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The great market on Piaskes Source: http://wirtualnie.lomza.pl/wirtualnie/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Ksi%C4%99ga-album-pami%C4%99ci-gminy-%C5%BCydowskiej-w-Bia%C5%82ymstoku-cz%C4%99%C5%9B%C4%87-1.pdf

When Bialystok became a part of Poland about 250 years ago (it had belonged to Prussia before) and began to grow, the whole area of Pyaskes was sandy as far as the village of Slabode [Słoboda].

And from this sandy area the city authorities of that time “cut” three whole streets (which is recalled in the book). The three streets ran under one name - “Piaski” in Polish and “Pyaskes” in Yiddish.

Under the tsarist regime in 1795 all three streets were given the name “Pestshanaya Ulitsa”. Why the city officials of that time gave all three streets a single name was not known, nor did anyone care to know.

I was born on the long Pyaskes, with its sparse development of a few one- and two-story wooden houses with deep courtyards, where Jews, Germans, and [non-Jewish] Poles lived.

I grew up in the family of a small manufacturer of cloth and “shody”^[1]. Like most small businessmen in those years, my father was often “nod konyom i pod konyom” (over the horse and under the horse), which means that sometimes he was doing well and sometimes not so well. Nevertheless, for ten years my father was counted among the rich people of Pyaskes.

During the 23 years I spent on my street, I had the opportunity to observe the way of life of our Jewish neighbors.

On Shabbat, the shops and taverns were closed with “seven bars”.

It was as quiet

[Page 6]

as the (lehavdil)^[2] cemetery. The only grocer who kept his shop open was the soda water vendor. (He did not take money, but instructed his customers to put the copper coins on the “tubank” [counter]).

On Shabbat I saw a few “balebatishe”^[3] Jews coming from the Bes-Medresh with their top hats and heads held high. And I also saw the Hasidic Jews running to the bathhouse very early in the morning to take a ritual immersion bath for Shabbat^[4].

In Friday nights, after dinner, I saw the “challah girls” of Pyaskes walking in a tight line under the light of the full moon-almost the width of the street-and talking and talking.

I also saw the boys and the maids picking up the “tsholent”^[5] from Malke-Reyzl's bakery, and the workers' wives carrying clay pots of “cooked food”- hidden under their headscarves- to their husbands in the factories.

I saw starving Jews in worn, long caftans wandering around the market trying to make some money, as well as other scenes of poverty.

At the same time, however, one could already see the fruits of the emerging new political, economic, cultural, and social life, not only in Bialystok, but throughout Russia.

People were no longer afraid to talk about “him” (the Tsar). People were already using words like “parliament”, “open elections”, “secret elections”, “cooperation”, “trusts”, “autocracy”, “bureaucracy” - words that were completely unknown to the Jews before.

What we call “strikes” today were called “statshkes” or “zabostovkes” then. There were [secret] meetings behind the city, large demonstrations, , clashes with the police, boys shouting in a round dance: “Doloy samodyerzhaviye, doloy samodyeyzhavets merzavits!”^[6].

And the anti-tsarist and anti-capitalist songs that could be heard through open doors and windows or during walks in the woods - these very events, which were truly

[Page 7]

the signs of the dawning of a freer and better life for all the oppressed masses in the great Russia, these are forever etched in my memory.

And now, at my advanced age, I am happy to share my memories with my contemporaries, or with those who have heard about these events in our hometown of Bialystok.

My book should not be considered a “work of art” or a “novel”, where the names of people, cities and situations are invented. No, not at all. It is just a record, if you will, a description of the Jewish way of life on my street and of the events that were a proclamation of new and better times. I saw these events with my own eyes and heard them with my own ears.

It is quite possible, dear readers, that after reading this book you will want “more”...so you may want to know what happened next? Or why I settled down in another country? Unfortunately, I couldn't include your legitimate questions about “more” and “what happened next” in this book.

But if you want to satisfy your curiosity, you'll have to make the effort to read my first book: “Fol River, Amol un Haynt” [Fall River, Then and Now]^[7].

The author Boston, Massachusetts

1. shody= cheap fabric made from pulled wool, which was obtained from fabric remnants, see page 39 Return
2. An expression to distinguish the profane from the sacred Return
3. The word “balebos” [plural: “balebatim”] refers to the head of the family, but is usually used to refer to the boss or owner of a house or factory, or someone who is in a better financial situation. The derived adjective is “balebatish”. Return
4. a typical Shabbat by chasidim, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIg2FYW0Wh4 Return
5. tscholent= the traditional meat and vegetable stew prepared before Shabbat and usually kept warm in the large ovens of bakeries. Return
6. Something like: “Down with autocracy, down with the self-righteous bastard “ Return
7. see Fol Riṿer a mol un haynṭ ; zikhroynes̀ fun mayne iberlebenungen in yener shṭoṭ in di yorn 1909 un 1910 un ayndruḳn fun a bazukh 45 yor shpeṭer | Yiddish Book Center Return

“Fall River- Then and Now“, excerpt with a photograph of the author, see: Fol Riṿer a mol un haynṭ ; zikhroynes̀ fun mayne iberlebenungen in yener shṭoṭ in di yorn 1909 un 1910 un ayndruḳn fun a bazukh 45 yor shpeṭer | Yiddish Book Center

[Page 8]

I would like to thank my friends and comrades for their financial and moral support, which made it possible for this book to see the light of day:

Shmuel and Rachel Westelman, Boston; Yitzchok Levin, Pittston, Pennsylvania; Hyman Shapiro, Boston; Mr. Phillip Lown, Newton Centre, Mass.; Mrs. Lioba Hurwitz, Los Angeles, California; Mrs. Meli Kaplan, Fall River, Mass.. Mr. Max Meizel, Belfast, Maine; Mr. Mike Tooz [?], Norristown, Pennsylvania; Ben Sohn, Jacksonville, Florida; Mrs. Mini Sleiter, Hollywood, Florida; Sarah and Jack Finkel, Peabody, Mass.; Shloyme Fisher, Peabody, Mass. Benny Sklar, Bangor, Maine; Sidney Sheinfeld, Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania; Morris Gorfinkel, Alentown, Pennsylvania; Arnold Sukenik, Hazleton, Pennsylvania; William Toker, South Norfolk, Virginia; Dr. Harry Blok, Chelsea, Massachusetts; Dr. Chaim Zhitlovski Reading Circle, Chelsea, Massachusetts. Izidor Thomas, Baltimore, Maryland; Sonia Sokol, Chelsea, Massachusetts; Yosef Shneider, Boston, Massachusetts; Dr. Yosef Weinrebe, Boston, Massachusetts; Herbert Heler, Boston, Massachusetts; Nathan and Jenny Winkler, Miami Beach, Florida; Lipe Hendeliowitz, Copenhagen, Denmark.

I would also like to thank the authors:

S.D. Levin, who went out of his way to negotiate with the printer in New York on my behalf, also to Mr. David Sohn, editor at the “Bialystoker Shtime”. He proofread the prints, pointed out misprints and suggested corrections.

[Page 9]

There were three Pyaskes in Bialystok^[1]:

1. wide, straight Pyaskes, where Malke Stire's soap factory, Nathan Surazki's cloth factory, Yankel the mirror-maker's workshop, and Shimenshtshkhe's wood yard used to be. It was also the home of the famous and beloved midwife Rive the Heybe. This tall, middle-aged woman with black, gentle eyes delivered the babies of poor mothers without asking for money. There lived also the Choroshtsher^[2] “moyel” [circumciser], the tall Jew with the thin gray beard, who “cut” (as he put it) the poor boys from the Pyaskes and Khanaykes, and he did it for free (they were two good neighbors...).
2. The long, somewhat crooked Pyaskes, which stretched as far as the village of Slabode, and from which branched off in later years the “Argentine Alley”, and even later Rebbe's Alley, Malinovskiy Alley, and Flaker's Alley. All these “Argentine Alleys”, as they were called, stretched across the wide field to the forest, past the wooden barracks of the “Vladimirsk[aya] Regiment”.
3. “other” Pyaskes. It turned off from Surazer [Suraska] Street and went all the way to Bozhitarne, past Meshl's steam mill and the two windmills belonging to Khone the miller and Madame Tshekhovski (the latter was known as “ vevekhe”^[3]) From the high hill in the “other” Pyaskes one could get to the “Kraitshak's Alley”. All these alleys

[Page 10]

were lined on both sides with low, dark wooden houses and led to the area around Khanaykes^[4]. Next to the last two Pyaskes were German graves on a long, divided section, surrounded by a high, dark brown wooden fence.

And on the long Pyaskes section, on the side of the graves, there was a long and wide marketplace where farmers from the surrounding villages would set up their carts every Thursday to sell their produce, but also to buy salt, tea, sugar, kerosene, candles, wicks, lamps, iron, leather and other items for their own use from the Jewish grocers.

At this market, Jewish women would sit at the “baydlekh” [market stalls] and sell Jewish breads, such as “rozavanke” [black bread], “gebaytlt broyt” [rye bread], as well as “bulkes” [bread rolls], cakes, rolls, bagels - and on Friday evenings, also tortes.

During the cold months, the women who sold bread used to sit on “fire pots” to avoid freezing. Every year in July, fairs or carnivals were held on the wide and long market. Among the visitors from other cities or countries, the Hungarians were particularly conspicuous, dressed in their national Bohemian costumes with colorful feathers tucked into their green plush fedoras. They were specialists in disciplining unruly horses through “operations”...

1. There are three streets, all of which have the same name Return
2. he came from Khoroshtsh [Choroshtsh], which is between Trok (Trakai) and Grodno, Choroszcz - Wikipedia Return
3. The term is possibly derived from “ververke”, squirrel Return
4. Khanaykes was considered the poorest district of Bialystok. I recommend reading a contemporary of the author, Jacob Jerusalimski, who writes extensively about Khanaykes in his memoirs, you can find my translation here:Translation of the memoirs of Jakob Jerusalimski - Społeczne Muzeum ¯ydów Białegostoku i regionu (jewishbialystok.pl) Return

On the long Pyaskes mentioned above stands the one-story, dark gray wooden house of my aunt, Tsvia Kaplanski. It was there, on the corner of Meshl's wide, humpbacked street, that I saw, as they say, “the light of the world” on the second day of Shavuot in 1862.

I remember when I was about

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three years old. Our family moved two yards away, to Gretshko's houses. Our Polish landlord, Gretshko, was one of six “goyish” [gentile] landlords on our street with Jewish neighbors. The others were:

Katshinski, Kasperovitsh, Malinovski, Gelert, and Dzhevinski.

They all spoke Yiddish quite well and were very friendly to Jews.

You could even see them at Jewish weddings and other celebrations. I remember how the eldest son of our new landlord, Matshek, a tall, healthy, broad-shouldered “sheygets” [farm boy] with thick, curly black hair, greeted my father with “Gutn morgn, Reb Elye!”^[1]

And regardless of whether he was called Reb Yoshe or Reb Elye^[2], a Jew in a long black kaftan was usually very happy to hear a “goy” pronounce the word “reb” while the other non-Jewish neighbors used the [Polish] word “pani”.

1. “Good morning, Mr. Elye!”. The term “reb” means Mister. Return
2. There appears to be a small mistake in the original, so I have translated according to the meaning. Original: “... whether … my father or Reb Elye...” Return

By summer, about six months later, our apartment was already in a house of Aba the melamed^[1], in the same long Pyaskes, five houses away, on the other side of the street. Aba's yard consisted of a long, dark gray, one-story wooden house for three neighbors. Each apartment had a vestibule. Further back in the yard was a small white wooden house for one family. And still further back was an old, wide wooden house that housed a weaving mill with six hand looms.

And behind this sad-looking building was a long, green garden planted with potatoes, beets, and cucumbers. When I think of the few years we lived in Aba's houses, the following stories come to mind: One evening, as I was lying on the couch dozing, I suddenly heard

[Page 12]

my mother screaming:

“It's stabbing me in the stomach! It pierces my stomach!”

When I opened my eyes, I saw our good, dear neighbor standing next to me, Sore, the “Amdurerke”^[2]. She was middle-aged, with beautiful blue eyes, and said softly to me: “Sleep, Leibele, sleep on.”

None of our family was at home, neither my father, nor my sister Feygl, nor my brother Hendzel.

The next day, early in the morning, I was already shown my new little sister, Khanele, who had dark brown eyes and black hair. But unfortunately I didn't see her for more than a week...

A Polish family with four small children lived in the small white house mentioned above. One of them, the boy Antusch, was four or five years old, had blond hair, blue eyes and round, full red cheeks, a real little peasant boy, a personality...

I played “bol un palant” (ball games) with him. When he caught the ball, he said, “Ja mam!”^[3]. And I would say, when the rubber ball came into my hands, “Ikh hob!”^[3].

Once, on a hot afternoon, while I was playing “palant” [bat and ball] with my Polish friend, a terrible downpour broke out. It really poured down like buckets.... Since we Jewish children were taught not to go into “goyishe” houses and not to enter a house when we were soaked, I hid in our stable, right across the street from the white house. I covered myself with sacks and waited for the rain to stop.

I felt so comfortable and protected from the rain under the sacks that I almost fell asleep...

But all of a sudden I heard my father calling desperately: “Leybl! Leybl! Where are you?” “I'm here, I'm here!” I reassured him.

[Page 13]

Soaked to the bone, we both went into the house...

I played with Antush on sunny and dry days; and from him I learned to understand and speak Polish even before I became a “kheyder-yingl”^[4].

1. “melamed”= Teacher at Jewish elementary school Return
2. She or her husband may have come from Amdur. Return
3. The Polish and Yiddish versions of “got it!” Return
4. a schoolboy. Boys were usually enrolled in the Jewish elementary school, the kheyder [cheder], very early, often at the age of three, at the latest at the age of five. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=ziA_USVEbvo Return

One warm autumn noon, Alter, the teacher, a tall Jew

[Page 14]

with a short light brown beard and glasses, came to our landlady and asked her:

“What do you think, Sheyne-Tsirl, should I go and wash my hands to eat, or should I fast for the day?”

The wise Sheyne-Tsirl instructed him to do what he thought was right, and Reb Alter did indeed wash his hands to eat.

Later I learned that it was a “fast day”. But not one of the regular fast days like “Shivah Asar b'Tammuz”^[1] or “Assara b'Tevet”^[2] and others, but a special fast day. The rabbis proclaimed it because Tsar Alexander the Third^[3] - may his name and memory be blessed - was saved from an assassination attempt on October 17, 1887, but remained ill. At that time, the Russian revolutionaries, then known as “narodovoltses”, used a bomb to blow up the railroad in which he was traveling from St. Petersburg to Warsaw.

This terrorist act was the Russian freedom fighters' way of getting back at him for his tyrannical actions and the abolition of reforms to benefit the poor peasants. They also wanted to avenge the fact that he had denied all rights to the Jews and other minority peoples and had organized pogroms against the Jews in Kiev and surrounding towns in 1881.

In other words, Jews had to fast and pray for the health of the Russian tyrant and pogrom instigator...

Incidentally, it is worth noting that Alexander, Lenin's elder brother, also took part in the failed assassination attempt on Nikolai's [Nikolach's] father. He was hanged.

The third conversation I overheard took place on a warm summer morning, in the small store in Aba dem Melamed's long house at the front of Pyaskes Street. I was awaiting my “next conversation” after a tall woman entered. She had black eyes and sadly asked the shopkeeper, who was called Saryekhe Yakov^[4].

[Page 15]

“Have you heard the news?”

“What news?”

“Four people were hanged in Chicago,” was her reply.

As a little boy of four or four and a half, I didn't dare ask who these four people were and what they were hanged for. But in later years, when I was already in America, I found out that these “four” were the Chicago Martyrs. They were labor leaders against whom the enemies of labor waged a smear campaign. They were said to have thrown a bomb at a group of policemen, killing eight of them.

This momentous event is known in the history of the American labor movement as the “Haymarket Affair”^[5].

However, the woman who announced the news in the store got the date wrong. The four labor martyrs, Albert Fassons^[6], August Spies, George Engels and Adolf Fischer, were actually convicted that summer, but were not hanged until November 11, 1887.

1. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventeenth_of_Tammuz Return
2. See: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assara_beTevet Return
3. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_III_of_Russia Return
4. יקעבֿ סאַריעכע Return
5. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_affair Return
6. The name is said to have been Albert Parsons. Return

Six months later, when we moved to one of David Furye's houses - it was a few yards away, on the same street, but opposite Aba's houses - I was old enough to go to the cheder. Our house was large and wooden, with three rooms on the second floor.

And so I was given away to study with the Choroshtsher dardaki melamed^[2], who had his “school” in a small, dark alley, a side street of the wider Shmuel Shmid's street.

This small alley with its dark gray one-story “palaces” was called “Knup's Gasse” after a Jew had hanged himself in one of the houses there - hence the name “Knup” [knot].

[Page 16]

The Choroshtsher cheder consisted of a long and wide room with several chambers. About thirty or forty boys were taught the “Alef-Beys” here. I put the word “teach” in quotes because the rabbi^[3] used to beat the students more than he taught them.

The “ Choroshtsher”, a slender Jew in his forties, with a short reddish-blond beard, was, one might say, an “ akhzer”, a cruel, evil man, who never laid down the whip.

Once, when I came to the cheder early in the morning, I saw a strangely sad picture: A boy of four or five was sitting on the hard bench, his shirt rolled up over his shoulders to his neck, and his bare buttocks peeking out. Above him stood the melamed with the whip, beating him every time the frightened pupil could not read a word as the teacher had taught him.

But the Choroshtsher was wise enough not to beat the children of the “balebatim”, the rich...

The sadistic melamed liked to whip [red] stripes so much that he even beat his own son, Alter, when he was a already a young man. Alter had a noble appearance and wore golden glasses over his gray eyes. Of course, we boys didn't find out why he beat his only son.

The “rebetsn”, the rebe's wife, a Jew in her forties, had black, evil eyes in her broad face. Apparently she was imitating her husband, for she beat her daughter, a grown girl, who always looked a little confused with her disheveled black hair and evil looks...

The Choroshtsherke had another indecent passion: she used the yard as a toilet when the children ran around playing. The group of children were busy chasing each other and probably didn't notice - or they noticed but didn't care.

But I wasn't playing at that moment

[Page 17]

and I noticed it very well! And she saw me looking... She gave me the evil eye and I was really scared...

I was simply disgusted with the whole environment of the Choroshtsher cheder - with the gloomy houses in the alley where the gutters stank, with the unhygienic conditions in the yard, with the rabbi's whip, with the evil looks of the daughter and the “noble” behavior of the rebetsn.

In addition, Shloyme, the water carrier, an elderly, thin Jew with a yellowish face and a short gray beard, always sat in the vestibule. He complained to everyone that he couldn't sleep because of the bugs that plagued him, and that he couldn't carry the water over the “hosheles”^[4]...

In the cheder there was also usually a very badly dressed mute woman who kept shouting “na, na” which was the only word she could pronounce. In short, I decided not to go to cheder anymore. My mother tried to persuade me to go until the end of the semester. But I didn't want to:

“No, Mom, no!” I begged her, “I don't want to go to this cheder anymore! I don't want to!”

1. a man from Choroszcz. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choroszcz Return
2. a teacher who taught young children their first lessons Return
3. Yiddish „rebe“, the “rabbi” in the sense of a teacher at the Jewish elementary school Return
4. Unfortunately, I don't know what is meant by “hosheles”. It could be a misprint. Obviously he had trouble carrying the water out over the bumpy lanes. Return

Since I could already say “ivre”^[1], perform a blessing like “hamoytse” [the blessing over bread], and also knew “moyde ani” [the morning prayer after waking up], I no longer had to go to a “dardaki melamed”. I was given to Aba, our former “landlord”, who was considered a good teacher of the “Khumesh” [Pentateuch] and the “Tanakh”^[2], which we called “Svarbe”^[3].

[Page 18]

My new rabbi, a Jew in his late thirties, heavyset, with a thick, broad black beard, used a strange “didactic” system: he would deliberately mistranslate sentences from the Khumesh or Tanakh, expecting one of the boys to point out the errors.

But when none of them did, he would get up from his chair and start beating the students' heads while shouting, “What fools you are! I led you astray, but you didn't even realize it!” And he would blame them for not using their heads to learn.

Aba's cheder was in the same apartment where we lived: A large, long room with a chamber separated by a white sheet.

Eight or ten boys studied there. Including his own son, Yankele^[4],Yankele was a handsome boy with soft, red cheeks and beautiful black eyes. He was blessed with a very pleasant voice. However, he had one weakness: he liked buttered cakes (the well-known Bialystoker round cakes with a hollow in the middle, sprinkled with poppy seeds)^[5].

His mother, Sheyne-Tsirl, apparently did not give him enough of this food to satisfy him. So he began to beg from his father's students, but they were not generous and already knew what to say: “Sheli, sheli (what is mine is mine)!”

Yankele, however, ignored the answer, and he knew where to find the “cakes” when the students were absorbed in their studies...

And so scandals broke out; people called each other names, shouted words at each other, and [eventually] Yankele was nicknamed “Yankele kukhn-puter” [butter cake].

But the anger didn't last long, we became good friends and played together. And he remained a beautiful boy with a sweet voice.

[Page 19]

A few years later, after we had already left Aba's cheder, misfortune struck Yankele. He developed a leg ailment. Dr. Prage was called (a former military doctor who used to drive to his patients dressed in the uniform of a general. Only the epaulets were missing).

Dr. Prage was a specialist in leg disorders. When he saw that his young patient was not improving, the “Doctor General” ordered to go with him to Warsaw. Yankele returned from Warsaw, leaning on two large crutches. He wore a nice plaid shirt and looked even more handsome than before, so he showed off proudly to us.

We were “envious” of him because he walked on crutches.... It didn't take long for Yankele's condition to worsen. He suffered frequent convulsions and passed out from the terrible pain.

Dr. Prage advised him to go with him to Königsberg, Germany. “Maybe,” he said, “the doctors there can help him.”

But unfortunately, Yankele never came back from Königsberg...

1. ivre zogn= say elementary prayers Return
2. tanakh= the Hebrew Bible, abbreviation of the canonical collection of “Torah-Neviim-Ketuvim” Return
3. svarbe= a “mumbled” version of “esrim-vearbe”, twenty-four; meaning the twenty-four books of the Tanakh Return
4. We later learn that it was an exception for a melamed to teach his own son in his cheder. Return
5. Bialystoker kukhn, Bialystoker pletsl, tsebularsh or Bialy= Flat rolls with a golden brown crust and a small depression in the center, often sprinkled with onion and poppy seeds. The dough is made with butter, not oil. Return

It was a kind of tradition among parents not to leave their child with the same teacher and in the same cheder for more than two semesters. So I left Aba and went to another rabbi named Mordekhay Gimpl. His cheder was in a long, dark wooden house on the densely built Yeshive Street that led from the old cemetery alley down the hill to the wide Khaye-Odem Street.

My new rabbi - a Jew in his early forties, of medium height, with a short red beard and the face of an innocent lamb - was not a hot-tempered man. He never held

[Page 20]

a whip in his hand and did not scold the students as “fools”...

The cheder, which was also his home, consisted of a long, wide room with three windows facing the courtyard (and it was such a “courtyard!”).

The sleeping area was in the same room and was “separated” by a long white sheet down to the floor. In the bed was a crippled three-year-old boy with dark brown eyes. He did not speak and could not stand up. His name was Yosefke.

He lay there looking back and forth with his eyes, but he didn't speak or laugh - a terrible picture of an unhappy boy!

The melamed's wife, tall with black eyes, was heavily pregnant, and we boys “accused” her of eating too much and causing herself a lot of grief.

The rabbi's table was very long, almost from the front door to the windows. Two “kites” [“classes”] sat at the table: the younger ones, from six to nine years old, sat at the very front next to the rabbi and learned Hebrew and the beginning of “Khumesh”. The others sat near the door and were considered “Gemore-bokherim”^[1].

I, a six year old boy, already became a “Gemore-bokher” here...

As far as I can remember, the first “mesakhte” [Talmudic tractate] we were taught was: המניח את הכד ברשות הרבים^[2].

We “bokherim” [lads] did not understand the meaning, and so we used the “theme” for a game: While walking out of the cheder, one of us lay down in the middle of the Yeshive Street - he represented “the jug” - and we walked up to him and gave him a push. The boy pretended to scream, but we jokingly asked him:

“Why did you do that? Who ordered you to do that? Who asked you to do that?”

But “the jug” didn't answer. “It” laughed…

We realized that we would never

[Page 21]

understand the difficult content of the המניח [Hamaniach]. The rabbi then taught us Hebrew. For this purpose he asked us to buy books on Hebrew grammar and “little textbooks”, the “מסילת ישרים” [Mesillat Yeshorim]^[3] by Mapu^[4]. We didn't learn much from this little bit, but at least we understood more than from the “Gemore” Hamaniach.

[Usually], a modest and well-dressed young man, a teacher, came and taught us how to hold a quill in our hands. And in a relatively short time we were able to write an “antvor” (letter). It looked like we were growing into “educated young men”.

But the atmosphere in the cheder was oppressive. The rabbi's hungry children were constantly begging us students for a piece of our buttered rolls or goose fat sandwiches^[5] that we brought from home. This caused endless bickering in the cheder.

Once I saw a testimony of poverty among the “melamdim” [teachers] of that time, actually in Mordekhay Gimpl's cheder:

On a cold, wintry early morning, the melamed Zusman's eldest son, a ten-year-old boy with vivid black eyes, dressed modestly in a brown coat, brought up a large loaf of black bread and gave it to his father, who was sitting in front.

As he began to cut the bread, three younger children ran up to him and demanded only the top brown crust. The father had to give it to them. He gave the soft parts to his son. The son protested because he wanted the whole piece with the crust. When he didn't get it, the father and son argued.

But the son gave in. Holding his piece of “black bread”, he growled, “Just the soft part, just the soft part!” and quickly ran out of the house to his cheder (for it was the custom of the “melamdim” not to teach their own children).

1. Gemore-bokher= adoloscent boy who studies the Gemore [Yiddish for “Gemara”]. The Gemore is Part of the Talmud that explains the Mishna. Later, on page 24, Leybl reports that he actually became a “Gemore-bokher” at the age of 9. Return
2. from Mishna II, tractate Bava kama, chapter 3: “ If one person put a jug down in a public place and another person tripped over it and broke it, he is exempt from paying for it. …“, see https://outorah.org/p/12909/ Return
3. Mesillat Yeshorim= The Path of The Upright Return
4. Abraham Mapu [1808-1867], known as creator of the modern Hebrew literature, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Mapu Return
5. There are small spelling mistakes in the book. I think it is not “broyt mit shtolts” but “broyt mit shmolts”, which means bread with poultry fat. On page 24 we find the term spelled correctly. Return

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