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In talking about synagogues and study halls, one must emphasize their importance not only in religious terms, but also as institutions with a role in social and private life.

That's because each person's private life was tightly bound to traditional obligations, detached from the general way of life by parents and grandparents, creating a traditional life across many generations, as was appropriate for a religious order.

Socially, for hundreds of years, the synagogue was the sole institution for solving various current problems in the Jewish community. And even in our own time, the first quarter of the 20^th century, the synagogue was a kind of miniature parliament. The synagogue was the central point in a circle of community affairs that had a social character. Some of the community's most important undertakings were free discussions and dealings during the intermissions between prayers, which were specifically held or prolonged (especially between the morning and additional services) because of the importance of pressing problems, and to crystallize a unified opinion among the members. In many cases, matters were decided according to what the – probable outcomes for the synagogue would be.

According to historical notes, the Christians of those times saw in the synagogue only an old, sacred, traditional religious institution; therefore, the Christian world related to it very favorably. In most cities and towns, the prince, the owner of the town, or a government representative donated a place for synagogues in the town center. So we see how synagogues became concentrated mostly in one place and then became a synagogue street or complex.

That probably happened in Vishnevets, too, where we have all the synagogues in one place.

The synagogue complex was enclosed by a high brick wall, with the entrance through a wide iron gate with iron doors on both sides. Upon entering “the gate,” the majesty of the synagogue was revealed. The synagogue complex sometimes hired a cantor with a choir made up of a couple of dozen young boys.

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In the Great Synagogue–that is, under one roof–there were several small synagogues: the vestibule with a minyan of paupers, and another two small synagogues for tailors and various other handworkers.

There was another synagogue in the synagogue complex–Smoky Arki's kloyz. R' Arki, of blessed memory, lived inside the kloyz. It can be said that R' Arki was the only concession of the kloyz. Himself a learned Torah scholar, he studied with a small group of students from wealthy homes and carried out the commandment of “Torah and service” because teaching was not his source of income. People called him “Arki Little Key,” based on a well–known notion of the small town. He practiced the lending of money for interest, and for as little as one week. There was no bank in Vishnevets.

Vishnevets cantor with choir boys (Inscription on photo: Vishnevets Great Synagogue)

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R' Itsi's Synagogue had given a special permit to R' Levi Yitschak of Berdichev's three sons. Each had unlimited privileges to pray at the cantor's stand during morning or afternoon prayers and also for the rich liturgical poems during the Days of Awe.

R' Matus Segal, of blessed memory, the holy servant, had a claim not much less than those. He distinguished himself by praying with great intention, separately and with intimate intuition. His fine approach and style stirred sympathy to God's service.

The Study Hall was the noble synagogue, as measured by size and number of people praying there. On the sides, in the vestibule, only young people–progressives–prayed and maybe chatted about matters of the day, politics, and other important subjects, talking more than praying.

The Tshaner synagogue, under Rabbi Leybush's leadership, was distinguished by having more services than all the other study halls. They began praying at dawn and ended later than any other synagogue. People prayed there when they were late to their businesses or on their way to the markets.

Life in the synagogues was suited to each person's position, interests, knowledge and abilities. In Arki's kloyz, on a visit between afternoon and evening prayers, you could see a group studying Talmud, with Leyb Zeyger leading; he was also the one who envisioned and founded the Talmud group in Tel Aviv, in the Nordau synagogue on Bugrashov Street. From time to time, we heard from Zeyger about a celebration on finishing a section of Talmud. In R' Itsi's Synagogue, a group studies daily verses from the Mishna. In the Handworkers' Synagogue, a group studies ¬Ein Yakov with the teacher Yosele Erlikh. Yosele Erlikh also taught the “Torah portion of the week” each Sabbath in the Tailors' Synagogue. Yosele Erlikh was of those who, as they say, was “for God and for folk”: a teacher in the Tarbut schools, an excellent pedagogue and speaker, who brilliantly adjusted to any audience before him. R' Yosele was a wise scholar and knew many things by heart.

Besides the synagogues inside and next to the synagogue complex, there were a few others of a certain character: those of the town rabbi and R' Yosel Margolis, of blessed memory, which people usually called by his wife Sore's name–“Sore Ostrer's Synagogue”–under the oversight of a respected fearer of heaven and learned scholar, R' Chayim Zev Segal, of blessed memory.

Sore Ostrer's Synagogue was founded through a private initiative by a wealthy, childless couple, owners of a big manufacturing business, goodhearted people who supported the needy with a warm heart and generous hand.

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The Ostrer Synagogue was in the town center, which was the main trade center–it served many congregants, some of whom belonged to other synagogues, but because of its proximity to their businesses, they could “hop in” to recite various prayers or a Kaddish. Also a good opportunity–it was close to business.

The Town Rabbi's Synagogue was distinguished by the fact that it housed the yeshiva, directed by the rabbi's son–in–law, Rabbi Itsikel Vayngarten. R' Itsikel was deeply knowledgeable in Talmud and advanced in life practices. He was really progressive in his outlook, and thanks to him, the rabbi's two daughters, his wife, Chanele, and his sister, Rachel, were independently disposed and part of the town's intellectual milieu.

They said that when Rachel was in Lvov for a lengthy medical examination, she befriended members of the intellectual circles there and was in the society of the poet Uri Tsvi Grinberg, who himself stemmed from rabbis, ancestors also claimed by the Vishnevetser rabbi Meir Nachum Yunger Leyb, of blessed memory.

The Rabbi's Synagogue was not unlocked for just the regulars. The yeshiva students prayed there, and visitors who wanted to be with the rabbi prayed there, as he was considered a higher authority under heaven. A number of Vishnevetsers, especially from the Old City, prayed with the rabbi during the Days of Awe.

Speaking of synagogues, I must mention my rabbi Froyke Shayer, of blessed memory, a scholarly Jew, Bible researcher, and Jewish history expert.

R' Froyke explained to me that the synagogue was not for just praying. In Aramaic, beyt keneseta also signifies a gathering or meeting place. The purpose was to remain a united nation in Exile. In the synagogue, people perform prayers collectively, study Torah together, and the trope is set collectively, so more than prayer is required, since the goal of the synagogue to unify Jews and keep them together, not only to petition God and to study, as each person can do that by himself at home.

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Thus the point of praying collectively was informed and set by the sages of the Mishna and Talmud to protect the unity of the Jewish people.

As we indicated at the beginning, the synagogue was later turned into an arena and forum for forming opinions and making decisions about the community's current problems–all together.

Without the synagogue, the crystallization of a people and society for the purpose of returning to Zion would not have been possible.

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Misha wrote a diary for himself in memory of Vishnevets. These excerpts are so heartfelt that it seemed they should be in the Memorial Book, with the permission of the author.–The Editors

We all remember our sweet childhood years, when our fathers would send us out of the synagogue into the vestibule during memorial prayers, and if someone then opened a door to the synagogue, then what seemed to us a heartrending lamentation flooded out–Jewish mothers spilling hot tears at the memory of their own dear, departed relatives.

Then how much heartrending it is for those few, fated–to–be–privileged survivors, who mourn whole families, an entire town that was full of the ebullient life of men, women, and small children, wiped out by murderous, persecuting hands.

The surviving Jews from the devastated cities and towns wanted to unify the memory of their birthplaces and fellow citizens with memorial books–a kind of collective memorial monument for their hometowns.

Reading the Yiddish newspapers published in Argentina, where I have lived since 1922, I found out from hundreds of fellow countrymen that memorial books had been written about their hometowns. My residence is Cordoba, the second–most significant city in Argentina. Only one person from the same place lives in the same city as I do–Yisrael Mafshit, and there is local correspondence with the newspaper The Press, but in Buenos Aires there is a large Vishnevets compatriot society with numerous wealthy people who can easily publish a memorial book, but … for such a long time there has been “no call and no answer” from our town's offspring. So I decided that however it was with me, I would take on the work myself so that at least my own memories would remain for my children to read.

I proceed to this very responsible task, including material by my compatriot mentioned above, Yisrael Mafshit.

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He left Vishnevets five years after I did, and although five years in the life of a town is perhaps a small amount of time, it's also large depending on the viewpoint and circumstance from which you observe.

It is also worthwhile to underscore how remarkable the ways of fate are.

Yisrael Mafshit's grandfather was called Yosil Fodem, and that Fodem and another Jew, Berel Zekharye's, as well as my grandfather, Aharon Mekhel, were sponsors for his six terms as local governor in Vishnevets (they were his sponsors for 18 consecutive years, fighting like lions for their starosta candidate every three years in all the reelection campaigns).

Memories, experiences, they gather themselves and flow like a kind of never–ending spring.

What can you write about a modest town like Vishnevets; we didn't have any popular movement leaders. For example, Kremenets, our district seat, 20 versts away, had its Yitschak–Ber Levinzon, father of the Jewish Enlightenment in Russia. Of course, we also had our Talmud experts and Bible teachers–Rabbi (teacher) Simche Ayzik, Yankel Harun Mekhel's, Froyke the teacher, and so on.

I believe that I can do best with the help of memories experienced as a long–term starosta's grandchild, in whose home, logically, much was said and heard.

The language I'll use is a pure Volhynia voice of the people, not polished, but as it was used by us–Yiddish, Hebrew, Slavic. The examples, episodes and narratives, light and shadow, happy and sad, as they were–life itself, in our little town Vishnevets.–The Author

A little Jewish town, at the beginning or the very end of the great and powerful Russia: It depends on what geographic point you viewed the town from: the first town starting from the Austrian border, traveling through Ukraine to great Russia, or the last town, hard by the same border. Across the border you could count the proper Galician towns and cities: Zbarazh and Tarnopol, and in another border direction, Zalozce and Zloczow, all on the beaten path, landmarks.

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What did our town look like? Like an artistic picture, one in which, as you approach and get closer, you see only colored specks, but as you look at the same picture in perspective at a greater distance, you perceive the loveliness of the same.

A Vishnevets resident saw the same surroundings, the landscape, every day, and for him it created a sleepy feeling: there was a river, so a river! There was a forest, it's a forest. But sifting through it in memory, that appearance, the landscape from a perspective, enlarged by the distance, you see first of all what charm Mother Nature has most bestowed on this little town.

Hills, not especially significant ones, circle the horizon. Toward the road to Kremenets, the Horynka (in Russian it is probably “Gorinka”) hills; toward the Zarudye road (from the word “Zagorodye”) all the way to the Kolodnoye road, everything was uphill or downhill, depending on the direction. Forests, which encircled the town like a crown–the Zarudye forest, which was a continuation of the enormous park by the castle (zamek in Russian), Luzer, Bidake forests. The river–Horyn is its name–calm, proprietary, snaking along, dividing the Old City, which has only a few dozen houses, from the main Vishnevets with a dike (a kind of bulwark bridge). The “principal” Vishnevets, by my “imaginative count” (no one practiced statistics in Vishnevets) amounted to about 300 houses, with 500 or 600 families (two families often lived together; in Yone Nets's house, five or even more families lived together). All the inhabitants were Jews. With a small exception: the pharmacist, Rashavski (a Pole); the beer tavern owner, Batsavski (a Czech); the monopolishtshik (government liquor seller), a Russian; the Russian tea shop, where not–so–observant Jews bought kipyatok (boiled water to make tea) on the Sabbath; and finally, the ruskaya lavka (Russian shop) owner, a Russian.

Then which elements served to make the town painterly lovely–hills, forests, river, and the surrounds dipped in gorgeous green blooming gardens?!

During World War II, a Spanish journal in Buenos Aires commenting on the German idée fixe “the push for the East”–meaning a productive Ukraine–presented a picture of a street from an Ukrainian small town as an example, and it was our Vishnevets, and although you could see only a part of a street in the early morning of a market day, I could recognize our well–known Zeydenokhi and one of his sons; Shmuel Machit, on his porch; Hertsel Face's house; and after that the house where I was born and reared with the usual glazed sukkah up on the top floor (I kept the picture and treasured it for years).

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The previously mentioned castle is just by the town, separated from its surrounds by a park inside a high brick wall, with iron bars and gates that would open only when their proprietor, Demidov, with his chin held high as if her were in the king's court–“stallmaster yeva dvora”–came to spend the hot summer months in his court and park.

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Before his arrival, he let someone from the public know when to expect him, and an audience of men, women, and children would greet his gleaming black automobile with him and his family inside. For us, then, the automobile was something unique, and served only to terrify the horses. After that, the Rakovitser Count, who had previously driven in to Shimon Chayim Shimon's inn in a coach with a livery and six horses in tandem, also exchanged the steaming horses for a smoking automobile. As I said, Demidov arrived, covering all of us with stinking blue smoke, and we, his loyal citizens (the town land belonged to him and we paid him rent), thanked him with applause and shouted hurrahs. A cannon boomed, all for the sake of honoring Demidov.

Disregarding the fact that the Orthodox church was located just opposite the park–not such a homey place for our brothers, the children of Israel–the Jewish youths used that place between the park and the church for their Friday evening and Sabbath afternoon strolls. As the air there was delightfully perfumed, and there were nightingales on moonlit nights, it brought forth their sweet tears. Let us appreciate here that the noisy walks of our youth were never disturbed there.

The castle–the town–the landscape

It was different when an arriving Jew, a wealthy Jew from a nearby village, one Moshe Rozental, and his son–in–law, Duvid Chinik, bought an estate from a formerly wealthy woman, Frenkeliavakhe, whose property line touched the park and the place opposite the entrance to the church; then Demidov and the church overseer raised a protest and robbed the Jew of half of his land through chicanery, since Demidov had organized the police and a week of dragon–riders because people were afraid of peasant unrest then.

The great scholar–teacher Simche Ayzik is worth a special chapter.

Boys who were almost grown, almost ready to lay tefillin, went to Simche Ayzik to study, and my parents performed an almost “revolutionary” act by sending me to study with him when I was just 10 years old, and I really had to endure trouble from my older fellow pupils, who only called me “little snot.” Studying with him was like entering a university right from middle school. Everything there was different. The pupil had to study by himself, and the rabbi called on him only once a week–himself, not at school–and his study was completely on another level. We especially enjoyed studying a little of Or hachayim [Light of life] with him, as we had to show quick conceptual power, our own intelligence. He was a great Hebraist and wrote letters and even poetry in the old–fashioned flowery style. We were told that he had written a petition (in Hebrew, of course) to none other than the tsar himself, and here is the reason for the petition.

As you recall, Shaul Krupnik lived on Yatke Street. He had a granary, a millet mill. It was known as the Shualekhe. Years ago, it had belonged to a family, a member of which converted. It was a terrible blow for the entire family, in both heartbreak and shame. Especially in making a marriage match, it happened in some cases that someone quietly whispered in an ear that there was a convert in the family…. Once a drowning victim was pulled from our Horyn River–not such an unusual event in the summertime when people often swam in the river. The difference was that the drowned person had large stones tied to his hands and feet. Looking at his face, one in the crowd screamed: oy, it was the Shualekhe's convert. This was the Ariadne who understood Yiddish, and there was a great uproar among the authorities–a religious murder! And if a murder in a religious bath, they promptly arrested the Old City rabbi.

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The respectable people of the town quickly mobilized so as not to allow such a desecration–the rabbi in jail, of all things. He was released on bail until the trial, guaranteed by their homes. The rabbi “considered” this; he was old, he took pains to collect evidence, and he died before the trial began. And because their homes were at stake and they could lose them, they turned to the tsar himself in their desperation, gathering to write the letter.

Of course, since they were all pupils, they wanted to have an example of his beautiful writing. I came up with a new idea. I brought a thick notebook to my rabbi and asked him to write an inscription on the cover, and here I quote that inscription as I preserved it in my memory:

Here are gathered all the letters
I so loved and loved
I write them to my friends
My relatives, my father, or my brother.

Afterward, I asked him to renew my notebook with one of his poems. He looked outdoors, where a heavy snow was falling, and wrote:

The mountains of snow and frost
Ice and cold giants
Descendants of the haunch of autumn,
You are heroes of war
That a girl is avenging,
You fought a great man
And reinforcement troops
From man to animal and bird.
Their portion of chain
And their bow inflects
Even the infant, even the aged.

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To Cheder

There were a lot of teachers among us, beginning with the alef–beys teachers and ending with the Talmud teachers; I will consider them on a graded scale: Mekhel Shames, Asher Yoel, Moshe Asher Yoel's, Teacher Yenkel, Moshe Fuks, Nachum Tarberider, Froyke, Yankl Harun Mekhel's, an uncle of mine, and the greatest of them all in scholarship, Simche Ayzik.

From Mekhel Shames's cheder, I went over to Moshe Asher Yoel's, who had prepared us by teaching us pupils M. Krinski's The Hebrew Language, Part 1. It was also mumbled about that between afternoon and evening prayers, he stopped over in the kloyz and asked for translations of Hebrew words he didn't know.

But with the help of his son Shmuel, he knew what was going on in our local Russian schools, how to make our cheder more interesting. Very simply, all the pupils, children of dry–goods vendors, had to bring boards from crates that merchandise was shipped in, and he, Shmuel, cleverly cut out little swords and rifles from them. So girding himself and our loins, he used to take us out to the street and muster us under his command: “Echad, shtayim, sholosh,” one, two three.

From Moshe Asher Yoel's, I moved up to Teacher Avrahamtsi, where we were taught the Five Books with Rashi's commentary. It was characteristic how they tried to keep children constantly busy studying so they had no time to joke around. Even on the Sabbath during the day we studied with the rabbi– Ethics of the Fathers in the summer and Proverbs in the winter. The nights were not free from Torah study either–accompanied by a little kerosene lantern or a candle, children waded through deep snow or treaded the pre–Passover deep mud. In winter, the nights were very long … with lantern in hand, its glass sometimes decorated with colored paper, a troop of little boys hurried home accompanied by a specific song, sung in a chorus, that remains in my mind: To build, to build, ducklings including those who go by night, Yosele the sh¬_ _ _r, Berele the f _ _ _r…

From Avrahamtsi I went over to Yenkel Harun Mikhel's, where I began to look into the Talmud. I wasn't there long before they brought me to R' Simche Ayzik. That “cheder” was the holy of holies, and I will write about that separately.

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Weddings

Happy weddings. The weddings were a source of joy not only for the groom and bride, in–laws, and guests, but for the entire town: on Saturday night, the musicians and their instruments arrived at the betrothed's home to play an overture. The day of the wedding, the couple was led through the whole town to the synagogue courtyard, accompanied by deafening music. Returning from the wedding, the groom and bride were stopped at the entrance by a boy–an educated boy from the groom's or bride's side–who usually gave a speech in Yiddish, Russian, or Hebrew; people would run ahead to grab a place, and sometimes the greeter went smoothly, and sometimes, oy vey, he began to stammer or forgot the words he had known so well by heart at home. Then a hot–headed in–law eager for the chicken soup would displace the boy and open the way for the groom and bride. I remember one of the greetings in Russian:

We greet those newly married
and wish will all our hearts
an ocean of happiness and love,
full health and splendid days.

At dawn, the whole town awoke to the grinding music with which the musicians led the in–laws back home.

Leading the bride to synagogue on the Sabbath was a lovely picture in and of itself: Well–to–do homemakers wearing long, floor–length dresses and trailing long heavy trains of thick black silk or plush fabric, hats on their heads. Sometimes they lent to one another, according to a new fashion that had come about. They were draped with the best and finest jewelry they possessed: strings of authentic, not manufactured, pearls; brooches with diamonds or gems; gold chains with watches; chains that went around the neck once or twice and still reached to the belt. They would go through the streets to and from the shul, accompanied by observers on every balcony, themselves enveloped in a cloud of dust raised by their long dresses, unintentionally stirring up the streets.

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Who were the musicians? This was a family comprising several brothers, and they had a right of possession to the trade. They were called the Hertskes, and no one knew if that was only a nickname. There was a hunch it came from the musicians' term haritsem bom. The eldest brother, the most capable (he played several instruments), moved up in the army in World War I: he was designated to lead a band of musicians and apparently given the rank of ensign, so the soldiers had to salute him. We became aware that he was not named Duvid Hertske but Mandelboym, a very fine family name. As I said, his band was, for that place, not bad at all, but they were surpassed by the fame of the Tshaner (Teofipol in Russian) musicians. But to bring them in was a luxury item, and the only one to do so was Fradele the orchard–keeper's husband, who was a contractor. You could really lick your fingers at their playing.

Our rabbi, Yunger Leyb, or Gur Arye, as he will be called here, had such a stately appearance, a beard of such volume, that his fine appearance could put Rembrandt's Jews of Holland in the shadows. But he never let himself be photographed because of the commandment “Do not make any graven images.” Our handsome rabbi made a wedding for his eldest daughter, Chanele, to a rabbi's son in Berdichev. This wedding was differentiated by the greeting of the in–laws: the young man traveled out, riding on a horse and in a made–over Cossack uniform. People carried on all week about the visitor, especially Jews in fur hats. He accepted a seat by the eastern wall in the Great Synagogue and a call to the Torah, for the promise of a contribution to the synagogue; no one ever gave one groshen. I recall my father remarking–he was beadle at the time–“Those who are used to taking all the time are not accustomed to giving….”

I remember that a marriage to a young man from Radzivilov was arranged for the teacher Moshe Fuks' widow's daughter. A number of in–laws from the groom's side arrived, among them one of the groom's brothers, a 10–year–old.

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Since it was a hot day, the boy went to bathe in our Horyn River and was pulled out later as a drowning victim. People went to ask the rabbi the question, what to do? To which the rabbi replied, the music–meaning the wedding–must go on.

Before the Days of Awe, we cheder boys would steal into the kloyz and throw ourselves onto the shofar to try to pull from it the harsh sounds of the tekiyas, shevarim, and teruas [shofar blasts]. We always encountered a remarkable thing: beside the shofar, in the same holy place where it rested, was a black kerchief, and near it an odd–looking little shoe: it was made of black leather, without a heel, like a little sock and woven around with straps.

We had no idea what a shoe was doing there in the hidden, most holy place in the kloyz until someone told us that it was a shoe used in the ritual of refusing to marry a brother's childless widow.

From then on, we were drawn to the shoe with reverence, even more so than the shofar; such a small thing when a shoe can cause a misfortune to happen to a widow, and her tragedy without the shoe could be, heaven forbid, doubled. As children, we wanted to see the shoe in use sometime, and our little hearts throbbed and waited for such a moment.

And one day it did happen.

I myself was a witness to the painful procedure in which the shoe played a major role.

I myself did see my people in a dark hour.

Nachum Lekhetitser lived in a house in front of Rashavski's pharmacy. His daughter married a young man named Moshe from near the Kremenets Road. The young man died suddenly and left his wife without children. Only with a one–year–old brother–in–law.

The young widow had to wait 12 years until the little brother–in–law could free her and tell her that he did not want to marry her. Twelve empty, lonely years the poor woman suffered in her widowhood, bound to the caprice of that little child and dependent on his good intentions. But he could not grow any faster. She had to wait.

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Until God's help came, when she was old and made ugly by her life those 12 years, the man–child became a bar mitzvah and could “free” her and determine her fate. He released her, and the little shoe came into play.

Many of the singularities of the procedure have escaped my memory, but what I remember, I remember as if it were today.

The kloyz was packed with people, the judge led the ceremony, people held their breath; people clapped for quiet, now people were not talking; each wanted to show his mastery of the matter, not even thinking that here are clever people witnessing something from hundreds of years ago, tying us to primitive, half–wild hordes of people. Each person enjoys it when he can mention a citation from the Talmud that the other does not know, but we wait like wild creatures, enjoying it in a way I hadn't experienced before.

The moment arrives, the widow is separated from everyone else with the black cloth, like someone with mange; the judge speaks to her through the black linen “wall.” Who understands now what the dark Aramaic words mean? The little brother–in–law, the main actor of the overly crafted spectacle, understanding the least of anyone present. Suddenly it is quiet, they name the devastated widow again, and the mysterious shoe falls, thrown by the child's little bar mitzvah hands, right at her, and she is free.

Vishnevets actors and musicians, and their sponsors

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The Beginning of Theater in Vishnevets

For us, the forerunner of Jewish theater lovers was Yosel Boykis. He had recently returned from Warsaw, where he was a trade employee and had become absorbed in the impressive presentations of Ester–Rachel Kaminski when she was at her most productive.

In Vishnevets, with homegrown energy, Yosel carried out several dramatic performances with great success.

People in Vishnevets got accustomed to theater. After him, we young students founded a theater–lovers' circle, and under the direction of Fayerman–the ritual slaughterer's son–who had come home from Kishinev, we drew the dramatic thread further, playing “Yiddish King Lear” and “The Wild Man,” among others.

The presentations usually ended with general festivity. The musicians went out onto the balconies of the village mill, where we had the theater salon, and the streets came alive under their merry tunes. It's let's all be merry and gay for Jews, we're playing the theater!

On a hot summer day, a noisy clock clanged, and a phaeton (a large britshke) harnessed to two completely exhausted, glistening black horses drove into the market square. In the phaeton was seated a middle–aged man with a short beard, dressed in a Perets shoulder–cape and wearing a soft, black hat on his head. The street was startled; children looked around at one another uneasily. Perhaps it's a license inspector again, maybe it's worth putting some merchandise aside for a while and making the shop look a little pitiful.

But then, when the honorable young man drove to Shimon–Chayim–Shimon's inn, everyone was at ease and hurried over to the inn.

We saw the young man get out with Bunim Shimon–Chayim–Shimon's, and both set out in the direction of our shop. Calmly, at a smooth pace, the mysterious traveler came into the shop, gave a hearty greeting to my father, and said,

“I've been told that you are the beadle of the Great Synagogue.”

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“I want to ask you to make it possible for me to visit the synagogue. I'm from the Petersburg Jewish Museum, which purchases and collects unusual items of a pure Jewish character and keeps them for the museum.”

My father sent me to call on Mikhel the sexton for the synagogue key, and we went off to the synagogue. We opened the heavy door, studded from top to bottom with fat–headed iron nails, and the whole entourage, with the guest in the lead, went down the stairs of the “deep depths” and into the synagogue.

The guest strolled slowly to the cantor's desk and stood there astonished: on the desk lay a gigantic book, a kind of prayer book from hundreds of years ago. The outside was covered with leather and artistically ornamented with gold engraving. The pages were all parchment, very thick, and all around was a halo of light–teardrops from generations of long nights during which Jews wept their woes and troubles into the book.

He turned some pages of the book and was astonished. All the chapter headings were written in large, artistic letters. A real rarity, the only one in the world. Regarding this rarity thoughtfully, the guest turned to my father and the others: “Jews, I am Sh. Anski. How much would you want for this prayer book, or will you sell it to me?”

But the Jews could not agree; they could not part with such a treasure. In no instance. For no price.

Anski was not put off; he walked on and stopped by the artistically carved Torah–reading desk with its gilded chains at the ends, from which hung two golden hands spread out as for the priestly blessing.

He was prepared to buy the desk. But they would not agree to sell it.

Anski remained calm, keeping to himself, and looked around some more.

The synagogue was large and beautiful. It was two stories high. Light shone in through individual windows with colored panes. The ceiling had several cupolas, and there was a large, prominent dome in the center. In the center of each cupola was a small, round opening from which hung a brass filigree hanging lamp on thin, shining brass chains.

The middle lamp was huge. Anski was a customer for them all, but they sold him only one side lamp. It was also ingeniously crafted with hammered–out flowers, buds, little roses, and cherubs, but a lot smaller and less valuable.

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Anski was happy with it.

They wanted to leave. But Anski suddenly spied a stone emerging from the wall with its smooth side to the wall. He asked someone to turn the stone around; he wanted to look at it. He would pay to repair the wall. His request was fulfilled, and all were astonished when they saw that on the other side of the stone were carved blessings for the town and its residents; the stone appeared to be very old, and who knew why they had to hide the inscription. Its history was lost. Hopeless. From then on, you could see the stone with the letters facing outward. We didn't sell the stone to him either. But from all this, Anski saw that there a long, deep history silently existed in our town, and he asked us to tell it to him.

Then we led him out behind the synagogue, near Yisrael Niuk's house, and showed him the little cemetery, which was walled in like a well, overgrown with thick wild grass and neglected. And we told him that women had been coming here for generations and tossing garlic in, just as at a real cemetery, because according to the legend, when Chmielnitski's gangs came into the town, seething, unruly, and wild, they encountered a wedding entourage. Jews were leading a young couple to the canopy, and the thugs grabbed the groom and bride and threw them into the well alive.

Anski could not beg us to clean out the weeds and set up a stone, an inscription; perhaps there was still a witness around. Vishnevets did not want to disturb the dead.

But after that story, Anski wrote his famous Dybbuk, and in it vividly depicted the story of the couple that had been taken from the canopy and thrown into a well, and knew no more of life.

A Jewish high–schooler from Kremenets, from the first Ukrainian regional high school, and a fellow student of mine whose family name was Goldshteyn, arrived in town. He had grown a short beard in order to look a little older and had started calling himself Orlenka–“a Christian.” He had done that according to instructions he'd received while organizing the official civil authority for us.

[Page 448]

Since the potential enemy could be the Poles on that side of the current border, and the Central Government could not send an army because it was maintaining many fronts, it was on him, using capable propagandists, to create a peasant militia that would maintain a watchful eye on the trenches remaining from the recent war. The reason for such an army was that it ostensibly cost the government coffers nothing; there were plenty of abandoned weapons around. The peasant was happy to hide out in the trenches and keep watch; he grabbed some food from a house nearby, or his family brought him food from home.

Furthermore, the Poles who had decided to attack our area had sent their own propaganda specialists from their side, and knowing and understanding the dark ignorance of the masses, they began to use the Jewish motif as their propaganda medium, putting out a rumor that “the Jews had carried off four bags of communion bread from the Pochayev monastery.”

For such a “crime,” their first reaction was to make a reckoning with the Jews in Vishnevets.

I saw my schoolmate Goldshteyn–Orlenka among them, carried between two armed peasants. When he recognized me, he asked me to find him a cart to Kremenets. I went immediately to do his bidding–but really, he who rules and commands was only looking for an opportunity to get to Kremenets through me.

Only after those events were over did I consider what life–threatening danger he had put me in, just by turning to me.

As expected, the peasants from the nearby villages abandoned the trenches and came into town, gathering near the bailiff's office.

I slipped in unnoticed, and I overheard one of the town peasants, who was known to be a little left–leaning, apparently answering a previous speaker.

“No, we've lived with our Jews in peace for hundreds of years. When it rains on us, it rains on them too; if the sun burns them, it burns us too. If Jews have done something wrong, it was some other Jews in other places.”

I wanted to keep standing there and listening, but suddenly a non–Jewish woman called to another, who was standing near me:

“Divisia etlin sinok.”^[1]

[Page 449]

Look, I understood that it would be the same for me as for Etel's son …

The crowd listened to the speaker who said not to bother the Vishnevets Jews. They set out for Kremenets, taking Goldshteyn with them, whose young life they very unfortunately ended in the Horynka forest, where they also covered it up.

Neighbors and friends used to come to our home in the evenings after the Sabbath for a glass of tea and an omelet or cakes. They had conversations about the Jews' situation and politics in general.

Among the usual guests was Tovye Shag, a wealthy Jew, who emphasized his wealth with a large gold watch that he frequently took out of his vest pocket and peered at through gold–rimmed glasses. Once I heard him say, “If they want to take me, they'll have to chew through the walls.”

I didn't understand the meaning of the words at the time. It was years later that I took in their significance: it was soon after the pogroms. Tovye Shag was afraid they would rob him of his possessions, and he decided to construct a building that then housed a five–story steam mill with gigantic steam boilers and expensive machinery. When the mill began to function, he saw that there was a flaw. It was too good for Vishnevets: in just one month, it could supply the entire region with enough flour for a year, and it ate up an enormous amount of wood, so much that it required its own forest to supply it.

As business went from bad to worse, he hired out the mill to two sisters–in–law, Shifra and Krishtal, who came from Slavuta and quickly became a riddle for the whole town–for everyone, men, women, children. Shifra had a daughter my age named Gitashe, who spoke only Russian and went to school on Friday and Saturday, although they kept a kosher kitchen. In time, we discovered the significance–they were descended from the true Shapiros.

Shifra and Krishtal also lost money on the lovely mill enterprise, and they left Vishnevets.

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Of course, when Shifra left, Tovye Shag was again left with the mill and the huge monthly deficits, until the two Katsap brothers slipped in and bought the mill for a song. They did indeed have their own forest, and then the mill was grinding, even if not every day.

Afterward, Shag fell from his status as a rich man.

A Jewish woman in Vishnevets converted and married a non–Jew, and as it goes, the gentile disappeared and left her with a nice number of children. No one knew whether she was a widow or a divorcee or a “grass widow.” She lived as an outsider, torn away from both worlds, rejected by both societies, but demonstrated her inclination to the society she had abandoned. Every Friday evening, she would set out a candelabra with lighted candles. She lived on a little hill up from the “Ziemsker Hospital” on a completely gentile street that began at Shmuel Balter's house, the last Jewish house.

The lights were like a beacon from a castaway ship in the distance on a great hostile sea, calling out from the sea and begging for mercy and prompt aid. A kind of quiet connection to distant brothers and an open severance from nearby enemies, her neighbors the gentiles.

Who can evaluate the depth of the tragedy that played out in the heart of this simple, primitive woman, who in her innocence thought that a heart–to–heart connection was enough to make folks' mutual hatred disappear.

Another case of conversion was that of a Jewish man named Alter. He married a gentile woman who did laundry for Jews her whole life and went among Jewish homes while he was alone in the house. But when he encountered a Jew, he would soon come away with a bit from the Jewish holiday prayer book or a verse of cantorial song.

Someone said he said, I did wander far from home, but I did it so that my children should not suffer from Jewishness.

Impossible things. His children did suffer from Jewishness. Their neighbors, good Christian brothers, shouted “vikristi,” or manufactured Christians, crafted gentiles, after them, also a tragedy.

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Misha Korin on the left

A view of the Vishnevets Old City

He was a neighbor, Motel, Mendel the wagon–driver's son, and he was not a sluggish young man, not unattractive, especially in his fine manliness when he would come from his military service to rest up at home, which he had to do for four long years in the Far East. In those in–between times, when he would come home to rest, he fell in love with one of the Karminik (they manufactured flints) sisters.

When Motel returned from service, he wanted to marry his heart's chosen one–but his parents and relatives were set against the match. Not for nothing, but for a reason: he is poor, the girl is poor, so two paupers are going dancing. Moreover, there's a girl in a village, a distant relative of Hershel “Air” (nicknamed because of his stinginess) has a daughter, she's very clever, even a jokester, in any case there's a dowry. But Motel held his own, saying the girl loves me and I love her. One sister–in–law got into the mix, Feyge Yosel the Terek's, and told him that it's obvious that he loves her, but is he so certain about the girl's love, why not test it to see; he should bring a bottle of water and say that it's poison. And if the families won't allow the match, he'll drink some of the poison, and she should drink some and put an end to the matter. He carried out his crafty sister–in–law's trick, and when he presented his girl with the plan to poison themselves, she replied, “If you want to poison yourself, poison yourself, but I'm young and want to live more…” Of course, he married Hershel “Air's” daughter. Love for me, too.

I don't recall whose idea it was, but it's fixed in the student youth's memory. Since the central authority was concerned about the rise of popular education, we could propose to the instructor that, calculating how many pupils there would be in middle school, we should establish an appropriate educational institution in Vishnevets. Meir Averbukh and I were chosen as the representatives. Averbukh was designated as head spokesman because he had a smooth tongue and was cut out to be a very fine orator. I arrived at the appointed hour at the bailiff's for the audience with the instructor. Meir Averbukh, however, did not arrive on time for some reason.

[Page 453]

When the time for our talk with the instructor approached, I went in alone and gave him the petition from the student youth; he talked to me about it in a friendly way, promising to take steps. Witness to all this was Meir Averbukh's uncle, Shimon Lifshits, who, seeing him arriving belatedly, called out to him in anguish and vexation, “Meir, we've already spoken!”

The town shopkeepers frequently suffered from paupers–the door knockers, for example, who went through the town begging for alms, some begging for clothes, others wrapping a kerchief around their beards to appear to have a toothache, completing their itinerary, and then changing their appearance and starting to beg all over again. When recognized, they became aggressive and called people names, or swore with curses and oaths.

The shopkeepers came together and selected a commission, of which my father was elected president and treasurer. They imposed a monthly, voluntary payment on themselves. Itsik the Tall (Kremenetski) used to go around with a big basket collecting all the payments and brought them to the treasurer, and that's where the shopkeepers sent the paupers. “Go to the treasury, they'll give you charity from all of us.”

Of course, at the treasury they had to produce their personal documents. Once a poor man showed up who did not want to show his documents or even say his name. My father explained to him that he wouldn't be able to get any funds without it, and he responded gloomily “But you won't laugh?! My name is Zishe Krepl…” [little fritter].

My father served two terms as beadle of the kloyz, where we had a fixed place by the eastern wall and prayed there. But one Simchas Torah (that was the season for choosing beadles) the congregation at the Great Synagogue decided to honor my father with the title of beadle. On Simchas Torah a crowd of Jews filled our house. Avrahamski the teacher went to our oven, clapped his hands, and shouted, “Tas, tas, tas!” I asked my mother what that meant, and she interpreted it as an insinuating suggestion that she take the roasted ducks out of the oven and serve food to the crowd.

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We led my father to the synagogue under a canopy, and the crowd made merry, Simchas Torah style, dancing in front of him until we were inside the synagogue.

About my father's beadle service, I remember that during market days, non–Jews would show up, probably sent by Jews they knew, with some version of this: “Is this where the mayor of the synagogue lives?”

“Yes, what's the matter?”

“Since a horse (sometimes a cow or a sheep) has gone missing, I have already given money for candles at my church, and the horses have not turned up, so I decided that if our god couldn't help, maybe yours will help. I've brought you money for candles.”

In such cases, my father behaved well, not wanting to take money directly from a non–Jew; but I would take the contributor to the vestibule of the Great Synagogue, where the letters spelling out “put money through here” were painted over a crevice in the stone wall. The peasant believed with complete faith that the golden coins reached the true messenger.

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Do you think this is a paradox–to include in a memorial book a town's specific folklore, when it seems to be the laughable, refreshing, comical experiences of the time before the bestial wave of Hitlerism. Yet there's no shame in reliving episodes of day–to–day life, still rooted in that faraway youth that vanished together with that life.

All this happened back then.

When you were a child in cheder and your childhood years were exuberant with impudent energy, here and there you played a few pranks.

With the dew of childhood still on the lips, you can speak silliness with a naïve, open heart. Then, when you wove childish fantasies together with the same group of friends, and did things to annoy the teacher or parents and grownups and got pleasure and joy and satisfaction.

Suddenly the world becomes old and sinister. Suddenly you're no longer a child, and you run away and separate yourself from the experiences that everyone around you is having and doing. Then you observe your youthful ways from a great distance and see: it was once joyful, too; humorous, too; dew of youth, too. Upon my soul, it's a shame it will be forgotten by eternity.

Pictures of that grey, prosaic reality flicker endlessly inside you. You grew up in that reality, and however small each of those pictures is, in and of itself, the urge to tell about it is strong … because that's how it was.

Before you stands a mature tree, a big tree, near the river, close to Shmelke's house. That's why it's called Shmelke's tree. Certainly, Shmelke didn't care for the tree; he didn't water or improve it. It just sprang from pure Nature, covered with many branches reaching out and up. It even covered part of Shmelke's roof. A fruitful tree with sour little pears, almost like poison to eat.

Of course, we cheder–boys were drawn to the tree, and we ran to enjoy it with abandon.

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We also took pleasure from Shmelke's agitation and shouting, because to reach the bitter fruit on the upper branches, we had to throw stones, which, to Shmelke's chagrin, broke tiles on his roof.

Shmelke's tree remained an attraction for us year after year, in our free time from cheder. And, besides the river, it was a gorgeous panorama to behold.

Actually, a wedding in town wasn't just for the groom and bride, the in–laws, and the invited guests. A wedding was for the whole town, because a large part of the population took part in the wedding–uninvited, but it didn't matter. The impression was that the whole town made the wedding, and, without exception, everyone adopted the young couple joyfully and happily.

Already from the Thursday before the Sabbath when the groom would be called to the Torah, everything was about the wedding.

Each thing was prepared with inner anticipation and respect for the honor of the wedding canopy to be set up on Tuesday. By Tuesday, everyone was excited, big and little, old and young, rich and poor, even in the Old City across the bridge over the river. Everyone anticipated together, looking on with wonder at the groom and bride being led in a parade to the Great Synagogue.

Some waited impatiently in the packed balconies, some in a mass on the bridge, and those who had declared themselves progressives had, to avoid the aftertaste of provincialism, pressed to the sidelines, or they were a very passive part of the crowd as they experienced the joyous procession.

After the wedding, young people gathered around under the windows of the wedding house with great curiosity and tried to observe what was going on inside through any crack.

People impatiently awaited the call for the “gift sermon” and especially the main act, the main attraction, when the musicians and the wedding jester, Avrahamtsik, improvised in rhyme; and not in such a refined style, but with great pathos. Himself a trumpet player, he spoke with a strong intonation, and it went more or less like this:

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One can make a terrific parody on a stretch from Liz to Zarudye, or a small one from Rafal Shteyner's steps to the red walls of Mendel's apothecary. As Avrahamtsik the accomplished musician dispenses fiery melodies– with a pockmarked face and one useless eye makes intimate poetic musings in the language of Vasil Kokorozhe. The pair of musicians fall silent at Avrahamtsik's fine–tuned talent; have mercy on the bride and groom when he preaches the jester's speech. But don't just take my word for it: a masterly wedding jester is like a good poet who enthrones the bride with flowery verse. Slowly with pride and without hurry, the musician, the wedding jester, says: Dear sirs and esteemed ladies, you can make rhymes however you like fine and thin like string or fat and juicy like rope that could embarrass gentile soldiers– for my wedding jester rhymes will make your face red and flushed. Also, my dear new in–laws, take off your lacquered shoes, take off your new socks when the clarinet blows and dance nonstop in your bare feet when I play the sugar–sweet;

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all the shops are closed at night in order to hear the flutes talk, ruining good mazurkas. Everyone fill your glasses when the groom's side turns up their noses, and when your throats are wet, listen to Shmelke on the bass, and show off with the hunchback, one of the very best drummers. On the fiddle, Duvid Ritske always plays like a whirlwind. With feelings so strong and hot they can be cooled only when our God above makes a musician out of Meir the Deaf. Everyone, everyone, the greatest and smallest who are standing right at the window may listen to Avrahamtsik, your loyal man from the party hacks. I am no liar, no matchmaker, just a real, accomplished wedding jester. And not always a fool I make a living at rhyming. But my enemies be damned; they make nothing from wedding jesters. May it also ring in your ears when I sing for you. On everyone's account, I will wish for the bride that the groom have all the important qualities except for the gift of gab. No doubt he knows his good luck in the clever bride Sheyne–Beyle; of course that speaks for itself

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Four horses harnessed to the sleigh, the rich father–in–law arrives, the friend Avraham Yakov Freylekh, the king of grain and clover. In fine lacquered boots, pockets packed with money, a prince, a wealthy man, so much for me and you. And his wife Beyle–Yente, not generally a knock–about, with a full double chin that trembles as if on a swing, distributes cash from between her fingers. Also better to die discreetly than like the wife of a king. For the second in–law, R' Volke, who lives near the rabbits, we want to play a merry polka. For the groom's uncle R' Meir, we'll play a Jewish sher. And now, dear guests, stuff yourself with the best here in this warm nest; drink a toast and eat. We hope there comes a time when people wish that mother–in–law Udye–Reyzel isn't put off by joy and eyes full of tears. May she hear the news in everyone's ears that her daughter–in–law has a baby boy.

[Page 460]

Vishnevets Discotheque

Properly speaking, in those days no one had any concept of anything called a “discotheque,” even in the most modern, avant garde countries in the world. In the early 20^th century, God protect us, but according to the mode to this very day, in Vishnevets there was a place of amusement suited to that generation's tastes.

The institution was a labyrinth that had fooled hundreds of schoolboys: Froyke the Teacher, Nachum Tunrider, Moshe Fuks, Yankel Asni–Beyle's, and many others from the Tsharner Synagogue, even Leybush Kripke.

The “discotheque” belonged to a couple: he was Volke with the crutches, and she, Matel “Head.” Volke, unfortunately sentenced to three–quarter–length legs, couldn't move from his spot without a pair of crutches; he usually sat in his “office,” that is, between the columns at the entrance, enjoying the pleasure of God's warm sun and blue sky, and also the cheder boys' tumult.

Matel Head was called that not just because of her clever head, but because it was a head with such virtue. It's not worthwhile to stress that she was a woman of valor, the maker of their livelihood. The couple maintained themselves on “luxury” items: nuts, bagels, breads, hard candies, caramels, and soda water. During the week, it was from students; on the Sabbath, from the adults.

Mostly the “discotheque” was in a whirl every Sabbath and holiday afternoon. Young men and women gathered together after a week of work to satisfy their Sabbath rest. Catch a word, amuse yourself, blush, crack nuts, spit out the shells, and drink soda water. Together, they sang flaming love songs like “Where are you, under the window my love, my lovely.” And juicy, sad songs about the Exile, attraction, and deep longing, such as “Let us say goodbye, the train is leaving.”

No money was required, because how could you count kopeks and sixes on the holy Sabbath in the cheder neighborhood on nearby Synagogue Street and other holy institutions. The clients had already taken care to buy chits on Friday: white, one kopek; green, a six; red, a ten. It was called a “ten,” but the value was only five kopeks. To make a bustle, they counted the chits like groschen, and the largest coin, a ten, was suited to the craftsmen who earned more and also bought peanuts and Turkish nuts.

Thus, over time, an intimate group developed.

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Also, there was dancing on Motele's earthen dance floor surfaced with yellow sand, accompanied by Feygele the singer, who sang like a canary. The scenery wasn't starry because hearts were warm, because you understood with a wink and the speech of feelings.

We know that very few of today's discotheques have served as starting points for matches, only as leisure, without so direct a path from romance to the wedding canopy.

But the Vishnevets discotheque justified its existence with splendid results. I know for certain four romances that developed there, and the heroes of two met again on the other side of the sea with happiness and joy and with children and grandchildren. I mention this with a special song of praise for the happy inn of their romances–Volke–Matel's “discotheque.”

A thing well known, and not an “open secret,” is that Jews used any means possible to avoid military service.

Why and for whom would you serve the man, the Russian tsar. It barred the doors to education. But it didn't prohibit you from managing a bulwark, a forest, a mill for a nobleman. You put aside capital, like leavened bread for Passover, and contracted out with a gentile name. In more than one case, the gentile “name” swallowed up the fortune, and at best willed a large part of it as “hush money.” So why stretch your neck out for Nicholas?

At different times, different means were employed. He who was a hero chopped his right thumb or ripped all the teeth out of his mouth. That was two generations before us. Afterward, we saw Jews with chopped–off fingers around town: the honorable town starosta Yosel Fodem was none the worse for his condition–anyhow, he held his pen between his middle fingers; but Mendel the tailor had to put a thimble on that stub to stick a needle through, and got used to wearing a tin finger down to the bone, which from a distance glinted like a medallion. So people no longer called him Mendel but the Tailor Medallion.

In our generation, those means remained symbolic traces of the past, and a kind of parody on the old times when the tsar kidnapped Jewish children for 25 years of military service in cold, distant Siberia. In our times, they didn't make such brutal mistakes. Progressive means were used.

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Recruits had several months before they had to appear before the military commission, and they slimmed themselves down with a strict diet, didn't sleep, and wandered all around town in a military parade like an organized group of proud soldiers. Being in town, they could live it up and disturb the quiet night with annoying marching and Russian–Ukrainian songs in loud voices, like “Dubinushka” and “Eini khadi ritsiu,” with endless clamor and commotion until morning.

Besides all the recruits' mischief, there were some comical feats. Especially switching the signs. For example, Ostrovski the pork dealer's sign, which had a pig's head and entrails, was re–hung on Sender Kopels' store, and on the door of Mendel's pharmacy, they hung Moshe Shuster's sign, which had a big, black boot and a ladies' high–top shoe.

Everyone suffered in sympathy for Sender Kopels because, for him, the mischief was a bloody joke. Since he was a Talmud scholar, extremely God–fearing, and the town arbitrator, it was literally an offense not only for him but for the community that valued and listened to him. The recruits had gone too far, not quite to scarring the town, but creating pain and shame. It was done on a Friday night in order to last through Sunday morning. That meant a kind of Sabbath demonstration of spiritual pain for Sender Kopels. Feh! But people rushed to Mendel's pharmacy in droves to observe the evil wonder, and they even sent someone to get him so he could see the display, too. He, a progressive, was advanced, even to wearing a short jacket and gold pince–nez for his eyes, like an English lord. He came to behold the sight, stood in front of the pharmacy, and with great annoyance poured out his bitter heart for each wave of onlookers. Mendel the pharmacist was a professional; he had filled prescriptions for the recruits as well, and didn't react in the usual way but in a big way, according to his wisdom, and swore and cursed: “Nitshevo.” That is: it doesn't matter; tramps, rascals, scoundrels, they will all serve the tsar.

The recruits heard his wish and began to visit him every night at the second watch. They woke their patient every time, singing and marching.

After a short negotiation, the pharmacist paid five rubles ransom to Yosel Pesi's, president of the orphans' home.

Listen and learn–you don't curse recruits.

It happened in those days of the great anarchy in Russia.

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Kerensky's power wasn't yet consolidated. The Bolsheviks were then based in Moscow and Petersburg, as well as in such distant regions as ours. Ukraine was ruled and rampaged by a bacchanalia of various bands. In Kiev, there was the Ukrainian council with Hetman Skoropadsky. Petluria's pogrom took place in Prokhorov [Proskurov]. There were unsettling events in Krasilov among the local gentiles, the Makhnovists in Vladimir, regular gangs in the Vinnitsa area, and not far from us, the Teofipol pogrom.

With worry and terror, we heard the forewarning and waited for something to happen to us in our town, too. Were we an exception to the Jewish troubles?

On an initiative headed by Shimon Ayzenberg and Dovid Roynik, the “sama oborona”–self–defense–was organized. In the ranks of that group were energetic young people like Vevtshik and Yidel Naftali's, Simchak Zak, Freyde Shantsi's two sons, Yisrael the Red, and Yoke and his friends, who in a Christian manner, using their heavy hands, didn't treat the gentiles well at the markets. So when the drunkards acted up and made trouble, they threw them to the sides and smacked their heads so they wouldn't come back again.

With the help of Vevtshik Naftali's and Zanvel Shnayder, who both served as brave soldiers (even receiving awards under Nicholas), practice exercises were held in Ayzenberg's watermill.

Like loyal and courageous insurance, the self–defense effort was suited to the situation. If only the time would come, and we could resist the temptation. But the time did come, and at that time we were the only authority there. What can you do, alone in the town, isolated from other higher government institutions?

One fine morning, making a wild commotion, a few dozen riders invaded the town on familiar, gentile horses; a few of them were barefoot, in tattered, quilted jackets, looking like a bunch of beggars–except for their commander, a former officer in some kind of military uniform–and they occupied the town. Long–Legged Moshe, the only Jewish messenger in town, was immediately sent to demand that five respectable proprietors call an urgently important meeting.

At the meeting, the commander–who, as it now turned out, was the son of a rich gentile in the Vizherodka area, Petke Slavin–announced loudly that he proclaimed the occupation of the town and presented himself as a department of the Tarashtshantses, the Ukrainian Bolsheviks.

[Page 464]

Until the arrival of the commissar sent from the higher authority, his department was responsible for order in the town and the proper behavior of the population. Until then, having no subsidy from the higher authority and also because of communications difficulties, he demanded a contribution of 12,000 rubles from the Jewish population, which must be paid within 48 hours, and also another small item: 20 pairs of boots and 18 warm jackets.

The messengers called a general meeting, where it was decided to divide the town into regions and to delegate pairs with a list of how much each of those visited could donate to the contribution, according to what they could probably contribute.

Two prominent delegates approached M. Sh., who, instead of 200, grudgingly laid out only 50 and commented in Russian to take it without further appeal. The messengers, ashamed and insulted, turned away empty–handed.

M. Sh. was hard as stone by nature. He dealt in what you would hope not to need. But unfortunately, they were very necessary articles. His business was a gold mine, and he was stingy, so people used to call him, sarcastically, a wealthy man with deep, full pockets but with hands too short to give. They also called him the artificial Zionist. Whenever he was expected to show up to be presented with a share in the Colonial Bank, that is, Dr. Herzl's certificate of Zionism, he didn't. He was distant from Zionism, even when several Zionist parties were already active in town. It was conjectured that he bought a shekel at only one of the three opportunities, with the laconic reply that he had bought it by other means… And at the elections to the Zionist Congress, he claimed that he didn't have voting rights over the shekalim that he hadn't bought “by other means.”

M. Sh.'s tactless conduct with the contribution delegation spread around town like an arrow from a bow, with alarm and clamor. He seemed unashamed of his behavior in such a dangerous situation. No wonder, then, that when the bitter report reached the self–defense office, they quickly decided to take stronger measures.

Two brave messengers knocked on M. Sh.'s door late at night. From the other side of the door, inside, came a worried, melancholy question, from a sleepy someone with a trembling voice: “Who's there?”

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The answer from outside was, “Your own people, from the self–defense.”

From inside again, “What do you want?”

“Either your money or your life. We want to protect your property and your life. You can't continue your stingy act with our delegation. We want not 200 but no less than 250 from you, and you'll whine, count, and pay us. Open the door and count it out into my hand. Then everything will be OK.”

A quiet, closed silence. The delegation was worried and doubtful, and also annoyed, that their brutal passion had shocked the “person,” and that something violent would happen, because they heard some kind of mysterious movement inside. Jews are merciful people. A heavy pause. They waited. After a few minutes, they heard a woman's voice, “In the middle of the night and us with sick people, such wild criticism!”

They answered from outside, “M. Sh.'s conduct is beyond any reasonable person's. He sets a bad example for the community. He's a great deserter. You should be ashamed to be under the same roof with such a person.”

“We advise you to convince him to bring, as required, 250 rubles by 10 o'clock in the morning.” The messengers concluded their visit and left, and tensely anticipated the morning.

It's important to underline how the last monologue by the messengers affected the M. Sh. family, and in the morning–not waiting until 10 o'clock but at 8–he brought the 250 rubles to the self–defense committee.

The incident with the self–defense group was a lesson for M. Sh.'s future community activities. From then on, M. Sh. responded to every collection with sympathy and an appropriate donation: the Foundation Fund, the Jewish National Fund, and as an activist for the orphans' home. In a word, a metamorphosis.

Because one doesn't play games with a community.

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