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Grandpa Yankel Bunim's children were passionate and impetuous. Their world of thoughts lacked structure and balance. Their kindness and warmth of heart simply bordered on stupidity many times. They were naive and believed everyone. They did work for the community with zeal and dedication. They were ready to sacrifice themselves for an ideal, and when they did something for a person, they always thought it was still not enough.
Yankel Bunim himself was not exactly a placid person either, but he did not have the effervescent temperament of his children. It may be that in his youth he had also been as hot-blooded as his sons, but he probably had to adapt his behavior to the customs and mood of the times.
Yankel Bunim was able to come to terms with a situation. Impoverished as he was, he processed the changes from his former personal, economic and social circumstances in a philosophical way. He tried to settle into his situation and calmly accept his fate.
Yankel Bunim was not a doubter. He scared away emerging sadness and melancholy. He loved life because he loved his wife from the bottom of his heart and, as sick and broken as he was, he did not accept moods of skepticism and small-mindedness.
Yankel Bunim did not try to impose his definite and clear philosophy of life on his children. He taught and explained to them his views about the world, God and people. However, he did not insist that they behave as he did.
His views were different from those of Grandpa Khayim Osher. They were also different from that small minority in the shtetl who had an objective worldview. After all, there were not many people in the shtetl who had such a broad general education. He was a Jewish scholar, well educated in Talmudic knowledge, who was also interested in world literature.
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Yankel Bunim himself tried to write. His written reflections were clearly and directly formulated and of great scope. He usually wrote novellas and kept his literary works, which he guarded with great care, wrapped in a blue ribbon. If he had lived in a big city, he might have made something of himself.
But his illness and love for his wife bound him firmly to Krynki and did not let him go out into the wide world to fight for a place within the burgeoning Yiddish literature. As far as I can remember, he wrote in the style of Mendele Moykher Sforim[1].
Yankel Bunim was influenced by the Haskalah[2] and counted himself among the representatives of this philosophy. In Krynki, however, he was unable to significantly advance the impact of the Haskalah movement, and so he was content to fight the Hasids.
Moreover, he considered Hasidism to be idolatry and felt that it seduced, deadened, and did not let the Jews out of their dull corner into which the exile had forced them.
Yankel Bunim spoke excellent Russian. Despite his poverty, he subscribed to the Russian newspaper “Retsh” (“Rech”) and the Hebrew “Ha-Tsfira”.
He was one of the few in the shtetl who could add and multiply well.
He liked to discuss and did so passionately and impatiently.
Yankel Bunim considered himself a spiritual aristocrat. Usually he turned off and away from a man whose views he did not accept. Essentially however, he was tolerant and even conducted his fight against the Hasids with forbearance. He was in the habit of severely chiding adults for letting their schoolchildren attack the Slonimer Rabbi.
He considered this a great sin.
Because of Yankel Bunim's love for the Enlightenment movement, he did not oppose his sons when they began to join the rebellion against the government.
He understood that times had changed and that one could not turn off the new thoughts that were spreading among the youth.
After all, he himself was different and he knew how difficult it was to fight against deeply rooted views and concepts of life.
Yankel Bunim did not want to prevent the sons from joining forces with the “brothers and sisters”. However, he demanded that they not do anything that would shame him.
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Grandpa used to encourage his children to leave Russia, knowing only too well that he could not make them stay at his side. And in addition, he was aware that their participation in the revolutionary movement put them in danger not only of losing their freedom, but also their lives.
Yankel Bunim‘s sons joined the revolutionary movement body and soul. Loud and hot-headed fellows they were, and when they committed themselves to something, they did so with fire and passion.
In the shtetl there were only two families, that of Yankel Bunim and of Yonah the Stolyer, whose sons and daughters were almost all active in the first ranks of the revolutionary movement, not only in Krynki but also in Grodno and Bialystok.
Most cruel blows of fate befell Yankel Bunim. He was a sick person. His shortness of breath used to torment him. In order to facilitate his breathing, he used a kind of tube, which he formed from a book cover. Inside the tube was absorbent cotton soaked in carbolic[3]. This mixture gave off oxygen as it evaporated rapidly[4].
He held the tube to his mouth again and again. Without it, he could not breathe.
He was never able to sleep peacefully through the night. He got up dozens of times, because his shortness of breath always woke him up.
His illness, shortness of breath, was the result of a cold. A Grodner doctor instructed him to use the tube and showed him how to use it.
A while later, Grandma Sime Feygl fell ill, and her illness made her a completely different person. A gland stopped working, and this caused her to become obese, which interfered with her mobility and led to digestive problems.
They took her to the best doctors in all the towns around Krynki. She took remedies to lose weight. This did not make her lose a bit of weight, but at least it prevented additional fat accumulation. Grandpa's and Grandma's life was hard and poor.
Continuously they lived in hardship and misery. They could never afford to live in a comfortable apartment, it was always cramped, and often they lived in apartments that did not even have a wooden floor.
Their largest
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apartment had two rooms. And I still remember some apartments that had only one small, narrow room. Grandpa earned his living by selling lottery tickets that promised a “big win.” However, the lottery tickets not only did not bring a “big win,” but no win at all. His lots brought no luck. The lots were bought only out of respect for him and because the youth appreciated that his sons were revolutionaries.
His sons, Yankel Bunim had six of them, can, with the exception of my father and an older brother, be called heroes of the revolutionary movement, both in the 1905 revolution and far earlier.
His youngest son, Mair, was torn apart by a bomb in Bialystok. This happened when he came with two other boys (one of them also from Krynki) from Zabludow, a shtetl next to Bialystok, to throw a bomb at a meeting of the highest officials with Brash, the Grodner governor. This (meeting) took place in the shtetl Vashlikove (Vasilków). On the way, the bomb exploded and the three boys and the coachman were blown to pieces.
When people did not want to buy raffle tickets because they had never won, he (Yankel) would equip himself with an object and raffle it off; a gold watch, a ring, a brooch for a woman or some other piece of jewelry. He kept the item in a beautiful box that was wrapped in either blue or red plush.
The jewelry was carefully wrapped in thin paper, and the box itself was also wrapped in a colored cloth.
His customers were mostly factory workers whom he visited in the tanneries. He then carefully took out the item and let the people admire it. In front of their eyes there was a lottery ticket on the article that had a chance of winning. The drawing of lots, however, took place either at Bes-Hamedresh or at the home of a respected citizen. A child usually drew a number. And everyone learned who the lucky guy was.
Translator's footnotes:
My memory of my Grandfather, Yankel Bunim, does not go back to the time when my father was doing military service.
This is strange because I still remember his daughters, the elder Henye and the younger Sore, clearly.
I also remember the story told about Grandpa's oldest son, Ahron Velvel, who had been deported to Siberia, and the other two sons, Moyshe Berl and Khayim Shloyme, who had fled to America because of revolutionary events.
But my memory of Grandpa Yankel Bunim and Grandma Sime Feygl begins only from my “Pidyen-Haben”[1].
The Pidyen-Haben was organized when I was already exactly four years old. I was Yankel Bunim's first grandson (my father was his third son, but the first to marry), and he prevailed upon Grandma Rive that the ceremony would not take place until my father returned from military service.
The first memories of Yankel Bunim's figure actually come to me in connection with the Pidyen-Haben. And it was because he was continually kissing me. I liked that a bearded Jew was caressing me and leaning towards me. My Grandpa Khayim Osher, whom I called “Papa,” never showed me such closeness, nor did he caress me.
In general, there was a big difference between the two Grandpas. Yankel Bunim, the sober Misnaged, was quick-tempered. In contrast, Khayim Osher was a serene and calm person, a passionate Slonimer Hasid, someone who lived in his particular Hasidic tradition and created fiery melodies for the Rabbi and the Hasids.
My Grandfathers often used to argue and have disputes. Yankel Bunim used to get excited and try with fierce determination to prove the “ non-Jewishness of Hasidism” by referring to the Goan of Vilna[2] and his struggle against the Hasids.
Khayim Osher listened to him calmly, he used not to interrupt Yankel Bunim, only to answer quietly and calmly. And if he had no answer, he smiled naively and lost.
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Often the two of them had arguments because of me. Yankel Bunim would not allow Khayim Osher to take me to the Slonimer Shtibl and insisted on leaving me alone with it. And finally he prevailed.
I cannot say that I loved my Grandpa Yankel Bunim very much. I think this resulted from the fact that he had taken over the supervision of me after my father went away to America. He wanted to be too strict with me; however, I was also a wild and spoiled brat.
Not only was I naughty, but I was simply aggressive. I broke windows, fought with boys, stole money from my mother, and caused him (Yankel Bunim) great suffering.
A cabinet, attached to the wall, hung in the porch. It was used as a kind of “cool box”. In the summer, various fruits were stored in it, and in the winter, Grandma stored beef lard and cherries there that she had stewed during the summer months.
I used to tear out the hinges of the cabinet, carry away the fruit and eat up the berries. With my fingers I used to pick the greaves out of the beef fat and get full of the cherry juice. Thanks to me, it was not possible to keep a little fruit or snack in the cupboard.
My Grandma was good-natured; she never got angry with me. There was never a curse coming out of her mouth. Her worst “threat” was, “Just make sure this doesn't end badly!”[3]
Grandpa, however, could not simply watch how rampantly I behaved and what damage I caused. Several times he slapped me and often he beat me with his stick.
In general, Yankel Bunim's surges of emotion were sorrowful and had a strange effect on me. Instead of compassion, it aroused a great satisfaction in me to see his rage boiling up.
Even when he was calm and relaxed, he could not do without his “trubke.” When he was upset, he could no longer breathe, he threatened to suffocate, and instead of words, he only uttered a gasp and struggled for air. He would then turn blue, his face would swell, his eyes would pop out of their sockets, and sweat would break out.
When this happened, I would retreat to a corner and watch him struggle. Grandma, who could only walk with difficulty, used to run off scared to death,
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to bring him some water. He sat down heavily on a bench with his eyes closed. Grandma poured him the water and wiped his sweat. She brought him his trubke (the breathing tube) and held it to his mouth. When he regained consciousness, he would take a piece of sugar and stare blankly into space.
When such a sorrowful scene ended, I would flee and give him a wide berth for a while. Yankel Bunim used not to look at me after (such an episode). But my pronounced licentiousness usually brought him back to our house.
Often Mom would go to him and ask for help because she just couldn't handle me anymore.
Given my behavior, and because my father was rarely home, every male in our family was concerned with my upbringing and looked out for me.
The only ones who thought it was their job alone were Grandpa Yankel Bunim, Grandma Rive and Mama's oldest brother, Perets.
But Yankel Bunim wanted to play the main role. He insisted on interrogating me (literally) and often came to the schools where I was studying to inquire about my behavior and whether I was learning well. Since it was to be expected that the teachers would not praise me, I usually escaped just as I saw him coming to school.
I often made him suffer by annoying his youngest daughter, Sore.
All his children had moved out and scattered, and Sore was the only child he had left. She was about three years older than me, and I gave her a hard time. I beat her and put her out of commission. She was, as they say, Grandpa's and Grandma's “apple of their eye.”
They spoiled her and their devotion to her was deep and boundless. None of my outbursts upset Grandpa as much as when I molested Sore. He literally fell into a panic.
Actually, Sore did like me very much. But like every child, she used to seek protection from her father, and spoiled as she was, she did this very distinctly and thus turned him against me. And at that time Grandpa didn't just accept anything, but immediately ran to seek me out. Since I was already expecting him, I usually fled to my uncle Dodye, the baker.
He was happy about my pranks and his home was always a kind of refuge for me.
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My lack of affection for Yankel Bunim must have resulted from the fact that he was a stranger to me; an outsider. Grandpa Khayim Osher was closer to me, I lived in his home and grew up in it.
I used to share in his fate and his helplessness and tragedy aroused closeness and compassion in me.
Moreover, he never hit me and did not try to dominate me or impose anything on me.
On the contrary, he spoke to me not as to a child, but as to an adult, and forgave my wildness.
Therefore, I avoided causing him grief. Even when I was caught smoking a cigarette on Friday night, he said nothing to me. He only groaned, then fell silent in screaming silence.
Yankel Bunim set heaven and earth in motion then. He talked my father into not letting me out of the house for a few weeks and was satisfied that my mother would tie me up for a few days. At times when I showed what we call “virtue,” that is, behaved well, Grandpa Yankel Bunim was kind to me.
He liked to teach me and felt great joy when I listened attentively and made good progress.
Yankel Bunim did not think much of teachers (in the kheyder). He himself, when he was young, was taught by private teachers in all subjects, including Hebrew and Russian. But he taught his children the subject matter himself. Only later did he send them to teachers who taught adult young men.
If I kept quiet, Yankel Bunim usually wanted me overnight with him. Then he would study with me and tell me wonderful stories, which he would write down afterwards.
Yankel Bunim wrote at night. He loved to sit close to the window while writing, often looking out and contemplating the surroundings. He wrote small, fine letters on long sheets of paper.
While doing so, he used to sit bent forward and guide his quill. His hand moved slowly, but his legs fidgeted restlessly and quickly from the knees down. When he had written a sentence,
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or maybe a whole paragraph, he would read it to himself. He still wrote with goose quills and taught me to carve them.
I loved to help my Grandpa draw lots for items; sorting the slips of paper with the numbers or else the names of those who had bought the lots from him. He had written the names and (associated) numbers in a large book and used to transfer them afterwards onto pieces of cut out paper.
I used to cut the paper together with his daughter Sore. He insisted that they all be the same size and shape, because he didn't want anyone to suspect him of something; God forbid, not kosher.
The arrangements on the day before the numbers were drawn for the raffle filled him with activity and anxiety. He used to prepare himself as if some kind of holiday was coming up.
At the drawing, Yankel Bunim was sitting at the upper end with his yarmulke[4] slipped somewhat onto his neck. It seemed as if his shortness of breath decreased at these times and he used his trubke less.
When the winner's name was revealed, he beamed. He stroked his thinning blond beard, rose and stretched to his full height. He was of tall and straight stature. His large eyes and high forehead used to light up. Serenely and carefully he took the object out of his box, unwrapped it from the thin paper, and with joy handed it to the winner.
A few days after the raffle, however, Yankel Bunim walked around pensive and gloomy, and used to recite from religious books with a kind of sad nign. He yearned for that (festive) bustle and for the touch of the object that had become dear and familiar to him in the few weeks before the drawing.
One clock in particular took on the form of a living being for him. He used to yearn for the quiet restlessness of the ticking, the movement of the clockwork, and the jerking of the pointers, which he not only regarded as hands, but also called them so; just like human hands.
Translator's footnotes:
My Grandfather Yankel Bunim was not a Krinker. He and his family came to the shtetl because of a tragic event. He, his wife and children were running for their lives at that time. Only by a miracle were they able to save themselves from the goyim in the village where they had lived. They had to leave behind even the few possessions that had not been stolen from them and settled in Krynki.
Grandpa was born on the estate “Meskenik”, which was situated between Grodno and Kuznitse (Kuznica). His first three sons had also been born there.
My Grandpa's parents had inherited the estate, or “Hof” (farmyard) as they called their estate, from Yankel Bunim's Grandpa Yudel.
My Great Great Grandfather Yudl had been the richest landowner in the whole Grodno County at that time. He owned forests, estates and houses in and around Bielsk, near Bialystok, near Grodno and in and around Krynki.
In his will Yudl had divided his estate between three sons. The eldest got the estates around Bielsk and Semiatycze. The descendants of Yudel's eldest son were the “Kadishevitshes”. To the second son, Yosl the “Yishevnik”[1], as he was known in Krynki, he granted the estates in and around Krynki.
A famous city forest, later known as “Yente's Forest”, was the property of Yosl the Yishevnik, whereby Yente bought the forest from him.
Krynki was once a famous weekend-home town, and the forest was home to the summer houses and cottages of its owners. Later, however, the shtetl “Druzgenik” (Druskininkai) cut it off, along with Grodno, and so Yosl Yishevnik sold his forest.
Yosl began to engage in granting interest-bearing loans to rich aristocrats. In doing so, he lent not hundreds, but thousands. In addition, he owned a tavern frequented by the richest people, and he also owned the hotel in the shtetl. The highest
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authorities used to drive up there. Later, the hotel became the property of his son Itshe “Lye”[2].
Besides the business with his hotel, Itshe “Lye” also traded in grain. His nickname “Lye” resulted from the fact that in Goyish the word for “yes” is “alye”[3]. But he usually mumbled the “alye” so that it became “lye”.
Yosl the Yishevnik also had a daughter, Meri. She married a young man from Orla, Khaykel Orland. The latter was also a rich Jew who owned an inn frequented by the rich and the aristocrats. The townspeople nicknamed Khaykel “Khazer” (pig). He was a hard and nasty man who did not like to give alms. And so, not only was there no one to give him any merit, but they used to downright hate him.
Khaykel had about 12 children; his sons and daughters were all tall and broad and as hard-hearted as their father. They were not particularly bright either.
His third son, my great-Grandfather Mair (Meyer) Yonah, was given the estate near Grodno by his father Yudel.
There was a distillery on the estate, and Mair Yonah supplied the whole area with liquor.
Mair Yonah was a Jew with a sharp mind and was also very well suited for his business. He was already somewhat modern and thought highly of giving his children secular education. He made sure his children knew Russian, plus how to read and write.
He hired private teachers for them and later sent his son, Yankel Bunim, and daughter, Khaye Sore, to Grodno to a private Russian school.
Mair Yonah's daughter, Khaye Sore, was considered one of the most educated Jewish women in the area at that time. He married her off to the famous, distinguished bourgeois family of Avrohem Prilamer from Grodno. The son-in-law, Zundel Prilamer owned a spice store, however he himself sat days and nights (over his books) studying.
Khaye Sore did not love her husband. She was a great personality and also considered herself more educated than her husband was. There were constant quarrels and bad words between them. She wanted to divorce him, but he would not give her a divorce document.
She did not depend on him financially,
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because her father, Mair Yonah, provided for her. She used to live completely separate from her husband.
The two had a son, Borekh Hersh. The quarrels between Zundel and Khaye Sore intensified with regard to the influence on their son. She did everything to alienate her son Borekh Hersh from his father and his family, and she had a tremendous influence on him.
Therefore, he was quite manipulated. The motive of her behavior was not love for her son, but his control.
When the time came for Borekh Hersh to do military service, she sent him away to hide in Krynki. In the shtetl he lived in the house of Itshe Lye.
He did nothing there, but loitered.
Borekh Hersh was a tall, handsome young man; and at that time, Sheynke Tabatshnik, the sister of Nokhem Anshel's Roshe, fell madly in love with him. Sheynke later married the factory owner Yisroel Hertske and had the “handicapped” son I mentioned in the first part of the stories.
Borekh Hersh apparently had no serious relationship with the young woman. As a loafer, he did not like to be harnessed into the yoke of caring for a woman and earning a living, but just wanted to have some good times with her. When he saw that the young woman really meant it, he began to stay away from her. But she was already very much in love with him and in her desperation decided to get him (as a husband) - if not by good, then by force!
During an argument, she threatened to reveal that he was avoiding military service.
When the young man saw that the story was becoming dangerous, he fled to America. His mother soon followed him. She spent her last years in New York. The relationship with her husband was completely cut off, they did not divorce, but they also never met again until the end of their days.
Yankel Bunim was married by his father to a girl of the famous Bialystok family “Barishes”. My Grandmother, Sime Feygl, was of distinguished lineage. She was the granddaughter of the famous Bialystoker Rabbi R' Moyshe Zev Margolies, who was also known as R' Velvele, the “Mar'ot haTzov-ot”[4]
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Grandma Sime Feygl was a quiet and very fine woman. She spoke not only softly, but also tactfully. She was completely different from Grandpa Yankel Bunim. He was a hot-tempered and hot-headed man.
Her figure was also different. He was tall and straight, she was short.
When I was a child, my uncle, the jokester Dodye the Baker, used to tease me. As a joke, he would point out that my Grandparents must have been mixed up because one Grandpa was short and Grandma was tall, and opposite that, the other Grandpa was tall and Grandma was short.
Grandpa Yankel Bunim and Grandma Sime Feygl behaved completely differently from my mother's parents. Until the end of their days, Yankel Bunim was in love like a young lad with his wife and called her tenderly “Simenke”.
Sime Feygl spoke little and usually behaved quietly. Never did a curse pass her lips. However, she was not free from superstitions, such as how to “avert the evil eye with a spell.” She performed such things herself.
If a child yawned, it meant that someone had given him or her the “evil eye”. She used to hold the child by the head, look into his eyes and quietly recite a spell. When she finished the spell, she used to move the head back and forth, spit out a few times and say, “To empty fields and wild forests!”
This was to drive away the “evil eye.”
She also used to “tsingleven.” This was a very strange act. If someone had a swollen cheek, either from the draft or from a toothache, she would fill a tea glass quite full of ashes. She wrapped it in a cloth and moved it over the cheek. This procedure, accompanied by a “spell”, lasted about ten minutes. Then followed the control: if the ash had collapsed, it was considered a sign that the swelling would pass, if not, it was necessary to try again later.
Sime Feygl also eliminated toothache by a “spell”. She put her little finger on the sick tooth and whispered words, which “killed the pain”.
Yankel Bunim did not like this superstition. When his wife performed all these “ uttering of incantations”, he would turn his head away. However, he refrained from offending her because of it.
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It may be that, at the very beginning of their years together, he enlightened her about the foolishness and futility of all her “incantations”.
However, when she stuck to it, he made peace and let her do what she wanted. Yankel Bunim loved her not only for her virtue, but also for her beauty and quietness.
Grandma made friends with very few women in the shtetl. She avoided too close friendships. She was careful not to be drawn into intimate conversations, for she feared they might end in gossip.
Thus she behaved like her mother Reyne Gitl, R' Velvel's daughter, may she rest in peace, who did not want to have contact with women because she feared that from her mouth might come a word of defamation.
Grandma Sime Feygl loved to hear stories. She herself told very few. But Grandpa used to read to her the stories he had written down or tell her about a subject he was grappling with.
Sime Feygl never complained and never demanded anything. She used to accept everything as a sign of God's will and also never doubted His ways.
She relied on her husband for everything. She never opposed him or questioned his actions. The love between the two people was filled with tenderness and deep devotion. Her sons behaved in exactly the same way. Almost all of them were devoted, faithful and benevolent family men.
Translator's footnotes:
When my Great-Grandfather Mair Yonah received his inheritance share, the land and the distillery on the Meskenik estate, he dealt with widening and enlarging his property.
He provided his daughter Khaye Sore, who had turned away from her husband, with a pension. He involved his son Yankel Bunim, who was already married by then, in the management of his business.
Mair Yonah was very successful, so his inherited estates expanded. He bought forests in an area closer to Bialystok and Krynki. A few miles[1] from Krynki, he leased an entire village.
They (the family members) behaved like great aristocrats. My father, peace be upon him, used to tell that his eldest brother Aharon Velvel was wrapped in silk after his birth.
Father also told me that my grandfather taught them (the children) himself. But when they grew older, he sent them to Grodno to learn Russian and receive Jewish lessons. Every day they were taken to Grodno for this and the coachman waited there until he had to take them home again.
All the children of my Great-Great-Grandfather Yudel were well taken care of; both those in the Bielsk area, and the “Kadishevitshes” near Siemiatycze, and also the son Yosl Yivshevnik, who settled in Krynki.
Yudel's family name was indeed Kadishevitsh, however, his son Yosl Yishevnik “because of the Cantonists”[2] changed this name to “Mastavlyanski”.
However, while Mair Yonah's fortune was growing, hard and evil times began to dawn for Jews. The tsarist government endeavored in an even more evil and cruel manner to expel Jews from the villages and from their leased estates.
The edict declared as late as 1823 by Nikolai the First, yemakh shmoy[3], to drive Jews out of villages and prohibit the operation of leasehold estates, taverns, inns and post offices for them, applied only to the two administrative districts of Mohilever (Mogilev) and Vitebsk.
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At that time, the areas of the Polish Kingdom enclosed by the Russian Empire were in a privileged position. The “new Russian province” was endowed with a certain degree of autonomy, with a Polish government and “Seym”[4] - constitution. And this government held authority over the Jewish collective agricultural communities.
The situation of the Polish Jews in comparison to the Russian was comparatively exceptionally good. In fact, the Russian government even protected the Jews from Polish persecution.
It was not until 1842 that the Jews of the Polish province were put on an equal footing with the Russian Jews. They began to be conscripted as recruits, instead of being levied a recruit tax as before. Previously, they did not fall under the Cantonist Decree; there were no limitations on their living spaces (tkhum hamoyshev) or other cruel edicts from which the Russian Jews suffered.
When the Cantonist Decree was declared by Nikolai the First in 1825, it did not affect Polish Jews. Poles at that time had no general military service, serving in the military was the privilege of the “shlyakhte” (upper class).
Jews were counted among the merchant class and were free from military service. However, they had to pay 500 rubles for each enlistment. These payments caused the families to change their names so that their numbers were not recognizable.
When in the late years of the last century the tsarist decrees were further extended to the Polish provinces, it naturally affected Great-Grandfather Mair Yonah.
However, he did not follow the order to give up his estate and the inherited goods effortlessly or particularly quickly. He began to rush to Grodno and Petersburg. He had friends in the government circles of the district administrations who helped him to extend the deadline of the edict and to delay its execution.
Mair Yonah left the “Balebatishkeyt”[5] to my Grandpa Yankel Bunim and spent his time entirely knocking on the doors of various government offices.
At that time Yankel Bunim contracted a cold. He did not fully recover from the illness, but remained short of breath.
Meanwhile, the business was completely neglected.
Just at that time, a distant relative came to Grandpa's estate from the Grodno area. He was a well-educated young man with the ability to keep an account. This man was Nokhem Anshel,
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later, the powerful lord and the biggest leather manufacturer of Krynki. Nokhem-Anshel took the complete management of the business into his hands.
When Mair Yonah returned from his travels, he already met with disaster. Nokhem Anshel had robbed his store and fled to Krynki.
Not only the store, but his whole middle-class existence was destroyed and in disarray. Mair Yonah, however, did not want to let it get him down. He tried to build up a “balebatish” existence again, but this did not work out as it should, Moreover, the favors cost a large sum of money and, in view of the theft of Nokhem Anshel, it had become impossible to continue the management of the estate and the distillery.
For a small sum of money, he sold his property and the whole estate to a neighboring Polish nobleman and moved to a village near Krynki.
In the village of Kineshevitsh, Mair Yonah took over the tavern. His plan was to get back on his own feet and continue the struggle against the tsarist edict.
As usual, the village tavern was the center and the gathering place of the peasants. They came not only to drink and spend their time there, but also to hold their “skhodkes” (meetings).
Twice a year the farmers gathered: before the sowing and after the harvest.
The “skhodkes” served to determine the amount of taxes for both the central government and the needs of the village.
In the village there was still the Jewish family of the blacksmith, who had lived there for ages. Immediately a war broke out between the two Jewish families. And this was a heated war fought with all vehemence. The reason for this was competition, because the blacksmith also sold liquor to the farmers and thus drew customers away from the tavern.
But since the tavern and the house were Mair Yonah's former property, he naturally had the privilege of running the tavern and selling schnapps.
Mair Yonah dragged the blacksmith to the Krinker Rabbi, and he rendered his verdict in his (Mair Yonah‘s) favor. The blacksmith accepted this for a while, but this did not last long.
Apparently he
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had little reverence for the Rabbi's judgment and secretly incited the peasants against Mair Yonah and his family.
The purchases for the tavern were made in Krynki. Grandpa Yankel Bunim used to buy the liquor in the Krinker distillery. He also obtained food from Krynki, especially meat and poultry. His older children studied there, and so there was a permanent connection with Krynki.
Once, when Grandpa Yankel Bunim had gone to Krynki and only old Mair Yonah and Grandma Sime Feygel were at home with their younger children, peasants raided the property, destroyed and looted the tavern and the house.
The blacksmith who had incited the peasants against the family was behind that. He had invited the “Sotski”[6] to a drink and persuaded him that the owner of the tavern was exploiting them all; he was getting richer and they were getting poorer. He assured the “Sotski” that he could sell the liquor much cheaper, but Mair Yonah and the Krinker Rabbi would not allow it.
The “Sotski” then summoned the peasants to a meeting at the blacksmith's to decide what to do with the innkeeper. The blacksmith, however, got them all drunk, and incited as they were, they fell upon the proprietor.
Fortunately, when they stormed into the tavern, Grandma Sime Feygl was in the apartment with her small children, and when she heard the noise, she grabbed the children and fled with them into the fields.
Mair Yonah, however, was killed by the peasants with their fists.
They demolished the house and the tavern piece by piece. They tore the bedding and broke the furniture. They carried and dragged out everything, leaving absolutely nothing of value.
An older son ran on foot to Krynki to tell his father about the disaster. He caught him just as he was already preparing to leave for the village.
(My) Grandpa immediately ran to the “pristav” (the chief official of the shtetl), and the latter sent two “Strazhnikes”[7]. They searched and found Sime Feygl and her children, who were scared to death, and with the corpse on the wagon the family left the village and “drove to Krynki”.
They “drove” to Krynki? It's just a way of saying it. No, they were not driving, they were running for their lives.
Poor they were and broken, with not even a string. When Yankel Bunim wanted to sell his tavern, there was nothing left of it.
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They came to Krynki without bedding, without candlesticks, naked and barefoot, even worse than after a fire.
In Krynki, there were many members of the family residing and living in “rakhves”[8], among them grain merchants, forest traders, owners of taverns and hotels. Every single one of them was positioned big and broad.
And each of them was powerful and influential. Both those who descended from Yosl Yishevnik and those who descended from Mair Yonah's wife Henye. The latter's brother, Fishke the Kaliker[9], was a great forest trader. All of his children were wealthy, well integrated, and well cared for, and were among the most respected balebatim of the shtetl.
The body was brought to eternal rest with a grand funeral. But what was to be done with the living?
The family gathered and agreed that Yankel Bunim could not be taken care of. Should they give him a forest? Or a grain store? Or even a tavern? After all, one needed money to run a business. And none of them was willing to help him out with it.
Should they perhaps include him in their business? But what kind of business should he be offered?
After all, he was an asthmatic man who had no air, constantly held a trubke in front of his mouth and could not breathe without it. The most suitable plan was: trading lottery tickets. They would buy lots, they would also contribute[10] a big prize, and with that they would already help the unfortunate, impoverished relative (enough).
Translator's footnotes:
Yankel Bunim did not consider himself an impoverished person. He never complained and avoided talking about his wealth at that time. He also did not like it when people expressed pity for him and his situation. When reminded, his response was, “it could have been worse, thank God we were able to save our lives!”
First of all, he had to take care of his wife and children. Yankel Bunim knew that Krynki would be his last home, he would not go anywhere else. “Thinking about what once was will not ease my situation,” he used to say, and so he began to pitch and consolidate his tents on the Krinker earth.
Since it seemed to him a symbol of his resignation and destiny that had brought him to Krynki, Yankel Bunim changed his name, Kadishevitsh, to “Krinker.” This was likewise an assurance and determination that he would not move from there again. So now he was a Krinker - not only as a resident, but also with his name.
The first concern now was to find a pillow, a blanket and a bit of home. I still remember the dark, gloomy apartments where he lived. I think back to an apartment with one room, a sticky floor, two beds, a closet, a table and two benches. There was a sliver of window between the drab walls, which brought a drop of sun and a bit of daylight into the unhappy apartment.
The plans of his rich relatives to deal in lots were indeed good. Only they did not bring him any income: Yankel Bunim's lots used “to be obstinate and did not want to win”.
But the family was large, how could they all be fed? How could the children be educated?
And the grief of Yankel Bunim became very great when at some point his children were far apart and scattered, since he had to send them out into the world to earn their own living.
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The eldest son, Aharon Velvel, who was wrapped in silk after his birth, was already a big lad. He had to be taken care of immediately (with work).
There was no room for all of them in Krynki, for such a large family there were simply too few places to sleep and too few things to eat. And so Yankel Bunim sent Aharon Velvel to Bialystok. The rich relatives there were supposed to find him a job. In addition, (Grandpa) sent my father to study at the Bialystok Yeshive and to “esn teg”[1] with the rich family.
In Bialystok there was a weaving factory owner, Fishke the Kalik'ns, the son-in-law of Grandpa's uncle, and he sent Aharon Velvel to him to learn weaving.
Later, when Aharon Velvel was drawn into the revolutionary movement, the Bialystok relative threw him out, and he went to a relative in Horodok, Yudel Kronheym, to work for him.
But he did not last long with him either and came back to Bialystok to look for a job. Grandpa sent his younger children away to become tanners. The very youngest, Khayim Shloyme, was just 10 years old when he went to work in a tannery.
Wages at that time were between two and three guilders a week, a sum averaging 30 to 45 kopeks. However, this at least helped to reduce my Grandpa's financial pressure. It seems, however, that fate played a trick on Grandpa, because apart from adding three children born in Krynki, Grandma's mother also moved away from Bialystok and in with him.
My Great-Grandmother, Reyne-Gitl, was an exceptionally strange woman and a rare character. It is as if I still see her alive before my eyes now; in general she is unforgettable to me.
She was Reb Velvele's youngest daughter. When he died, she was around 5 or 6 years old. But she never tired of telling stories about him, with as much detail as if she just remembered clearly.
Usually Reyne Gitl talked very little. She never used
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to take part in conversations. She thought that if one was not careful about speaking, one would be tempted to gossip.
She used to read the “Taystsh-Khumesh”[2] constantly and without pause, and her common speech consisted only of necessary words of daily use. She did not speak more than that.
Only when she spoke of her father, she lit up and had a large vocabulary. She ate little and was only skin and bones.
About her father, Reyne Gitl told wondrous stories that were simply fantastic. She reproduced all the legends about him that made the rounds in Bialystok and interpreted them as facts.
I found many of these legends about her father, Reb Velvele, in the “Pinkas Bialystok”[3].
My Great-Grandmother used to recall with particular pride that her father had been titled “Mar'ot haTzov-ot”, after his religious book of the same name.
She loved my father because he (Leyzer) was named after Reb Velvele‘s father Reb Eliezer, a Rabbi in Halusk (Hlusk). A very great impression was made on her by Grandpa's eldest son Aharon Velvel, who bore one of her father's names.
Reyne Gitl especially liked to tell a story that was very common in Bialystok. According to it, Reb Velvele, zts”l[4], was such a saint that the horses of the peasants jumped up with their carts to make way when he, on his way to teach or pray in the old Bes-Medresh, passed over the yard there.
No one was allowed to touch her father's many religious books, which she kept bound in cloth. She especially did not let the children get close to them. I remember that she had wrapped one of the books, “Agudas Ezov”, with colored book covers held together by a colorful string. She kept the books, her wedding dress, a small bag of soil from the “Land of Israel” and her “Takhrikhim”[5] in a straw basket under the bed.
As I could see later from the records in the “Pinkas Bialystok”, Reb Velvele zts”l is counted even today among the greatest scholarly Rabbis. He used to correspond with Rabbi Ekiva Eyger[6] and Khayim Volozhiner[7].
He exchanged ideas concerning “Shayles-u-Tshuves”[8] with the greatest Rabbis of his
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time and was a friend of the Warsaw Rabbi R' Shloyme Zalmen Poyzner. For a time he was the Rabbi in Tiktin, a town near Bialystok. R' Velvele was particularly concerned with the issue of the agunes[9]. He felt happy when he succeeded in giving an agune a (religious) permit[10].
Although he came from a very rich family, the “Barishes”[11], Reb Velvele disliked the rich and powerful and used to put them down.
He kept himself very modest and used to sign himself “haKotn Ba'Ezov Moyshe Zev”.
As “Pinkas Bialystok” reports, Rabbi Akiva Eyger titled him with “haRov haGodel haGoen hoEmesi Nosi Yisroel”[12], and the Pinkas comments, “In this regard one must know that at that time people were very accurate in their judgments and stingy in giving titles. An average Rabbi and Talmudist was not usually titled “Goen” (Gaon, genius). “HaRov haMur haGodl”[13] was really a great honorific title.
Great-Grandmother Reyne Gitl married a great learned Jew who was a Rabbi in Volpe. When he died, she went back to Bialystok with her only child, my Grandma Sime Feygl.
Later Reyne Gitl married a merchant who did business with foreign countries. During a trip to Germany he died in Leipzig. Reyne Gitl remained a widow until the end of her days.
From her husband, Reyne Gitl was left a small fortune. Because her husband had died abroad, and so suddenly at that, she knew neither the extent of the fortune nor possible debtors or creditors. Nevertheless, she had capital that was enough for (her needs) for more than twenty years. All this time she lived in Bialystok and occasionally visited her daughter and grandchildren while they still lived on their estate in the village.
But all of a sudden she became weaker and ran out of money. So she came to her daughter in Krynki, exactly at that time when Yankel Bunim was already impoverished.
I remember two moments clearly: one day, when everything was smooth outside, she fell and hurt herself. She broke her leg at that time. My parents lived not far from Grandpa, and Father took me with him to pay her a sick visit.
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It really seems to me as if it happened only now, as she lay there like that by the window. Her leg was already plastered and the pungent and caustic smell of iodoform was spreading throughout the house. The bandages over the cast were discolored yellow from the iodoform.
At that time, Grandpa lived in two rooms. The first room was large and was used for eating, sleeping and staying. On the side was the kitchen, a dark room with no air and no windows. That was where the cooking was done. The floor was sticky, and the moisture and dampness literally ran down the walls.
I (at that time) liked to eat herring very much, so Grandma entertained me in the kitchen with a piece of herring. The smell of the iodoform, however, was so strong that when I took my first bite, it was not the herring that was in my mouth, but only the smell. I felt sick and since then, to this day, I can no longer smell herring.
The second story led me with harshness to a first encounter with the death of a human being. For a long time it was a custom in our house that I came to Grandma's on Friday morning to eat porridge with lard.
Both Grandma Sime Feygl and her mother were invalids at that time. It was after the great fire, in which almost the entire shtetl had been destroyed, and both women were housed in the Jewish “Bolnitse”[14].
They had been given a small room, and besides the two sick people, my grandfather and two younger children lived there- Mair and Sore.
It was “real life!”
On Friday, when I came to eat porridge as usual, Great-Grandmother was very sick. She simply could not sit up. Grandpa straightened her up, pushed her pillow under her and “fed” her grits.
Her face was a little covered with soot. This stayed in my mind from that time on as an omen of death. (Great) Grandma Reyne Gitl considered my Grandpa to be a Jewish freethinker (“apikoyres”) who, in her opinion, was not pious enough. When she was satiated, she blessed him and said:
“You are truly an apikoyres, but with a golden heart! May you have a long life!”
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That very night, right after the blessing (on Friday evening), Mair and Sore came to our house to bring us the news that (Great) Grandma Reyne Gitl had died. Father took me with him (to her), but she was already lying there covered up. At that time I did not understand the meaning of “died”. I lifted her blanket and father gave me a slap on the hand. When we were already on our way home, I asked my father:
“What is this, death?”
Then, my father did not take me to the funeral on Shabbat evening.
Translator's footnotes:
Grandpa Yankel Bunim did not like to argue with the rich relatives. He didn't envy them, but he begrudged all of them what they possessed. Among his relatives there were some he liked, but also some he kept away from. He did not judge them by their wealth, but by their interpersonal behavior.
From the family of his father, Mair Yonah, he liked the son of “Yosl the Yishevnik's”, Itshe “Lya”[1]. Apparently Itshe was a smart man, because this quality was one of those virtues that my Grandpa was attracted to.
According to my memory, Itshe “Lya” was an invalid. As a result of his haste, impetuosity and constant tension, he became paralyzed and was confined to bed for many years. As an invalid, however, he conducted his business with the same bustle as before, when he could still walk and hurry to and fro.
He had two daughters and a son. His son, Yosl, was lazy and did not like to deal with his father's business. He made friends with the bourgeois loiterers, preened himself and behaved stiffly and arrogantly.
Since he was the only son, Itshe “Lya” ignored his behavior. He (Yosl) was not a corrupt person, but still a lazy and haughty one.
Itshe “Lya's” daughters took after their father and were completely different from their brother. In particular, Yospe, the older one, was a very active person. Grandpa thought very highly of her. She managed both the business and the bookkeeping.
Breyne, the younger one, also had good skills and energy, but was still very different from her sister. Not only was her demeanor different, but more importantly, so was her appearance. Yospe was taller and more beautiful. She had tact and was calmer and more businesslike than Breyne. Yospe used to walk more slowly,
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speak more quietly, and be more patient. She could hold a quiet conversation as well as be a quiet listener.
When Itshe “Lya” fell ill, his two daughters took over the management of the business. He issued instructions from his bedside, which they then carried out. Yospe, the older one, dealt with the management of the hotel. And since the aristocrats and highest government officials came to the hotel, she conducted herself like a “grand dame.”
Breyne ran the grain business. Her role was to negotiate with the farmers and traders, to weigh and measure (the goods) and to make the receipts and expenditures.
Grandpa Yankel Bunim used to rest at their house. Since his shortness of breath meant that he got little sleep at night, he used to lie down during the day to take a nap. Nowhere else, however, could he slumber as well as at Itshe “Lya's” house.
Itshe's house, it can be said, was spacious and comfortably cut with large, airy and light-filled rooms. The reception room, where Itshe used to lie during the day, was large and bright.
Yankel Bunim did not want to go to another room. In the reception room, his chair was already waiting in that little corner where he loved to sit.
Ithse's whole family behaved very respectfully to Yankel Bunim. The family members loved to talk to him and also consult about business.
They already took it for granted that Grandpa came to the house of Itshe “Lya” to take his nap.
To sleep during the day, Yankel Bunim did not lie down. He had a rather strange way of resting and slumbering. He used to put a glass with the bottom up, put his hands on it and rest his head on his hands. This was how he fell asleep. The inhabitants of the house used to be careful not to make any noise or racket.
Grandpa had little contact with Itshe “Lya's” sister, Meri, and her husband, Khaykel “Khazer” (pig). Meri was not a bad person. Only she had no personality and completely subordinated herself to her husband's influence, and so she became as coarse and ossified in her manner as he was.
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Meri was a small, broad woman whose cheeks were constantly glowing.
Due to her obesity and shapelessness, she moved sluggishly.
She liked to sit in the tavern and watch how (the guests) drank.
Her face was sweating from the constant smoke and pungent smell of beer and liquor. Due to her obesity, she puffed heavily and noisily, and in general, she looked like a piglet being roasted at that time.
Meri's husband, Khaykel, could not stand still. He was constantly in a state of restlessness. He rarely smiled and ran around puffed up and strained. Khaykel was a heavy and nasty man who never wanted to help or do anyone any favors. If someone angered him, or he just thought someone had wronged him, nothing stopped him from spending a fortune to get him back.
Khaykel litigated for years over a piece of land. It was a project to create a shortcut road to the market that cut through his property, and he opposed it.
As a result of his stubbornness, he fell out with the “balebatim” of the shtetl.
There were continuous quarrels and scandals. When the leadership of the community decided the lawsuit against him, he moved heaven and earth to challenge the court's decision. He no longer relied on the Rabbi with his demands, but only allowed proceedings in the courts of the goyim.
Almost all of Khaykel's children took after him; they were hard, angry and tense.
Itshe “Lya” was continually at odds with his sister Meri and her husband Khaykel, and although the two families lived next door to each other, they behaved in a distant and estranged manner.
Also, Yankel Bunim had no close contacts with his mother’s relatives; the children of Fishke the Kalik’n. He avoided any relationship with Fishke's eldest son, Berl. Berl Fishke's was actually a Jewish scholar and a smart man, not kind-hearted but a very authoritarian one.
Berl was a Jew, “like a flame“; tall, confident and with a long, (red) blonde
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beard. Almost all his children were blond. But there were no big personalities in his family.
One of his sons, Mair, was small and hunchbacked, and his head was shaped like a pumpkin. It did not seem like one head, but two. However, he was keen and very well suited for the business. Berl brought him into his forest trade and relied on him for everything.
The eldest son resembled Berl completely. He was a hard, heavy man and a miser. Like his father, he did not like to please anyone.
Berl was the “Strosto” (mayor) of Krynki, and was as cruel to his own family as he was to strangers.
Berl Fishke's had a miserable end. He got into a quarrel with his partner Shloymeke, Alter the Khoyker's son, in the forest, and Shloymeke killed him with a piece of wood.
However, Grandpa Yankel Bunim was acquainted and friends with Berl Fishke's brother-in-law, Mordekhay Shimen Grodski, a Jewish enlightener and very righteous man. He was among the most intelligent and educated people in the shtetl. He was a painter, but also carved wooden figures based on biblical themes. He and Grandpa were in very close contact and constantly invited each other home.
There were also more relatives from his father's and mother's side, but Yankel Bunim hardly maintained any contact with them.
Even when he once had to come as a supplicant to the rich relatives, he avoided the evil ones among them. He did not want to ask Khaykel “Khazer” for anything either. Grandpa used to say, “I don't want to do him that favor!”
Khaykel owned the only “lyodovnye” (a storage facility where he kept ice) in the shtetl. When Grandpa fell ill with pneumonia, Khaykel refused to give a piece of ice to save Grandpa, even though he was in mortal danger at the time.
Even to borrow some money from the well-meaning relatives, Grandpa went only when he already had “the knife on his neck.” However, he used to repay the debts in small amounts afterwards.
Yankel Bunim kept his distance from Berl Fishke's. However, he went to his (family) feasts. And never did he break the tradition of baking matzah in Berl Fishke's podryat[2].
Concerning my Grandma Sime Feygl, baking matzo involved huge
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preparations. She did not tolerate strangers to knead the dough and did not rest until everything was exactly as she wanted. When matzo was baked for my Grandpa, it was a holiday for me! Since I was a tomboy and liked to show off, I whined for Grandma to let me pour the water into the bowl.
And she did not get rid of me so easily!
However, pouring the water did not satisfy me, I wanted to do something more flashy and spectacular. Therefore, I begged Grandma urgently to let me pour the flour.
I was placed on a little box near the flour sack. Grandma rolled up my shirt sleeves, I filled the flour into a quart (a hollow measure) and poured it into the basin. The flour had to be poured in with a measure, the size of which my Grandma determined. While kneading, she felt how much more flour had to be added.
However, I did not continue my work. I still wanted to show off to the boys outside, so I went to the porch to boast to them. When Grandma finally found me, she no longer wanted to entrust me with the work.
Translator's footnotes:
As a result of his cramped and uncomfortable apartments, it was not possible for Yankel Bunim to set up cabinets with religious books. My father, peace be upon him, told me that in Grandfather's house in the village there were some cupboards with hundreds of secular and religious books.
But during the pogrom, the peasants had torn them up and burned them.
Yankel Bunim, in addition to the (newspaper) “Rech” and “Ha-Tsfsira”, had subscribed to the “Fraynt” together with an associate, and also used to borrow books from Levin. The latter was the only one in the shtetl who sold writing utensils and lent books at 5 kopecks a week.
The grocer and librarian Levin was a relative by marriage[1] of Grandpa. Yankel Bunim's daughter-in-law and Levin's wife were sisters. Levin liked to lend my Grandpa a book, even without payment. Grandpa was a frequent guest in his store and therefore had the opportunity to read all the new Yiddish, Hebrew and Russian publications.
The first Yiddish books I read, Mendele's[2] “Di Klyatshe”, “Fishke the Krumer” and “The Takse”[3] were brought to me by Grandpa Yankel Bunim. He also subscribed to booklets and newspaper supplements. He provided me with Sholem Aleykhem's books and stories, which appeared printed in booklets.
Yakev Dinezon's[4] stories, “Yosele”[5] and “Hershele”[6] illustrated human cruelty to me. My pity for the two orphan boys and the unfortunate, poor Talmud student “Hershele” tore me apart with wailing and weeping.
Grandpa Yankel Bunim had asked Levin to give me only the books he had chosen for me to read. He contributed three kopeks a week for me.
On Yankel Bunim's instruction I read the Jewish translation of Shakespeare's “King Lear”.
The book “Cold and Warm”
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made a great impression on me. Tenenboym[7] had declared himself as the author, but in reality it was Jules Verne.
The book tells the story of a sailor who is stranded on an island after a shipwreck. He makes his way to a village and then wanders to unknown and dangerous places. The sailor experiences wondrous stories, he travels and wanders until he joins an expedition to the North Pole.
The book describes in great detail the polar bears, the months-long nights, the Eskimos, the whaling with harpoons, and the dreariness of the sky and ice at the North Pole.
Besides providing me with books, Yankel Bunim insisted that I learn Russian. This was not an easy thing to do, for the teachers of the Jewish elementary schools did not want a student to go somewhere else in the middle of the day.
However, Yankel Bunim had arranged it so that I went to the “Narodni Utshilitshe” (elementary school) in the first half of the day, and to the Kheyder (elementary school) in the second half.
When in Krynki three modern “khadorim-mesukonim”[8] were established, I was sent to the “Ozheraner” for two semesters in such a reformed elementary school. I also went to modern teachers who taught reading and writing in Yiddish. However, I did not stay with them for more than one semester.
In the shtetl, my Grandpa Yankel Bunim was considered the best “bal-koyre”[9]. However, because of his shortness of breath, he could hardly do so. Nevertheless, during the mutual guest visits[10], his comrade and friend, Berl Fishke's brother-in-law Mordekhay Shimen, who was the “bal-koyre” in the Kavkazer Bes-Medresh, used to urge him to read aloud.
Grandpa taught both my father and his youngest son Mair (who was killed by a bomb in Bialystok) to read aloud. An artisan minyan[11] had asked Yankel Bunim to read for them. But when his breathing problems prevented him, one of the sons had to take over. Finally, however, he gave it up altogether, for he could not rely on his sons.
My father was seldom at home and Mair had already begun to seek out the “brothers and sisters” and to fight a battle not only against the rich and the government, but also against God.
Yankel Bunim was not someone who let himself go. He did not like it when someone dressed up, but insisted on cleanliness
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and could not stand it when someone was dirty. He avoided people who did not groom themselves.
I still remember how he scolded his youngest son Mair violently for not keeping himself clean. Mair was perhaps ten years old at the time. Domestic hardship chased him out to the factory, and he had to help there with hard work to reduce abject poverty.
What did this little boy know? For him, his work in the factory meant that he was already an adult, and this gave him the opportunity to show off to the boys of his age who were still going to the kheyder.
To prove that he was already a “factory goer,” Mair liked to rub his pants with “degre” (grease). The dried grease caused the pants to shine.
At noon, the tanners used to go home to eat. The clean ones of them changed their clothes. Mair, however, wanted to show off and flaunt himself in front of the boys, so he came to lunch with shiny, dirty pants.
Grandpa was rarely home during the noon hours.
But by chance he once arrived (at home) when Mair was just in the house. He became very angry and ordered Mair with harsh words never to dare to come home in such an outfit again.
Yankel Bunim did not like to show off his knowledge. However, he could not stand ignoramuses.
On Shabbat, it was customary for Jews to gather around a teacher in the Bes-Medresh to listen to him. They asked questions and engaged in debates. Yankel Bunim never sat down at the table with them. He usually leaned, somewhat apart, against a stand and listened to the teacher. An incorrect interpretation, however, bothered him very much, and he was then not ashamed to contradict the teacher.
Yankel Bunim had skill in writing petitions. However, he avoided dealing with it and tried to avoid it. Nevertheless, when people urged him to do it, he did it for their sake. He could speak Russian well and liked to converse in that language.
In the house of his nephew, Itshe “Lya”, the colloquial language was Russian, because
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the pristav[12] and the naziratel[13] went in and out there. Both Itshe “Lya's” children and he himself often conversed with my Grandpa in that language.
Yankel Bunim did not tolerate hostility between people. He taught his children that they should not be influenced by hatred and malice. He himself quickly became enraged and angry.
However, he also cooled down again quickly.
Grandpa did not like injustice and falsehood, and when he noticed that people were trying to deceive him, he would get upset. However, whoever won his trust, he met with warmth and deep friendship.
Yankel Bunim felt that his grudge should not be held forever. He even forgave the blacksmith and the peasants in the village for killing his father and destroying his fortune. “God has punished them with blindness, with dullness and ignorance,” he used to say.
His knowledge of a few foreign languages kept him connected to the larger world and caused him to be objective and free from small-town parochialism. All this made it easier for him to endure the great and tragic change in his life.
Yankel Bunim knew that new and different times were coming. And neither did he want, nor did he try to prevent his children from behaving as they wished. For him, a noble lineage did not matter. He did not mind if his sons made friends with boys who did not belong to an exalted class.
Great events were in the offing. In the shtetl, the “Buntovshtshikes”, the rebels, caused unrest and tumult. The tanners were preparing for the first strike. The factory owners were restless. They did not know exactly what was happening, but understood very well that something was being planned against them.
The balebatim and factory owners did not know how to prevent the meetings of the young people. However, they had noticed that the agitators came from middle-class homes.
When preparations for the first strike began and unity was created among the tanners, many fathers saw with
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concern how their own children joined forces with the “Zhulikes,” as the renegade young bokherim, the boys from the lower estates, were called.
The balebatim, seeing that Yankel Bunim's sons were making common cause with the gang, came to him and admonished him as to why he was allowing this to happen.
“What can I do?” replied Yankel Bunim to the balebatim, “they are grown-up young men and already bear the burden of earning their living.
They truly fulfill the word, 'bezeyes apekho tokhel lekhem'.[14]
The balebatim were angry with him. However, this did not bother Yankel Bunim. He felt that it was not his place to please the factory owners and, for their sake, to act like a gendarme against his own children.
If they joined forces with the bokherim, that was their concern.
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