of Israel, which was sent to us in a sealed barrel from the old Chasidic Friedman Winery, glowed like the red wine in ancient chalices. My late grandfather, the rabbi of Drohobycz, stood up from the white couch embroidered with light blue and crimson, his cup shaking in his right hand and his left hand slipping on his light, long beard. He was silent for a moment, his blue eyes sailing through his glittering, gold glasses to unknown realms. Suddenly, a flowing stream of tears passed down the lenses of his gold glasses, his closed eyelashes moved and vibrated in the flame of the candles. And a voice, not his own, burst like a sob from his throat, enveloping the entire space of the house, touching all hearts, beating, pulsating, and echoing, three times, “Next year in Jerusalem! Next year in Jerusalem! Next year in Jerusalem!”

All my life I have travelled to Israel, because every Jew travels all his life to Israel, because there is no other interpretation of Judaism but ongoing travel to Israel. When Rabbi Petachiah of Regensburg^[14] came to Babylon in the twelfth century, he met an astrologer there. The first question he asked him was, “When will the Messiah come?” … And when I, a Jewish boy in the diaspora in the twentieth century saw a falling star, my first wish was, “May Zion be built!” In my childhood, it seemed strange that there were Jews in the world who erased the name of Zion from their prayer book. Well, in what way are they still considered Jews? The air of Judaism is the air of the land of Israel. Anyone who denies it, denies his life. My ancestors did not deny it.

On my mother's side, I come from Peshischa,^[15] the prophet from Lublin and the preacher from Kozhnitz, who became powerful in their generation to bring redemption faster and passed prematurely. On my father's side, I am from the lineage of the late Rabbi Israel of Ruzhin and his descendants from Sadigura.^[16] Rabbi Israel had been imprisoned because he was a Jew. Multitudes of Jews followed him. He had a throne of gold on which was engraved, “David, King of Israel, is alive and well” … My paternal grandmother, the Rabbanit Hadassah Feigele, emigrated to Israel with us and died in Jerusalem at the age of nearly a hundred. She was the granddaughter of the Rabbi of Ruzhin and sat with him when he was imprisoned.^[17] She told us how khasidim came, to release them and took them to Sadigura, which was then under the Austrian rule. They had bribed the prison guards with a barrel full of gold dinars. When the prison guards opened the gates for them, they also escaped with the Chasidim. When the Rabbi of Ruzhin arrived in Sadigura, he did not become an Austrian citizen but bought himself a Turkish travel certificate on which was written, “citizen of Jerusalem.” Since then, all the members of our family have been citizens of Jerusalem.

The son of Hadassah Feigele was my late grandfather, my father's father, the rabbi of Drohobycz, Rabbi Chaim Meir Yechiel Shapira, who was passionate in his love for Zion. His passion was a beacon for all those who joined him and emigrated to Zion with him. Rabbi Chaimoni, as his many admirers called him, lost his father Rabbi Selig, the son of the rabbi of Mogielnica, at an early age. He was educated in the house of his mother's father, the rabbi of Sadigura. When he was still a small boy, Minister Oliphant^[18] came to his grandfather's house. He was an aristocrat from England who, at the time, dreamed of the return of the Jews to their homeland and sought to influence the Rabbi of Sadigura to agree with his plan and lead the enterprise. Because of warnings the Rabbi had previously received from fanatic circles, the conversation did not bring results. When the Minister, his wife, and all his retinue left the Rabbi's house, climbed into their fancy carriages, and moved from the courtyard area, all those who were present started laughing loudly that an eminent person, accompanied by a retinue of idle people, would come, wishing to immediately fix things that the Holy One had not been able to fix for nineteen hundred years of exile. But the late Rabbi of Sadigura silenced them and said with a sigh, “May it be in this way – as long as redemption will come quickly in our time” …

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When grandfather would repeat these things before us, word for word, with quivering devotion, he added that his life's fate had been determined by them, because since that time he knew and believed that Israel could be built in a natural way and that it was up to us to do it. The rest of his life was nothing more than a string of days devoted entirely to Israel; there was no room for anything else. In his youth, even before the appearance of Herzl, he visited the courtyards of his relatives with Rabbi Chaim Beck to work for the establishment of a bank for the settlement of Israel. Observing that the great division among the people interfered with action, he wrote his book Shalom Ve'achdut (Peace and Unity). The distribution of the book cost him all his fortune. It made a great impression but also caused great irritation in ultra-Orthodox circles because it called for peace and unity even for criminals. In Drohobycz where he lived, his courtyard and his synagogue became a home for all lovers of Zion. In Vienna, where we all moved at the beginning of the previous war,^[19] together with our relatives Rabbi Jacob Friedman of Bohush^[20] and Rabbi Shlomo Friedman of Sadigura, he founded the association Yishuv Eretz Israel (the settlement of Israel). The purpose of the association was to inspire Chasidim and other ultra-orthodox Jews to build Israel. The association's influence in Poland indirectly influenced the establishment of Kfar Chasidim.^[21] Finally, he emigrated to Israel, bringing with him all his family and all the families dependent on him to work for the settlement of the land. And about this miraculous immigration I will describe as follows.

This was in 5674, 1914, with the outbreak of the First World War when I was a boy about nine years old. We used to spend the summers in the Carpathian village of Użok, Ukraine,^[22] on the border of Austria and Hungary. There our grandfather from Drohobycz would travel with us to the mountain top to watch the sunrise. We rode horses bareback to practice for Zion's war. Once, my uncle, the youngest of Grandpa's sons, an uncontrolled boy, who, it seemed, existed to confront all of Grandpa's dreams with reality, galloped on a horse through one door of the apartment and left through the other, leaving behind him a house full of broken vessels and broken hearts gripped by anxiety about whether the generation would indeed be worthy of the existence of that vision … In the village, a bridge floated between two cliffs over an abyss; I will remember it as the last connection between me and the landscape of that world, because when the Tsar's troops advancing towards our village suddenly panicked and escaped, we had to leave. On that day, after Shabbat, I was removed from everything I was connected to as a child. Many years later waking up late one night in Kfar Chasidim in the Jezreel valley, I went out of my tent and saw before me Mount Carmel, its ravines and rocks illuminated by the light of the full moon. Suddenly I felt that the wound was healed and in the depths of my being I was connected again to the landscape of the world.

We drove from Użok in three carriages towards Hungary on the way to Vienna. Rumors of murders and robberies of Jews haunted us. As it was no longer possible to rent carriages, my grandfather bought them. He was forced to take the carriage driver and his family with us. The men sat in the first carriage, the women in the second, and in the last, the servants, the maids, and my mother. The coachman refused to travel with the hired help unless someone from the family sat among them, so although she was very heavy, Mother immediately jumped from the women's carriage and moved to the servants' carriage. And at that time Grandpa told us not to lose hope because we were going to Israel. All his life he aspired to go there but had been unable to leave his community and the city where he lived. Now that heaven had severed him from the community, he would never return. He vowed that at the end of the war he would sell his house and property in Drohobycz and emigrate with all of us to Israel. On the same trip, he also told us about the wonderful Jews he saw in his childhood, who would lie down to sleep wearing their kaftans, with their shtreimels on their heads, and a walking stick in their hands so that they would not be delayed, for even the slightest moment, when the Messiah arrived.

On the Hungarian border, troops came and confiscated the horses for the army. We walked for a few hours and then travelled by train in cattle wagons.

Chesed shel emet, true kindness is the grace that is done to the dead or to those who are about to die. It is a grace that is unrequited and with no expectation of recompense. In the train carriage from Budapest to Vienna, I learned from Kayam, my teacher, about the chapter in Rashi in the Torah portion of that week. The dead people I saw on the roads, dead from hunger, dead from plague, dead hanging from trees, served as a tangible interpretation of the concept of true kindness for me. Kayam the teacher came with my mother from her father's house in Parczew to educate her children from Drohobycz. At the outbreak of the war, he stayed with us, cut off from his family and everything he had in Poland and Russia. He was a tall Jew, with a long, brown beard and bushy eyebrows which hid two tiny, piercing eyes, like two gleaming sparks. He was quick-tempered and had a mighty voice. He would suddenly cry out and then lower his voice for no apparent reason. As we passed through the forest at night with the carriages, whose horses had been confiscated, to the remote train station, we were told that there were guards in the forest, who would suddenly give the command, “Stop!” You had to stand up immediately, otherwise they would shoot to kill. So, Kayam walked at the head of the caravan and as soon as he heard a guard's voice, he would repeat the command in his mighty voice and with a horrifying cry, “Stop!” so that we could all hear it well.

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And everyone remained standing as if paralyzed by the terror of this voice. Apart from that, Kayam also cried out in his sleep. Those who were aware of it said that he was calling the names of his wife and children who were separated from him, far away under the Russian rule. And some said that he scolded them in his sleep.

Chesed shel emet, true kindness is the grace that is done to the dead or to those who are about to die. The train rolled on its rails in the snow. When Kayam taught me about this work, the train was full of Jews: Jewish refugees, Jewish soldiers on leave accompanying their family members fleeing the provincial towns, frightened Jewish women, pale Jewish children, barefoot with torn clothes, packages, sacks, wardrobes, bundles and boxes. From time to time, screams were heard. A mother looked for her children. A woman had lost her husband. Only we, about twenty family members and seven servants, sat on the train benches, sticking close to each other. And when I read this chapter, I suddenly had a flash of a horrifying realization, which left a mark on my whole life and would never let go of me. Dead Jews were suddenly before my eyes, with glazed-eyes, white-faced, wearing shrouds under their clothes. Dead people from the destruction. Martyrs of the kingdom. Masses of dead from the massacre of the Roman Empire. The thousands of dead from the days of the inquisition, which my parents had told me about. People dead in fires. Dead people in ships that sank to the depths. The thousands of dead in 5408,^[23] from the Ashkenazi slaughters in the days of Khmelnytsky.^[24] People cut dead by swords. Dead people roasted on skewers. Dead people with eyes torn from their sockets. Dead people from the pogroms in Russia in the year of my birth, which I had heard about since my childhood, because my grandpa from Drohobycz established a committee for the immigration of refugees from these pogroms. At the time, they lived in Grandpa's house and in his synagogue; among them were grieving women, abandoned orphans, and disabled people who were not allowed to emigrate; they filled the days of my childhood with mourning, crying, and the grief of the dead. And now these dead have also risen and were with me on the train that was rolling in the snow. And the dead Jews of the war rose. Those whose death notices chased after us. Those who were hanged from the trees by the advancing Tsarist troops. Those who were burned alive in synagogues. Those soldiers killed at the front whose weeping widows and orphans travelled with us on this train. Suddenly, all the living passengers on the train were witnesses of the dead as well. I was gripped by fear. At first, I felt paralyzed. I touched the hand of Kayam, the teacher, to check whether he was alive or dead. Kayam, the teacher, had a bony hand with long fingers. Then I shouted in panic to my mother. I gasped when she got up from her place and came to me. I couldn't believe what I was seeing … I didn't believe the dead could walk as if they were alive.

This anxiety gripped me with a profound force; it grew stronger over time, and remained with me for the rest of my life. Whenever I was among my fellow Jews, I always had an uncertain fear that maybe they were dead or about to die. Over time, I realized how difficult it is for a Jew to be meticulous in his relations with his friend, to be punctual, keep his word, insist on the truth, when we know that even decent soldiers would pull boots from their dead comrades and wear them in the frozen weather. And every Jew knows in his soul that his neighbor will die. If not in hunger, then in war, if not in war, then in attack from an ambush, if not in an attack from the ambush, then in a pogrom, if not in a pogrom in Ukraine, then in a pogrom of Ashkenaz, that is the curse of nations. The bones of some of those who travelled with me on this train were scattered even before I became a teenager. Some died in Isonzo,^[25] and some in the forests of Poland. Some died of starvation and some of plague. And some, who survived the horrors of that war, were later slaughtered by the brutality of the murderer Hitler. Here is Reb Hershel Preminger, a short Jew, with a black beard and black fiery eyes, with a high forehead full of wrinkles, sitting three benches away from us and discussing with other Jews about an issue in the Talmud that he knows by heart. Twenty-five years later, the SS cut him into pieces, burned him with fire, and sent his ashes in a sealed box to his family. Here is the son of the old rabbi from Kopyczyńce,^[26] one of our family members, sitting in the second carriage; his thin, pointed beard is between his moving fingers and his blue eyes seem as if they are concentrated on an issue that relates to a higher world. Twenty-five years later, Hitler's murderous soldiers imprisoned him in Buchenwald concentration camp. What supreme enthusiasm captured him in his last days. He was dancing among the prisoners, clapping his hands, singing and claiming, “Jews, Jews, we are blessed that we have the privilege of being imprisoned here for our Judaism and not for any other crime.” And when the murderers saw this, they began to beat him; they stripped him naked and continued to beat him in front of all the other Jews, as he continued saying, “Jews, Jews, blessed are we that we are beaten because we are Jews”. And they beat him until he died.

I am sitting on the train that is traveling in the snow and I am traveling with the dead and with those who are about to die. Suddenly, I know that it is impossible to exist in this agony any longer and that if salvation will not come now, if it is not in our hands to bring it, then we will all be lost in the darkness forever. “Its time will come” or “Shall I hasten it?” Do not delay any longer. Shall I hasten it, Shall I hasten it, Shall I hasten it? “It's time ”

The eight years of living in Vienna, from the beginning of the war until we emigrated to Israel, passed for me like a dream on the train haunting me from station to station. Only rarely did the lines of light from distant lanterns glimmer in the darkness of this dream. Our first apartment in Vienna was on 48 Praterstraße, 4th floor. The noise of the cars, the tram, the cafes, and the pleasure houses did not stop, even at night. I didn't

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go to school. In the morning I wandered the streets, an unconstrained boy, in the noble first district, in the museums, next to Titian's naked women and Rembrandt's dark men, in the Schönbrunn Palace, which greets the public every day at this hour over the balcony of the palace, with a wave of the hand and a smile, always the same. In the pleasure district, during the changing of the guard at the old Kaiser Franz Josef in Ausstellungsstraße and Prater Street. The giant wheel, spinning on its axis and carriages full of people hanging on it, rising to the sky and descending to the ground station. Clever Moritz, a child made of wood, was amazing at answering questions. Fat Bertha whose legs were so fat that two people could not wrap their arms around one of them. The silent movie theater always open, which never stopped showing films, day and night. It was always dark there. Here you saw pictures without limit, just like the dense avenue of the Prater that goes on and on and never ends.

At night, I studied Torah, Shas, and Poskim with Rabbi Katz of Czernowitz^[27] who was the prodigy of Borszék.^[28] He was a giant who filled a quarter of the room with his body volume, who breathed like a steam engine, and emitted sounds from his mouth like a whole choir. There was a spark of wonder in this great Jew. We didn't talk about private matters, and yet, when I was troubled in body or spirit because of something that wasn't right in my life or the lives of those around me, I would confess to him by passing hints on the matters we studied. He understood the hints and brought healing to my heart. In those days, since most of the men in Vienna had been drafted into the army, women showed interest in boys like me. So, I experienced the fate of people abandoned among the Gentiles, a target for their lustful and poisoned arrows. When we lived in our second apartment in Untere Donaustraße, I heard from my bed at midnight the scream of a woman who threw herself, or was thrown, from the bridge into the river, “Adam, what have you done?” All my life, I heard this cry as a horrible rebuke to the Gentiles for everything they had done to us.

Then I began external studies. First, self-taught German with the concierge girls who helped me learn to spell. Then Roman and Greek with the professor. This professor had a distinguished past: head of a department at a famous institution, an award winner for original research in philosophy. Then he suddenly threw everything aside and came to live in my grandfather's house. All day long he would eat from the family's leftovers. In one plate, he mixed salted fish flakes with jam, honey, meat, and barley and ate them together. He ate with his fingers rather than with a spoon, with his cheeks swelling and his teeth gnashing noisily. While he was chewing, I would read Homer or Julius Caesar to him and he would correct my reading, explain, and compare, while continuously quoting passages. I wrote my first two poems in German at the time and showed them to him. He was very impressed with them and told me that he would published them in Die Neue Zeit,^[29] an important German newspaper published in Vienna at the time. Now I doubt whether he did so. He would say that I had a great future in German poetry but I needed to shake off the shackles of the ghetto and the education of my parents and teachers. His words barely entered my heart. But he kept preaching and said that the entire existence of my poetry depends on “liberation,” as he called it. There was no peace in the house or for my parents in the house at that time; this increased my embarrassment. I was very confused. I held on to stories. A funny story was told in our house, that when I was a child, I sneaked into the place where gypsies lived and later returned black as tar. I began to believe that I had been replaced. …But the tensions between me and those around me, who knew nothing about what was happening in my heart, stopped suddenly in a strange way. At night I suffered from insomnia. I would light a candle next to my bed and read books. That is how I found David Alroy by Disraeli (Lord Beaconsfield).^[30] As soon as I started reading the book, it was as if it had been written just for me. And when I got to the chapter in which David Alroy climbed over a fence into an orchard in the princes' palace, then mounted a saddled horse which was waiting for him there so that he could leave everything behind him and rush to the aid of his people – suddenly, all that Germanism that the desperate professor had been trying to push into me, fell from me like a wax mask. In my night shirt, I jumped from my bed – I was about eleven years old at the time – and went with the candle to the mezuzah at the door of the room. I tightened my fingers on it and swore that I would never again write poems in German and that I would not write poems at all until I know how to write them in the holy language.

I felt the weight of the diaspora, the anguish of exile, “Zion or death,” even more strongly in meetings with “them,” with the Gentiles, the rulers of this world. At first, I felt sorry for them. I learned in the Torah how bitter Esau's fate was, when his birthright was taken from him – not in an honest way. I read in the Talmud about the expected punishments of the Gentiles in the world to come. I knew that the Holy One does not love them. And I felt sorry for them. And I asked myself, “What is the crime that they were born Gentiles and I was born Jewish? What sin caused them to destroy our temple and exile us from our land? After all, God chose them for this despicable mission. Them and not us. Should I be proud of God's love for us? Should I be ashamed of this, just as I was ashamed in front of my brother or sisters when my mother showed me too much love? There should be equality in the world. And if God preferred us by following the love of his heart – I will cover for the disgrace of his love, I will correct the mistakes. For his sake I will do it … And when brutal Alu, the

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head of the Gentiles on the banks of the Danube, who once rudely insulted me and cursed me – “Damn Jew!” What might such a boy feel after he insulted his friend with no clear reason? How does he feel about the pure blood he sheds without reason? Can he sleep calmly on his bed now? God, I would not like to feel his stubbornness now. And I said to him: – Look, I could insult you now just as your brother did to me, but I will not do so, because I am a Jew… What did he do? He ran home crying and told them that he was insulted, beaten, and injured. Alu came running to the river's edge. I stood straight and upright. I knew the value of the good deed I had done. I fulfilled an express commandment, “You will not take revenge or hold a grudge.” And then the first blow from Alu's fist beat me, followed by the second and the third and many more. I wanted to shout but I could not. I was shocked by the injustice. I could not even return a blow, because of the agitation of my soul. And even if I would have answered – who was I, a ten-year-old exiled boy, compared to a citizen of Vienna, a wild man, fifteen or sixteen years old, who spent his days walking idly in the street, terrorizing the whole neighborhood? He was always sitting at the bottom of the stairs of our residence together with many Gentiles girls who became women too soon, including four of the concierge's daughters, all of them prostitutes. Three of them loved me, but the fourth, a devout, shriveled Catholic, had a deadly hatred of me. Every time I went down the stairs, she would incite Alu against me. He would curse me, spit at me, throw stones or dirt at me. Exiting from the door of my house became to a torture from hell.

Once again, I tried to be better. Alu walked in front of me with two glasses full of beer in both hands. He left the pub excited and walked along the street. I followed him, looking at his fat, sweaty neck. Suddenly a bill fell out of his pants' pocket. He didn't notice it; hurrying on his way, he entered a side alley. I picked up the money, ran after him, and caught up to him. Alu, I called happily, you dropped this bill. Here! – “Wait,” said Alu; he put the two glasses of beer on the sidewalk, took the money bill from my hand, and slapped me twice on my cheeks without saying anything. Then, for the first time in my life, I hit him back. With all the anger I had in me, with all the anger I felt for the injustice. With my fists and my feet, my teeth and my claws, I hit and wounded more and more… I don't know what happened to Alu. As for me, I lost a tooth in that battle and all my clothes were full of blood.

Little by little, fear of them took over me, fear and hatred. I felt that they had done so much harm to us, that only our deaths could release them from the guilt that our daily existence burdened them with. I remembered a cat whose kittens had been killed by one of them. The cat went berserk. The boys then decided that it was necessary to kill the mother as well, lest it take revenge for its kittens. And they did so. Coolly. They caught the cat with a rope, cut it with knives, cut it into pieces while its limbs were still fluttering. And I saw the blood and heard the wail. And suddenly I had a great fear for the people of Israel in exile among these wolves.

Meanwhile the war raged in Isonzo; thousands of people were killed. Every Jewish soldier with a firstborn son would perform the redemption of the son (Pid'yon Haben) in our apartment in front of Grandpa from Drohobycz. The father, dressed in his uniform, would bring the swaddled baby in his arms before the priest who would redeem him with a gold coin as “Holy to the Lord.” Almost always the father would be sent to the front the very next day, and almost always we would hear two or three weeks later that he had died in the war or was missing in Isonzo. I remember these Jewish soldiers, unknown fighters of a war that was not theirs, dying on the field of slaughter, and there was no mention of their names … An officer, who spoke fluent Hebrew, dreamt of the Israeli army in his country … Rabbi Mendeli who served the officers – he was a small, thin Jew, who would not allow the military scissors to remove a single hair from his thinning beard – stood all day in a prayer with tefillin sticking out from under his soldier's hat and the wrinkled tallit covering his entire uniform … Isaiah “Bull,” a violent guy from Drohobycz, broad, big-armed, with a voice of a lion. He was missing on the third day of his departure to Isonzo. His traces were not found …

And Kaiser Franz Josef died. All the Jews of Vienna mourned his death. Two hundred horsemen on white horses passed before his coffin; thousands of attendants, including the entire Jewish community, followed it, the rabbis and the refugee rabbis, the dignitaries of the community. The royalty of Europe led burial procession. The horses marched in formation. Chariots of gold, silver, and copper, the people in the chariots dressed in magnificent clothes, behind them people with tassels and drawn swords, and everyone was silent. There was something fateful about this silent funeral.

And King Karl took his place – and Zita, his queen. People talked about her, about her hatred of Israel. And Otto, the heir to the throne. One day I saw all three of them on a galloping chariot, unaccompanied, and I was stunned, silent. Shots were heard from the parliament building. And a Jewish guy who lived in our home – many from Poland and Galicia who were in Vienna in those days would stay with us – returned home, covered in dirt, his pants torn. He had been trampled by the fleeing crowds during the riots that broke out when the shots were fired by the parliament guards. And you could see

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ordinary soldiers approach high-ranking officers, even generals with red stripes on their trousers, and remove the stars from the collars of their uniforms … and the ordinary soldiers would sometime slap the high- ranking officers and generals. Some of officers accepted it, others tried to avoid it. And when our maid talked to me about the rights of the working men, she would immediately become silent when someone entered the room. And you could hear gunshots all night; in the morning, there was a loud call that the city of Vienna was being guarded by Jewish soldiers. And indeed, it almost was. They feared a lot for the fate of the Jewish residents during those days of chaos, the days of transition from war to peace, from Empire to Republic. All the Jewish troops in the Austrian army were organized in one association. Since most of the other soldiers' organizations had been disbanded, the organization of Jewish soldiers was the most cohesive and most responsible group in guarding the city for many days. Thus, the boys of Israel went about with a light blue and white tie on the sleeves of their Austrian uniform and guarded the city. A city that was not theirs, which tomorrow would be ruled by foreigners, and which after twenty-five years, would remove every Jewish soul from it. Proudly they walked the streets, their boots clicked in order and discipline on the sidewalks, on the same streets and on the same sidewalks where in twenty-five years, the heads and the dear ones of the community, gentle women and babies, would be ordered to scrape the garbage from the stones with their fingers –anyone who refused would be shot in the heart, hit by a whip, trampled by a nailed Nazi boot… In the meantime, Jewish soldiers walked faithfully on their guard.

In those days, the people of Israel were promised the right to return to their land. Many days before, during negotiations with the leaders of the countries in San Remo,^[31] my elder from Drohobycz was walking strangely, as if he were not of this world. The house was quiet. He neither ate nor drank. He waited for news. Then a telegram arrived stating that there were groups of religious Jews, committed to the exile, who were objecting to the declaration. It was necessary that more powerful people intervene to show that these groups did not speak in the name of religious Judaism as a whole. My elder opened the “cabinet of fire,” that was the iron safe in which all his money and valuables were kept. He assembled several Jews who would compose telegrams – all with the same text – have them signed by pious people, and send them to San Remo. In those days, my elder founded the association Yishuv Eretz Israel (the settlement of Israel) that was intended to unify all religious Jews for the building of Israel. Many of its members signed the telegrams. They didn't stop writing, signing, and sending until the last penny in the cabinet was gone. That day was the eve of the Sabbath; he had spent all the money intended for our Sabbath needs on the delivery of the telegrams. Nevertheless, I don't remember our being hungry that Saturday. We all waited together with anticipation for the old man to receive news.

And the news arrived. First in a telegram, then in special editions of the German Zionist newspaper, the Wiener Morgenzeitung. A stream of tears burst from the old man's eyes as he snatched the newspaper from the hand of the its distributor. He gathered all of us, all his sons and daughters-in-law, his daughter and son-in-law, grandchildren, and the household workers to read the content of the news and commanded us to stand still for a few moments, so that we would remember this special moment for the rest of our lives and tell the next generations about it. “A song of ascents. When God restores the exiles to Zion it will seem like a dream. Our mouths shall be filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy.”^[32] Laughing and crying, crying and laughing, he ended the moment of silence with Psalm. Then he suddenly went down to the street, bought all the special editions of the newspapers from a newspaper seller, and stood alone, a large Jew with a long, bright beard waving in the wind, wearing a silk kaftan, his eyes full of tears through his gold glasses, distributing the newspapers free to all Jews, to every passer-by. He pressed the last newspaper to his chest, close to his heart, and his voice wailed with a great cry: “Blessed are You, the Lord, our God, King of the Universe, who has granted us life and sustained us, and let us arrive at this time.”

That day was no surprise for us. It was the day we had hoped for all our lives, and when it came, it seemed inevitable to us. We had not studied the Torah as an irrelevant book. Jerusalem was a living city for us. The thousands of years of history of Israel were integrated for us in the period in which we lived. Its destruction seemed like yesterday. And redemption will inevitably come now, or at least soon in our days. Starting with the Rambam who interpreted the article, “there is no difference between this world and the days of the Messiah except for enslavement by kingdoms as “it is right behind our wall” through the end of days prophecies in the Zohar, the Sefer Hayashar, the Mikve Israel by Menashe Ben Israel that our father used to share with us – there was always a thread in our hearts leading us to the return to Zion. And now that the time had arrived, we needed to prepare for it, which meant hard, manual work. “For you will eat from the labor of your hands. You will be happy and all will be well with you” – “fortunate are you in this world and happy will be your fate in the world to come.” Here, in exile for the time being, it was possible for my elder to become a rabbi, to continue a dynasty of rabbis. There, in the Holy Land, on the land that God blessed, it would be necessary that he, his sons, and grandsons return to work and craft as did Rabbi Yochannan, the Shoemaker,^[33] Rabbi Isaac Nappaha,^[34] and the wife of Rabbi Gershon of Kitov, who washed underwear in Jerusalem.^[35]

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At first, the old man thought of learning a craft himself. But he soon recognized that he had no time for that. The idea of being a simple worker in Israel attracted him – to dig, to remove stones, to clean the streets. And indeed, when he arrived in Jerusalem, he established an association for “those who build the land by using their bodies.” He, his followers, and his people, the members of the association, went out every day to one of the Bukhari streets and worked there for a few hours. They removed garbage, straightened the street for paving, and did similar jobs … But for the time being in Vienna, it was enough for him that his sons would learn crafts.

My father, his eldest son, who was a great scholar in revealed and hidden texts, knew how to play music and paint. First, he chose a job closest to his heart, that of surveying. However, when he was told that this job alone would not support him with dignity in Israel, my grandfather managed to find someone who sold him a chemical factory, paid for with money from the sale of his house and property in Drohobycz. There were machines, along with oils, acids, papers, and various compounds to exterminate pests in Israel, such as mosquitoes that bring malaria, germs, flies, and other kinds of pests. My father had already learned about the management of this factory in Vienna, and I learned about assembling the materials. I blended, mixed, cooked, and stirred all kinds of mixtures of oils and powders in large cauldrons, according to well-known recipes. Some of these were poured into bottles, some were packed into packs, and some were poured on top of paper, to make them sticky to catch flies … Apart from that, my wish was to become a mason in Israel.

Grandpa's second son Reb Zelenio was a thin Jew with a bright beard, full of spirituality, son-in-law to a rabbi from Paşcani in Romania. During the war he had been detained as a foreigner in a Romanian concentration camp (as mentioned, for generations we had all retained our Jerusalem citizenship). He had just returned to Vienna, broken and tired, with his pregnant wife and their daughter, and was training to be a blacksmith. It made him pros that his face was blackened with soot and his hands hardened from the hammer. However, after a few months, he became sick and was forced to switch to an easier job. Again, my grandfather found a man who sold him the machines and equipment of an electric bookbinding factory. My uncle Reb Zelenio began to learn this job and already in Vienna, became a well-known, experienced bookbinder. Isaac Buchbinder and his wife, an honest family of workers from Poland, worked for him as instructors and apprentices. Abraham Köstenbaum from Drohobycz, who was knowledgeable in many fields and from whom I received the first Hebrew books to read, along with notes and explanations, worked for my uncle. Both he and Isaac Buchbinder emigrated with us to Israel. Isaac Buchbinder works at his craft in Tel Aviv to this day, and Abraham Köstenbaum is now one of the leaders of Hapoel HaMizrachi^[36] in Israel.

The third son Isaac, a funny, kind-hearted person, left his humanistic studies and learned to be a watchmaker; he is faithful to this profession in Israel to this day. Grandfather's fourth son, the one who rode a horse through one door of our apartment in the Carpathian village and left through the other door, was destined to be my helper in assembling the chemical materials.

Apart from them, grandfather's son-in-law, the nephew of the Rabbi of Gvoditz, was also preparing for Aliyah and a craft. He was a small Jew with a round, black beard, which was “starched” in soap to look like he just got a haircut. From his youth, he had had experience in crafts. He had all kinds of tools and devices and would stand all day wrapped in a tallit and a tefillin and in front of his admiring children, would paint the curtain of the ark, decorations for a Sukkah, and decorations for Shavuot. He also repaired tools, painted, worked in carpentry, and cut keys. In our group, he was the one who specialized in everything and was in charge of the tools. He was already packing things and getting them ready for the trip. His name was Reb Selig, like my uncle's, and his wife's name was Reizel, like my aunt. To distinguish between them they were given nicknames corresponding to their height; they called him little Seligel and his wife little Reizele, while my uncle was called big Zelenio and his wife big Reizele.

The treasurer of the group was the man who was Grandfather's gabbay^[37] at that time, Reb Jacob Hennig of Sadigura. He, his wife, and son were also ready to go with us on the road to Zion. The treasury had to remain shared even after the factories were opened and everyone ate together.

Three girls, who in the mornings cooked and worked as housekeepers for the families, also worked in the factories. They also emigrated with us and later became homeowners in Israel.

We must also add my old grandmother, my grandfather's mother, the late Rebbitzin Feigele. She was the granddaughter of the Ruzhyn rabbi. She was a living monument to the glory of Ruzhyn, to the Malchut Beit David (Kingdom of the House of David) as chasidim used to call them, or the Molchis, as my mother, who, being from a family of Polish rabbis, despised their outward appearance and used to twist their names. From this grandmother, I heard that chasidism came into the world solely to prepare Israel for independence, an independence of both freedom and discipline. From her I also heard the parable about the man from Ruzhyn who was asked why he and his household members were flamboyant in their clothing and meticulous in their appearance, unlike the custom of the other rabbis; he told his followers, “This is a story about a beggar, who was dying. He asked his

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sons to come to him so that he could divide the inheritance among them. He mutilated all of his children – he cut off the leg of the first, the arm of the second and he made the third blind - so that they would arouse feelings of pity so that people would give them alms and they would be able to make a living. When he reached his youngest son, a beautiful and innocent boy, the father felt pity for him and he said, “To you, my youngest son, I am not bequeathing any blemish; since you have not been touched, you can make a living solely on the perfection of your body.” The lesson is the messengers of Israel who preceded us had to beg the Holy One, with broken hearts, and we, the last generation to be enslaved, with a light in our eyes and upright standing will obtain from him what is due to his people …”

Indeed, in this old lady I saw the power to live as a regular human being, without the practice of sanctification and devotion, yet to believe and convince others in the belief that every simple movement in life is sacred. Eating and drinking, talking with others, going for a walk, travelling to a summer home - everything is a mitzvah of God. Only in one other person, the old Rabbi of Husiatin (Husyatyn, Ukraine), who now lives among us in Tel Aviv, have I seen this supreme simplicity. He is the only one of the old rabbis who was in contact with people in the Israeli kibbutzim, and he is perhaps the only one among the religious establishment, who did not ask them about mikvehs, kashrut, and forbidden foods, but rather about the number of people, about cows and sheep, and about the cultivation of vegetables. Even at the memorial ceremony, on the day when the late Rabbi Israel of Ruzhyn died, which was held in 5703 (1943) when these lines were written, at the synagogue named after Nissim Bek in the old city, when the old rabbi led the ceremony and thousands of chasidim were waiting for his speech, one of his followers, who was wild, with long sideburns and a shaggy beard, approached the rabbi, trembling and sweating, to look more closely at his intentions. Then the old rabbi took out a small mirror and comb from his vest pocket and began to fix the hairs of his beard and the curls of his trimmed sideburns to the amazement of the follower.

This is how my old grandmother used to act – a woman whose husband died while she was still young, who had lived as a widow for about sixty years, and was the housewife and the lady of the house of her beloved, eldest son R. Chaimonio, who is my grandfather from Drohobycz. Every matter in this house, big or small, would have been decided by her. All the servants and members of the family obeyed her. And every new thing that came up would have reached her first and would have been solved by her with great wisdom. If a grandson or a great-grandson was sick, she was the one who decided which doctor should be called and a detailed report of his actions would have been given to her. When a servant girl reached the age of marriage, she would decide on her marriage, talk to the tailor about clothing, decide on the dowry, and determine the time and the place of the wedding. Needless to say, she did the same for all of her many children and grandchildren. And all calmly, without excitement, without raising her voice.

Only once did I see her become angry and immediately receive her “punishment.” It was at the wedding in Vienna of her grandson, my uncle the watchmaker. The wedding took place in the hall of the Continental Hotel, a few months before our emigration. The men dined at tables set up in half a circle in the middle of the hall. The women were in one gallery and we, the children, were in the gallery on the other side. The galleries had no railings and waxed stairs led down from them to the hall. To someone who was not paying attention to details, the platforms appeared in the light of the chandeliers to be at the same level as the hall and the stairs seemed not to exist. At the end of the feast, a famous Jewish violinist, of chasidic origin, who came to entertain the Rabbi and his relatives on this most joyous day, stepped on a table that was placed in the middle of the hall. The women sitting at the old grandmother's table left their seats in the gallery and went down the stairs to the hall to be closer to the musician. Even the children who sat with me did the same. In the opposite gallery, only the old grandmother was left sitting. In my gallery, only I was left. The music, growing louder and louder, captured the heart. Sighs were heard in the hall. The men wailed from the sweetness. The women wiped their tears. And suddenly, I saw from a distance that my old grandmother, moved to the power of the music, stood up. She raised her eyes and began to walk, as if pulled by an unknown force, in the direction of the stairs going down to the hall which had no railing. I was sure that she did not see them. I wanted to shout and warn her but the distance between us was too great. I started to run towards her through the full hall but only managed to help lift her from the floor where she had rolled after falling down of all the stairs. Her leg was broken. Our emigration to Israel was delayed by several weeks until her leg healed. In my memory, she is always alive, a slender woman, gentle in her walk, with her eyes raised up, towards the stars.

The second time that she amazed me was about two years later when we were already in Jerusalem, about a month after my grandfather's death. She called the whole family into her room. She entered, elegantly and immaculately dressed, as was her habit. She said, “I loved this son of mine, Rabbi Chaimonio, your father and your grandfather, more than all my other sons and even more than the only daughter born to me. They all died while I was alive. I consoled myself with the thought, “I hope that this one would live longer than me. I also thought that, if this one dies – God forbid – I will not be able to live long. And here he is dead and a month has passed and I'm still alive. And more than that, I feel that I wish to live longer. And I'm ashamed of that…”

She died a few years later, after the events of 5689 (1929), when all her ancestors suddenly woke up in her presence and she conversed with them aloud for several weeks. She was about ninety-seven years old when she died.

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K.

With thirty people, some of whom were family members and some employees and members of the household, we emigrated on Adar 5682 with the Rabbi of Drohobycz from Vienna to Israel. All our luggage was placed in three train cars, loaded with machinery, furniture, barrels of oil, rolls of paper, books, Torah scrolls, boxes of clothes, and sacks of pillows and quilts. Calls of farewell were heard from the hundreds who came with the Chief Rabbi Zvi Peretz Chajes to say goodbye at the train station in Vienna; they were a roar of longing from a tribe of exiles for their country and their homeland. This call still echoes in me to this day as the last call of despair of a holy and mighty community that was drowning and descending into an abyss. The journey in the train, ships, and boats until we reached the port of Jaffa passed like a dream within a dream. And when my late grandfather disembarked and walked on the land of Israel and bent to kiss it, grant love to it, and water it with his tears, we all knew that he needed great understanding, that he would not lose his enthusiasm by the power of the moment. We all did the same. We prostrated ourselves on the ground of Israel and wept.

But the dream was not similar to the reality. Not that we were disappointed in later years ¬ God forbid. The star that led us here was a true star. We settled in this land and our tribe reached from Dan to Beer Sheva. Some in work and some in Torah, some in pioneering and some in vision, and some in a martyr's death, like Kalman Shapira – may God avenge him – who was slaughtered in the Shneller grove in Jerusalem on the day my grandfather died. I picked him up. Some lived a life of work and faith in the ranks of the workers and builders, or in the companies of Hebrew soldiers. However, in those early days, all the old man's plans came to nothing and everything crumbled. To live up to what he always said, “Israel will be built only by those who know the secret of sowing without reaping, of building a house and not sitting in it, of planting a vineyard and not desecrating it. Because the sin of hatred with no reason led us to destruction and thanks to unconditional love, redemption will come”.

As soon as we arrived in Jerusalem, where we planned to live, it became clear that buying the factories was a mistake. The machines had been made to run on electricity, but there was no trace of electricity in Jerusalem at that time. At first, we were discouraged and we would eat from the prepared food and drink from the preserved wine of the glory of Jerusalem. We acted as if we were drunk from the sights and sounds on nights of the full moon, on the glorious days in front of the wall of Mount Zion, in the Valley of Olives, between the silent mountains and the rocks. And then we consulted with an inventor from among the old craftsmen of Jerusalem, who constructed oil-fired engines to operate the machines. We immediately rented large basements in houses in the Kolel Ungarin^[38] neighborhood. We set up the machines, fired the smoky engines, and started working. We were crushing and stirring, boiling and gluing, packing and shipping, and because of the lack of chimneys, our faces were black from the soot of the burning oil, our hands were burnt and charred, our breath was heavy in the closed cellars, and the sweat poured from our bodies. We found agents and peddlers, who were going around with our products and calling for a great war against pests, malaria mosquitoes, dysentery germs, and black flies that spread the typhoid. The bookbinding enterprise also started, working at full power with big cutting machines and presses. Bindings were brought to the market; Jerusalem had never seen this before. But soon, our joint fund almost ran out, and when the accounts were checked, it became clear that the ratio of income to expenditure was about one to a hundred. That is to say, for every lira they earned, they spent one hundred liras, and from the ten thousand liras that were once in the old man's Aliyah fund, there was nothing left but a tiny amount. A few more desperate efforts, a few more weeks of the mechanism dying, then the work stopped. The machines of the bookbinding house were the first to be sold to creditors. At the time, my uncle, the bookbinder, lost his second infant daughter, who was born in Israel and fell ill (I was awake by her crib for several nights in the Misgav Ladach Hospital in the old city. The sunrises I saw then on the Mount of Olives and Mount Scopus, and on the roofs of Old Jerusalem from the porch of the upper floor will remain with me forever). Because my uncle and his wife were broken and desperate because of their daughter's death, they let us do whatever we wanted with their property. Later he worked as a bookbinder for other owners and continues in this work in Tel Aviv to this day. It was then time to sell equipment of the chemical industry. We sold what we could; what was left was useless garbage. The cracked oil barrels stood under the hot sun; their contents soaked into the ground. And the stores of paper that were laid out in rolls in a deserted courtyard of the houses of the Bukharans^[39], earned the honor of exhaling their soul “in holiness.” On the night of Lag Ba'Omer, mischievous boys set them on fire; the flames ascended to the sky of Jerusalem and they were turned into ashes. My father returned to the work of surveying; later he was among the surveyors of Kfar Chasidim, along with his role as a rabbi for the rest of my grandfather's followers. I went through several changes of work and study and finally settled with the chassidim who settled in Nachalat Ya'akov and Avodat Israel, which were later united under the name Kfar Chasidim.

A few months after our immigration to Israel, my grandfather fell ill and travelled to Vienna for surgery. The operation did not go well. My grandfather asked the doctor how many days he had left to live. “Two weeks,” replied the surgeon. My grandfather asked to return to

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Israel and die there. The surgeon told him that he would not be able to return to Israel alive, unless a doctor would be by his side all the way. My grandfather was lucky, since among the students of that famous surgeon was a young doctor, Dr Kohlberg, the son of one of his close followers. He volunteered to bring him to Jerusalem. A short time before his death, the late poet H. N. Bialik visited him for the first and last time. Their conversation was about the secret of the mitzvah of visiting the sick and of the Jewish commitment to each other. A few moments before he died, my grandfather gave a signal. The box for the Jewish National fund was hanging above his head and was presented to him. He slipped a one-lira note into it that he apparently had ready for that purpose. His last words were: “Dear father … Mother Jerusalem.”

Editor's Notes

1. The author if this article S. Shalom is the Hebrew poet Shin Shalon, the son of Rabbi Chaim Meyer Yehiel Shapira. Recollections of his childhood in Drohobycz are described in an impressionist, poetic manner. See the chapter in this book “The Rabbi of Drohobycz” - Rabbi Chaim Meyer Yehiel Shapira. Return
2. Sadigura, a hassidic dynasty founded in the town of Sadhora (Yiddish; Sadigura) in the Austro-Hungarian province of Bukowina. Return
3. Belz, a hassidic dynasty founded in the town of Belz in western Ukraine near the Polish border. Return
4. Franz Josef I of Austria (1830-1916) was Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, and the other states of the Austro-Hungarian Empire from 1848 until his death. Unlike the Tsar of Russia, the Jews of the Austro-Hungarian Empire admired Franz Josef. Return
5. Tsar: this refers to the Russian monarchs, whose policies were anti-Semitic. Return
6. Ptcha, is an Aszkenazi Jewish dish in which calves feet are cooked in aspic. Return
7. Shamash: the sexton in a synagogue. Return
8. Tikkun Chatzot is the ritual prayer recited each night after midnight as an expression of lamentation for the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Return
9. Mazurs, Poles from the region of Masovia. The word was sometimes used to refer to Poles in general. Return
10. Psalm 2:1. Return
11. Several times in this article, the author refers to his “Elder” (Zikni – Hebrew). The reference is to his grandfather Rabbi Chaim Meyer Yehiel Shapira, often called R' Chaimoni. See “The Rabbi of Drohobycz– Rabbi Chaim Meyer-Yehiel Shapira zt'l” by Yosef Kitai. Return
12. Translated from the Yiddish in the text. Return
13. Psalm 137. Return
14. Petachiah of Regensburg: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petachiah_of_Regensburg. Return
15. Peshischa (Yiddish: פשיסחה) was an important hasidic school of thought based in Przysucha, Peshischa Poland founded by Yaakov Yitzchak Rabinowicz and flourished during the late 18^th to early 19^th century. Return
16. Rabbi Israel Friedman of Rhuzhin founded one of the most influential dynasties in the history of the hasidic movement. The rabbi later moved to Sadigura (Sadhora, Ukraine) in the former Austrian province of Bukovina, near the city of Chernivtsi. Return
17. The Rabbi's extravagant lifestyle aroused the jealousy of the Russian Tsar Nicholas I, who had him imprisoned. one of the most influential dynasties in the history of the hasidic movement. After his release, the Rabbi fled to Sadigura (Sadhora, Ukraine) in the former Austrian province of Bukovina, near the city of Chernivtsi, where he reestablished his rabbinical court. Return
18. Laurence Oliphant (1829-1888), born in South Africa, was a member of the British Parliament, was an early proponent of creating a home for the Jewish people in Palestine. Although the author refers to him as a minister, he was a member of the British Parliament. Return
19. The war referred to here is the First World War. Return
20. Bohush (Yiddish: בוהוש) is a hasidic dynasty named for the town of Buhuși, Romania Return
21. Kfar Hasidim in northern Israel was established in 1924. Return
22. Uzok, now Uzhok, Ukraine is a village in the Carpathian mountains. Return
23. The pogroms of the year 1648 Return
24. Bohdan Khmelnytsky was a Ukrainian commander of the Zaporozhian Host, then part of the military of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. From 1654-1658, he led an uprising against the Commonwealth that resulted in the creation of an independent Ukrainian Cossack state. After concluding a treaty with the Russian Tsar in 1654, he placed central Ukraine under Russian control. Khmelnytsky wished to eradicate Jews from Ukraine and tortured and killed tens of thousands of them between 1648 and 1656. Return
25. This likely refers to the battles of the Isonzo, a series of twelve battles between the Austro-Hungarian and Italian armies in the First World War in the territory of present-day Slovenia and also in Italy along the Isonzo River. Return
26. Kopyczyńce, now Kopychyntsi in Ukraine, is a town in the area of Ternopil Return
27. Czernowitz: present day Chernivtsi in Ukraine. Return
28. Borszék (Hungarian): present day Borsec, Romania. Return
29. Die Neue Zeit (New Times) was a German socialist theoretical journal of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), published from 1883 to 1923. Return
30. The Wondrous Tale of Alroy is the sixth novel by Benjamin Disraeli, who would later become Prime Minister of Britain. Return
31. San Remo conference: The San Remo conference was an international meeting after the First World War of the Allied Supreme Council held in San Remo, Italy in April 1920. On 25 April, it passed a resolution which determined the mandates for the administration of three then-undefined Ottoman territories in the Middle East, Palestine, Syria, and Mesopotamia. Return
32. Psalm 26: 1-2 Return
33. Johanan HaSandlar, lit. Johanan the Sandalmaker (or Shoemaker) lived in the second century, possibly in Alexandria in Egypt. He was one of the main students of Rabbi Akiva. Return
34. Rabbi Isaac Nappaha or Isaac the Smith was a rabbi of the third and fourth centuries in the Galilee. Return
35. Abraham Gershon of Kitov, also known as Rabbi Gershon of Brody was probably born in Kuty, Poland around 1701 and died in Jerusalem in 1761. He was the Baal Shem Tov's brother-in-law. Return
36. Hapoel HaMizrachi, a political party and settlement movement in Israel. Return
37. Gabbay: a person who assists in the running of a synagogue. Return
38. Kolel Ungarin is a neighbourhood in Jerusalem built by Kolel Ungarin, a Hungarian Jewish charity that supported Jews living in Israel. Return
39. The Bukharim Quarter is a neighborhood in the center of Jerusalem Return

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