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Sh. An-ski was the pseudonym of Shlomo-Zanvl Rapoport, because his mother's name was Anna (Chana). He was born in Vitebsk in 1883, studied in a cheder and received a traditional Jewish education. His father was a bit of a maskil and, because of his profession, lived for a long time even in Moscow. His mother oversaw his Jewish education; his “non-Jewish” education was overseen by the streets of Vitebsk and its surroundings. In Vitebsk there were already illegal circles of Socialist-Folkist young people. Under the direct of influence of reading radical literature, Shlomo-Zanvl decided to learn a trade. First he adopted blacksmithing, but probably this was beyond his capabilities, so he learned bookbinding. The fact that he chose bookbinding as a profession indicated his conscious urge to be near the world of books, which grew in time to be involved with his own written work. He was not greatly proficient in bookbinding. Rudolf Rocker, who was also a bookbinder and who worked with An-ski for a short time in Paris, discusses this (R. Rocker: “In the Storm,” Buenos Aires, 1952: page 38-42). Rocker totally overlooks An-ski's proletarian “dilettantism,” because he had other virtues that the critical Rocker, in the few months of their working together, noted as “unforgettable.”

In Vitebsk, An-ski became, for the first time, absorbed in Jewish matters. He had begun to write in his early years. Zhitlovsky, the intimate friend of his youth, relates that Shlomo-Zanvl Rapoport wrote when he was very young a drama that depicts the “Gehenna of the cheder.” This piece was even read, in manuscript, by the actor Yakov Adler.

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Together with Zhitlovsky, An-ski tried to put out in Yiddish a leaflet called “The Vitebsk Bell.” This leaflet appeared, according to Zhitlovsky, in two issues.

Having nothing to do in Vitebsk, in 1881 An-ski went to the Chasidic shtetl of Liozna, where he became a teacher and a cultural “missionary.” His cultural mission, however, was denounced. The “heretic” An-ski had to leave the shtetl. For a short time he lived in Dvinsk. Zhitlovsky says that at that time An-ski kept a diary in Russian–a sign that he began to take his calling as a writer seriously. In 1881, An-ski wrote a major story called “A Story of a Family.” This is not the place to print such a story. A Vilna publisher advised him to write following the pattern of Shomer, because that would mean good business. Two years later, this story was translated from Yiddish into Russian by someone else, and it was published with the title “A Story of a Family” in “Voschod” (1884). The author name was given as “Pseudonym.” Years later, An-ski himself revised this story and included it in a volume of Russian stories with the title “Stepchildren” (1905).

An-ski had nothing to do in his Jewish surroundings. As a convinced Folkist, he went to work among the Russian folk. If anyone could interfere with him there, it was the police; while he was in a Jewish environment, as had been the case in Liozna, it was the Jewish leadership who had interfered with him. This had embittered him and estranged him from Jews. He felt good among the peasant masses, who were coal miners in the Donetsk region.

Zhitlovsky relates that in 1892 An-ski was quite distant from Yiddishkeit and strongly opposed to Zhitlovsky's own thoughts. He felt confined by the Jewish world and he felt that one could do no significant work in Yiddish.

An-ski was in Moscow for a short time, where his father, whom he barely knew, was then living. In the winter of 1891-1892, An-ski went to Petersburg. There he drew close to the group of prominent Narodnik writers, led by Gleb Uspensky, and he began to write stories about Russian folk life. High-minded by nature, An-ski began to detect in the souls of the Russian folk, especially among the peasants,

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Sh. An-ski (1863-1920)

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similar idealistic features, while Zhitlovksy held them to be one-sided and full of superstitions. Years later, when An-ski had returned to Jewish creativity, he showed the same exalted approach as when he had written about earlier Jewish life. In the summer of 1892 went abroad for the first time. He settled in Paris and, until he became the private secretary of Piotr Lavrov (1894-1900) he lived by bookbinding and worked together with Rudolf Rocker.

In France, An-ski became interested in French social folklore–a subject that had strongly captivated him in Russia in connection with Russian folklore. His book–Sketches on Folk Literacy–that appeared in Russia in 1894, was a result of his investigation into how the mass of the Russian people were mirrored in Russian literature.

The French method of investigating folklore consisted of this: how the social moments that found redress in a song, a ballad, or a story were used as sources for the psychology of the folk mass. The authenticity of this kind of material did not interest the investigator, nor did the origin of this material. In this tradition had Dragomanov investigated Ukrainian historical thought, not going into such details as they could have written about individuals from higher social classes.

In Paris, An-ski collected much material and intended to make a comparison with similar Russian material in order, in this fashion, to come to certain conclusions regarding the difference in the social psychology of the Russian and French masses. This work should have appeared in German from the publishing house where Chaim Zhitlovsky was partly the head and also the editor. But after Lavrov's death (1900), An-ski left for Switzerland. The book was never written and it is likely that the material was lost.

In Switzerland he became active in the organization of Russian social revolutionaries, and for a time he led the Jewish division. He began, after an interval, to write again, this time in two languages: Russian and Yiddish. These six years (1902-1908) were the most fruitful of his life. He returned in his Russian writing to Jewish themes. In the years 1904-1905 he wrote his novels Pioneers,

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(published in Voskhod) and Mendel the Turk, he worked on his Stepchildren, wrote “In the Current” (Russian, 1907), and many other stories about Jewish life. He was very critical of his earlier maskilik approach. He depicted the transitional period in Russian-Jewish life in the small shtetls with more nostalgic warmth and less hostility.

In the novel Pioneers, the maskil's father, who himself had fought for a road to general culture, says to his maskil children, who go to the gymnasium:

“Don't be in such a hurry to throw off all of your Yiddishkeit; don't be in such a hurry to knock down all the fences” (Russian Collection 3:181).

The Russian narodniks [members of the Russian intelligentsia who favored socialism and supported the lower classes] held that with his emotional conceptions, An-ski's attitude toward the old Jewish way of life was a negative factor. The critic Gornfeld relates that a Russian editor did not want to publish his stories about Jewish life in his journal because “it could hurt the Jews.”

An-ski's stories, therefore, with few exceptions, were published in Voskhod, in a Russian-Jewish organ that no one could suspect of “hurting the Jews.”

At the time of the revolution (1905), An-ski returned home. He, the author of the Bundist “The Vow,” the “Marseillaise” of the Jewish working class, threw himself once again, with great energy, into the general revolutionary enlightenment work. He worked among the village and city proletariat. He assembled material that surely had nothing to do with the ongoing issues of that revolutionary spurt. He went no further than to tell what the everyday person read, if he could read, and what he would have read if he could have read. Some years later (1913), this material was the subject of a new book (Narod I kniga [The Folk and the Book]).

He dealt with Jewish matters en masse in the Russian Calendar Almanac that he edited (1907-1910), where his aim was to “spread accurate information about Jews,” or, in other words, apologetics. This aim itself called forth protests from the Ukrainian and White Russian press, because An-ski was less well-known in the national political awakening of these people in Russia.

At the same time, An-ski held lectures in which he used

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collected Russian materials that he presented as folklore but which were, in essence, literary productions. Such a lecture, for example, was given about “War and its Reflection in Literature” (1910), with the thesis “that the Russian folk-mass regards war as a great misfortune,” as can be seen in Russian folksongs. But in the same talk, An-ski had a second theme that contradicted the first, that “the Russian soldier moves always heroically toward death” (From the Recent Past, 1937, pp. 310-320).

Disappointed in the revolution, An-ski began to return “home.” These were the years 1908-1914, the crowning years of his life, when he interested himself in the folklore not of those who lay in the earth and dug coal but of those who lay in the earth and dug nothing–that is, of the impoverished Jewish folk-masses. His project was a conservative one regarding all forms of Jewish life. This is clear in his anniversary talks, held in 1909 when people celebrated a quarter century of his literary work. At the same time he defended what in 1878 and later he held to be a hellish institution, that is, the cheder.

The years 1908-1914 were his “folkloristic years.” He organized the folklore expedition, which visited 66 places in Volhynia and Podolia and collected much material. The funds for this historic work was in large part provided by the Kiev baron Vladimir Ginzburg. A number of students from the higher classes for the study of Israel in Petersburg took part in the expedition. The great love and dedication of those who took part in the expedition were a factor in the significant results of this first Jewish folklore expedition in our history.

An-ski began to publish works, many in Russian, that would serve as a theoretical foundation for Jewish folklore studies. It is not important here to get involved in the arguments regarding An-ski's theses about folklore. Questions have long been asked. It is enough to read Gaster, Heller, and other competent Jewish folklorists to realize that Jewish folk-creations are no different from non-Jewish ones. If there is no “triumphant physical heroism” in Jewish folk-creations, there is also none in the Old Christian, Old Russian, or Hindu. At the same time, An-ski wrote (Pereshitoe [The Past], 1: 276-314; Collected Works, 15:

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29-95) that current folk-creations are largely similar to the folklore of other people and that Jewish folklore is not different or better than others. “The ideas of justice and purity of spirit” that moved one of the participants in the expedition (M. Chudner, The Moment, 1932, number 157), is basically a feature of many folk-literatures.

Concerning the Jewish folksong, An-ski convinced himself at the time during the First World War when he was in Galicia. He wrote (The Jewish Destruction in Poland, Galicia, and Bukovina, 1914-1917, Vilna, 1923, page 57), that folksongs and folktales in which people cry and wail are not only a Jewish production but a Slavic one.

In the bulk of An-ski's collections there is a great cultural-historical and national value. His romantic theory of Jewish folklore as unique mirrors the emotional spirit of the folklorist, as does his intellectual approach in general.

The First World War arrived. The work of collecting had to stop. An-ski saw for himself a greater duty–to help his victimized brothers and sisters in the sections of Austria that were occupied by Russian troops, first of all Galicia and Bukovina–two Jewish territories with a long- established Jewish way of life. He went there, gathered documents about persecution of Jews and the evil eye of folklore never deserted him. Here and there he recorded a story or a superstition. Over all, however, he offered a variety of explanations of a folkloristic character. For example, during the war, there spread more legends about escapes from death. Legends also spread about the messiah (particularly among Chasidim).

“Folk legends,” An-ski wrote in his book The Destruction of Galicia (1: 39), “are suffused with a deep optimism, with belief, that eventually the truth will show itself.” Whether the legends concern escape from false accusations during the war or the meeting of two Jewish soldiers on the field of slaughter, one prods the other and hears the cry, as he dies, “Shema Yisroel.”

The war of brother against brother also affected Ukrainian folklore, Polish folklore, and even Italian folklore. Clearly this was not a purely Jewish phenomenon.

The difference between story, legend, and tradition is not visible in his theoretical work.

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“One should study a Chasidic story the way one studies a page of Gemara, and perhaps even more deeply,” wrote An-ski (Collected Writings, 1:110). That the Chasidic story was not basically Jewish (more like Slavic), while only the characters were “made up” did not interest An-ski.

Jewish folktales are Jewish according to language and style but international according to their subject matter and substance. Today this is accepted as an axiom by everyone. Certainly some of them have been published in pamphlets and books, but when they go to the people–as Y.L. Cohen as accurately demonstrated–they come back “mother naked” and come in “frank and free,” as they were at first, before the scholar dressed them up in didactic clothing. Because a folk tale is in its depth playful and seldom didactic.

Zhitlovski has already correctly noted that in An-ski's soul in those years of crisis ethics to a significant degree had consumed aesthetics (Memories of my Life, 1935, 1:67).

The aesthetics of Jewish folktales primarily consisted of language, rhythm, style, and plot as a fully thought out composition. However, several traditions in a version of a folktale An-ski had identified because of content rather than form. For example, in the splendid tradition about Nikolas I and Rabbi Moshe Montefiore (Collected Work 11, 1928), inserted in the middle are prosaic passages that totally distort the fantasy of the legend: “And when R. Moshe Montefiore named something, it was, you understand, not difficult to accomplish it.” In another story about the same Nikolas: “A hardboiled enemy not so much of Jews as of Yiddishkeit.” The story is basically superb, but the artistic interpretations have usurped their grace and naivete (as shown even more in Collected Works 1, Pereshitoe 2, Yevreiskaya Starina 13, and elsewhere).

Examples, like old stories reworked by Chasidim, are cited by Zinberg in YIVO Bletter 1:330-336. Many allegedly Jewish legends (for example, about Amram) are Christian, as the great scholar of Jewish folklore Louis Ginzburg has shown.

In a letter of May 7, 1915, addressed to the Jewish Historical-Ethnographic Institution in Petrograd, gave an account of his ethnographic expedition. It had cost a total of 23,000 rubles. Ten thousand of those rubles had been donated by Baron Vladimir Ginzburg. Here is the accounting of what he collected:

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2,000 photographs
1,800 folktales, traditions, and legends
1,500 folksongs and games
500 rolls of Jewish folk music
1,000 tunes for songs with and without words

In addition, many proverbs, superstitions, etc. He also collected:

100 historical documents
500 manuscripts
700 antiques, purchased for the price of 6,000 rubles.

These things were all collected to create a Jewish national museum. At the end of 1916, the whole treasure was given to the Historical-Ethnographic Institution (Yevreiskaya Starina 1918, page 319).

A second report published shortly after An-ski's death says that in the archive of the same society can be found 2,327 letters from An-ski's collection.

“I have no wife, no children, and no house,” An-ski wrote in a letter, “not even an apartment, no possessions, and not even an established dwelling place. The only thing that ties me strongly to this dimension is the nation.”

In addition, there remain 1,371 documents about Jews in the First World War, a full collection from a Chasidic wedding with all the melodies and other documents (Yevreiskaya Starina 1924, pages 306-311).

This whole treasure An-ski had to abandon when he fled into exile after the Bolshevik Revolution.

During the war, returning from Galicia, An-ski gave lectures about Jewish folklore (in 1916). A year earlier a large questionnaire went out that he put together with the help of the ten students who took part in his expedition. The book is called The Jewish Ethnographic Program, volume 1, 1915, 238 pages. The program consists of 2,657 questions and is dedicated to Baron Vladimir Ginzburg and edited by the ethnographer L. Shternberg.

In the brief but interesting introduction, An-ski says that folklore is “Oral Torah.” And this was created by “the people themselves,” especially “the multitude”–created from the same “Jewish spirit” as the Written Torah. This indicates a relapse into the old positions of his first theoretical articles.

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Therefore, laments, An-ski, Jewish folklore is declining because “the Jew relates easily and with attention to the greater and richer creation that lives in the people.”

The whole program, you must understand, is nothing more than a skeleton.

“One would need twenty professors,” wrote Y.L. Cohen (“Studies on Jewish Folk-Creations,” YIVO, 1952, p. 133), “to look for answers to the questions of the huge questionnaire.”

In January of 1916, An-ski gave a lecture at the Russian Theater Conference about Yiddish theater. He explained that he had dedicated himself to collecting 100 variations of the “Ahashverosh-Play.” But he gave details about the texts of the “David and Goliath Play,” because he had found there “elements of social protest” (Yevreiskaya Zhizn, 1916).

In 1917 he was chosen to be a deputy in the constituent assembly of the Esserish Party. He experienced the dissolution of the founding assembly, and in September of 1918 he left Russia and settled in Vilna. There, in the Jerusalem of Lithuania, An-ski found himself in a warm Jewish environment, which revived him, but people could already see signs of a terrible illness.

On February 20, 1919, the Jewish Historical Ethnographic Institute was founded. Following his death, it was named after him.

On June 9, 1919, An-ski read in the hall of the Vilna community The Dybbuk, which after his death became the greatest hit of the Yiddish theater. It was a dramatic reworking of some of the ethnographic material he had collected.

From Vilna An-ski went to Warsaw, after giving the Vilna Ethnographic Institute 40 volumes of folklore material. In Warsaw, An-ski set himself to creating an ethnographic institute.

An-ski died on November 8, 1920, a day after the founding gathering of the institute, which ended up never being established in the capital of Poland. After An-ski's death, people at the Ethnographic Institute in Vilna created a special An-ski Room, where they assembled materials about the author of The Dybbuk.

In December of 1920, an An-ski Institute was founded, led by Y.L. Cohen. A variety of plans were made,

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including even a folklore journal, but there was no audience for such a project.

In Warsaw, a committee issued An-ski's works, in accordance with his will., but only 15 volumes appeared, among them many translated from Russian. This edition of his collected works was never completed.

In 1922, the monumental record from the Vilna An-ski Institute was issued (864 pages), with significant folkloristic material. In 1936, the YIVO researcher in Vilna Reuven Lichtshteyn began to work on an An-ski monograph. Only a single chapter (“An-ski's First Outing”) was published in YIVO Bletter 12:443-453. A significant work about An-ski entitled “The Lifestyle of An-ski” was published by Hillel Zeitlin in the Almanac for the Tenth Anniversary of Moment (1921, pages 49-72). There was also Chaim Zhitlovsky's piece in Memories from my Life (volume 1:114-119) and Victor Charnov's in his book, Jewish Activists in the Socialist-Revolutionary Party (1948, pages 52-90).

An-ski's letters were published in various editions–in the journals The Month (Warsaw, 1919), YIVO Bletter, From the Recent Past, The Future, and others.

Memoirs of the expedition were published by the participants: M Chudner (The Moment, 1937), A. Rechtman and Yitzchak Gir-Aryeh (P. Kenger) in Knowledge of the People (Jerusalem, volume 2), a book about An-ski's folklore expedition prepared by A. Rechtman. About a general evaluation of An-ski the writer, activist, and folklorist there is nothing yet.

An-ski was the messenger of Jewish folklore, just like the messenger in his Dybbuk, bringing stories and legends, proverbs and rumors. Even An-ski felt this way (see Yakov Shatzki in Yearbook, 5711, vol. 9, from the Jewish Book Council in America, pages 113-119). As a writer, An-ski had a very unassuming place in the history of Yiddish literature. As a personality, An-ski shone for his idealism and his holy naivete. As a folklorist, An-ski introduced a new force in the work of collecting. His years of working with folklore were the best and happiest years of his life. He truly merged with the people, although this is not actually the function of a folklorist. Romantic in his heart and soul, he also approached folklore as a romantic love.

An-ski was closely tied up with the story of Jewish folklore.

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What he accomplished–perhaps a great deal of it has gone to waste–was truly a major thing. With The Dybbuk, he wove eternity into the history of Yiddish theater. His Russian works about Jewish life will remain sources for a social history of Jews in the second half of the nineteenth century in White Russia, particularly in the area of Vitebsk.

Finally, it is appropriate to indicate one curious point. Jewish folklore in the quarters of Vitebsk was also gathered by non-Jewish folklorists, who published their work in Russian folklorist journals (Vitebskaya Starina, Zhivaya Starina, Ruskaya Etnografia, and others). White Russia had an abundance of Jewish folklore. When Jewish folklore will be assembled according to its places of origin–just as Oscar Kolberg did in his time for Poland–it will cover not only Jewish folklore but also study of the Yiddish language. Unfortunately, there are not enough competent workers. Everything comes more from love than from skill, but the love requires skill.

Shlomo-Zanvl Rapaport (Sh. An-ski) showed the highest loving skill for Jewish folklore.

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Some 60 or 65 years back, the population of Vitebsk was about 65,000-70,000, perhaps a bit more than half of whom were Jews. Vitebsk was not an industrial city. There were no large or small factories to employ a large number of people. There were small workshops, where the owner worked with one or two employees and one or two apprentices. The locksmiths were an exception, because they employed a larger number. Khalfin's Locksmiths, for example, employed 20 or 25 people. In Zaruchiya there was a factory for plowshares, scythes, and sickles that employed 25-30. The situation was similar for merchants. In a big grocery business like Kolbanovski's on Smolensk Street there were: the owner himself, with his two or three sons and a couple of employees. So it was in other businesses. Only in the Vitebsk iron works was there a greater number of employees–between 10 and 15 men. At that time, however, employees did not want to be considered workers. If someone said then that an employee was the same as a laborer, like a tailor or a shoemaker, he would have been insulted.

In Vitebsk, as in all the other cities and towns, children learned mostly in our traditional cheders. At the time when I lived in Vitebsk, there were: one Talmud Torah, for children from the poorest homes, and three yeshivas. The smallest yeshiva was not conspicuous in the city. It had around 10 students. This yeshiva was supported by a rich Jew, a

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Lubavitsch Chasid, Avraham-Zalman Ginzburg. The rosh-yeshiva [the head of the yeshiva], Nachman Mariashin, also a Lubavitsch Chasid, was a terrific fanatic. But he did not convey his fanaticism to his students. In the second yeshiva, Michal's Yeshiva, there were about 35 students. The majority of yeshiva students first studied Gemara there. The third yeshiva, the Padlo, was the largest. It had about 50-60 grown students. A significant number of them were good students. The Rosh Yeshiva was an old man, a great scholar. A significant number of these yeshiva students later assumed prominent roles in the socialist labor movement.

I studied in both yeshivas–first in Michal's, for about two years, and then in Padlo, for about three years. In both yeshivas, neither the Rosh Yeshivas nor the students were fanatics. If the Rosh Yeshiva noticed that a students was reading a secular book or learning Russian, he made no fuss. Also those who ran the shuls where the students stayed were tolerant. In the Padlo Yeshiva, I began to study Hebrew literature. Later on I began to study a little Russian. And when I was proficient enough to read a Russian book, I began to read Russian literature. I enjoyed the Hebrew literature, and I devoured the works of Moshe-Leib Lilienblum, Yitzchak-Ber Levinson (the Rib'l), Peretz Smolenskin, and others. Of Russian books, I read whatever fell into my hands, with no order or system.

At that time I met and somewhat befriended the son of the Gluchow rabbi–Shmuel. He was a very serious student, more educated and intelligent than I was. Shmuel was well-versed in both Hebrew and Russian literature. He was generally quite modest, logical, coherent, and in speaking with others he never used pompous language. Despite the differences in our intelligence, we became quite good friends. Shmuel later introduced me to his two younger brothers–Mendel and Matya. Mendel was a normal student with average abilities and did not stand out in any area. Matya, on the contrary, was a brilliant student, a happy person, both funny and clever.

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At that time (I believe it was in 1891), there were in Vitebsk no organized socialist groups, certainly no party. I do not know if earlier–in the 80s–there was an organization of Naradnaya Volya [The People's Will]. If there was, no memory of it lingered. Many of those who had belonged had been sent to prison, while others had been sent to Siberia, and a few had escaped abroad. People spoke of them in awe. People were inspired by their heroism, their willingness to sacrifice themselves, and their devotion to the people. Some of them, like Zhelyabov, Perovskaya, were idolized, but this was all in the past. In the time that I am describing, there were a few among the Jewish young people who sympathized with the Chovevei Tzion movement [a Zionist movement]. Shmuel, the rabbi's son, like myself, sympathized with the Chovevei Tzion, but we had no organization.

L. Bleck (Avraham the Father in 1906)

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A radical change occurred after the expulsion from Moscow. Many who had been expelled from Moscow came to Vitebsk, among them the Amsterdam family and their son-in-law Reuven Brainen. Brainen was an outspoken follower of Chovevei Tzion and, you must understand, also a Hebraist. Mostly he consorted with bourgeois Jews. He would give talks in Hebrew to small gatherings. A group of young Jews gathered around him, though I did not belong to that group. Amsterdam, the father of the family, was from among the older Maskilim. When he came to Vitebsk, he was already old and ill and he did not take part in community life. Of his two sons, the younger one was still quite young, about 11 or 12. The elder–Abrasha–was in his twenties, a very intelligent person with a deep education. Abrasha was a good speaker, passionate, with a great deal of energy, and he soon took to organizing the young people.

Already I had taken to becoming acquainted with notable people. One time a young man in his late twenties came into shul with some books under his arm and others in his pockets, and he started talking to me. He wanted to know what I was studying. Then he asked what I was reading. He mentioned a Hebrew book (I don't remember which) and wanted to know if I had read it. When I told him I had not, he took a book out of his pocket and said, “I have that book with me. If you want, I can lend it to you for a few days. I'll come back in a few days and take it back. My name is Zhorov.” He did return a few days later, asked how I liked the book, spoke a little, and gave me an address for one Hillel (Ilya) Vilenski and told me that I should go to him, refer to Zhorov, and there I would be able to borrow books to read. I followed him and went to Vilenski. When I opened the door, I saw four young women and a young man. I stood there at the threshold and did not know what to do or say, as if my tongue had been taken away. The young man quickly relieved me of my embarrassment: “Come in, don't be embarrassed.” And he welcomed me with an outstretched hand. Now I gathered courage and told him who had sent me and what I wanted. The

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young man showed me a closet and some shelves full of books and he said, “See what you can find here.” He helped me to choose a book. Before I left, he introduced me to the four young women. They were his sisters, and he invited me to return even if I did not need a book.

This reception and behavior made a good impression on me, and I visited them often. I met the whole family, and I will give a few character sketches of them: Hillel, about 20 years old, was a sensitive and intelligent young man. He had read a lot. He was good-natured and drew people toward him. The oldest of the four sisters, Feyge-Itta, looked serious, spoke little, and was self-possessed. I never saw her laugh. The second sister, Batya, had an open face, was talkative, and had also read a lot. Mira, a girl of average abilities, was less intelligent than her sister. All three were seamstresses and worked at home. The youngest, Sonia, was a pursemaker, happy, lively, always with a smile on her face. She was not interested in serious things. She was seldom seen at home.

In their home I became acquainted with Beilke Ussishkin, a hatmaker. A very intelligent young woman. She introduced me to her brother Chatzel Ussishkin. He was a little older than me, a very intelligent, educated young man. From my first meeting with Ussishkin it was clear that I could learn from him. I also began to visit them. Their house was not a wealthy one, but it was well-off. Their father was a contractor for painting apartments. Their house was open, and one could go there freely. One often met there young men and women. One could have informal conversations, freely speak one's mind, and it was very pleasant to spend time with them. From time to time Chatzel would give me a little job copying a manuscript. I remember that those manuscripts spoke of political and community matters. You understand that people were sharply opposed to the government. These manuscripts would pass from hand to hand and people would make ten, fifteen, or even twenty copies. I would be paid by the page.

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All of these encounters and acquaintances that I have described were with individuals. I did not know if there existed in the city an organized group that met not by accident but regularly to consider various questions. On one Shabbos, Shlumke Hamburg and asked me to come to him in the evening. Shlumke had a manufacturing business on Smolensk Street. He liked to hang out with the radical young people. His father had died a short while ago, so he had a large apartment to himself. When I asked him what was going on, he answered that I would soon see if I came to him. When I came to Hamburg in the evening, I met there my friend Shmuel, the rabbi's son, Chatzkel Ussishkin, Abrasha Amsterdam, Liza Greenblatt with her sister Rosa, and two others whose names I do not remember. This was in 1893. I do not remember the issue they discussed. The character of this group was really not clear to me. When people were ready to leave, we were told that on the next Shabbos people would be coming to the elder Amsterdam's home. It took a couple of weeks for me to understand the character of that circle. According to my estimation (and I do not mean that my estimation was correct) is that this was a gathering of people who were unhappy with the way the world was working in general and with the Russian regime in particular. We sought, first, to clarify for ourselves why the world was going so badly and, second, how we could improve the existing order or, more specifically, how to rebuild it. We also considered other important issues.

In the course of our discussions, two tendencies began to crystallize–one was Zionist and the other was revolutionary socialist. On the Zionist side stood Amsterdam. All the others were on the side of revolutionary socialism. We had endless, heated debates, though in a friendly manner. But gradually the debates grew sharper, more heated, and more passionate. One time, during a discussion, the debate became extremely stormy. People were not so comradely. Both sides attacked each other, and people were in a bad mood.

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I would even say that they were hostile. I do not remember exactly if our circle continued to function after this stormy debate. If it did, it did so only for a short time. Eventually it dissolved.

But this does not mean that the institution of such circles for self-education was a totally dissolved. On the contrary, the number of such circles increased. These circles had no official leaders. If one person stood out, people did not regard him as a leader but simply as a person with better abilities. And he, too, would regard himself in that way.

We fed our spirits with the works of the radical Russian writers such as Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov, and others. We studied and discussed their presentations. We also became familiar with the works of the socialist writers–Plekhanov, LaSalle, and Kautzky. We also learned something about Marx's philosophy. We also discussed the program, tactics, and methods of the battle of the collapsed party “The People's Will.” We also convinced ourselves that the Russian peasantry could, at a certain time, in certain circumstances, rebel and burn aristocratic manors, destroy and wipe out aristocratic property, but the peasantry was not yet capable of conducting a systematic, organized battle to overthrow the political and public order in Russia. Therefore we held that the “People's Will” had taken the wrong course when they concentrated on the peasantry. We held that the urban working class was capable and we should concentrate on the proletariat, and when the proletariat became more aware and organized, it would draw the peasantry along with it. We also opposed the battle methods of “The People's Will.” We were convinced that order in Russia could not be rebuilt through isolated acts of terror by a group of revolutionaries, however heroic they might be. We followed the polemics that were then going on between the Narodniks [The People's Will] and the Marxists, and we agreed with the Marxists. Our authority and guide was Plekhov. For us it was clear that we should propagandize the city's workers.

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I believe that this position was the chief influence on some of our comrades who decided to learn a trade. They were sure that the best way to propagandize among the workers was to be in constant contact and to live in the same circumstances. Among the many who I remember went to learn a trade were Avraham-Yitzchak Sorkin, who learned to be a tanner; Isser Rabkin was a locksmith; Velvel Mintz–a bookbinder; Idel Abramov–a locksmith; Pesach Mezivetsky–the youngest among us–also a locksmith. I did as my friends did and went to study locksmithing. At that time, apprentices received no pay, and even though we were grown young men, we were treated like apprentices. So in order to live, I had to work. I arranged with my boss to work [as an apprentice] only half a day. The other half of the day I had to give lectures so that I could earn some money. Thereby I had time to take part in the self-education circles.

But we did not remain long at this work. Idel Abramov soon gave up his work. He decided to take up a more intellectual profession. I stayed with the work for 5 or 6 months. The work as a locksmith was too hard for me and I had to give it up. Isser Rabkin, also a locksmith, when he saw that he was not good at it, chose rather to work in a big factory and fulfill his dream–to agitate among the working mass. He went to Yekaterinoslav and went to a big factory where Christians worked. But at his first attempt at agitating among the workers, they broke his bones and threw him out of the factory. From Yekaterinoslav Rabkin came back to Vitebsk, a bit disappointed. But he did not abandon the movement. He worked for many years in the Jewish workers movement, mostly in the Bundist publishing–both in Russia and abroad.

An organized workers movement first began in Vitebsk in 1895-1896. The newly arrived workers in our circle, together with the older, more knowledgeable, intelligent workers, began to organize the workers from different professions. As I recall, taking part in these efforts were: Arke Rom, Velvel Shalit, Baruch Brodsky, Itzke the painter, Arke Posadtchik,

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Yoshke the carpenter, the aforementioned Vilensky sisters, Zelda Flagov, and Beile Ussishkin.

Then in 1894 a tailor named Abramchik came to Vitebsk from Petersburg. People had not heard from him for a couple of years, and now he appeared on the scene. It turned out that Abramchik was not only a good tailor but he was also a good conspirator. The whole time he agitated among the tailors and prepared them so that a permanent organization could be established. In that profession, people organized a group of the most intelligent workers. This group was called Skhodka [Meeting]. It also organized a treasury to which each worker contributed a certain sum. The goal of the treasury was to keep running accounts and to have a fund in case of a strike. The Skhodka managed the treasury. This body also came to handle professional questions and how to get and distribute literature–both legal and illegal. As far as I can remember, we distributed several illegal agitation-pamphlets in Yiddish, such as “What Does One Live On,” “Wages,” “Long and Lean,” and others. We also distributed Russian pamphlets. One of the intelligent men was chosen as leader of the Skhodka. A little while later was organized a centra, or inter-profession, committee, where each profession had a representative. The committee also had the right to co-opt people, if necessary. The committee had regular meetings and handled questions that applied to the whole city-wide movement. They would also often consider a complicated question that applied to a single profession.

At that time, the self-education circles reorganized themselves. Previously, each member could introduce a new member on his own responsibility. But now a new member could be accepted with the approval of a majority of the relevant circle. When someone proposed a new candidate, people considered his positives and negatives–his character, abilities, intelligence. But the main thing people considered was whether he could be useful to the workers movement. And if a majority voted for the candidate, only then could he be accepted into the circle. Such a system was introduced to the circles. Certain courses were organized, as in an

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institute of learning. One could even say that these circles became universities that prepared activists for the workers movement. The leader of the circle to which I belonged was Abram Ginzburg. Other members of the circle were: Solomon Landau, Zinna Shevelev, Baka Hoffman, Chanahke Rosenfeld, and a couple more whose names I do not remember.

Abram Ginzburg was the son of quite wealthy parents. His father and stepmother loved him dearly. His appearance was pleasant and sympathetic. He was good-looking and tall, with broad shoulders. Ginzburg had outstanding abilities and an unceasing source of energy. Despite his abilities, he had graduated from the gymnasium (in 1897) without distinction. Because of his activities in the movement, he had neglected his studies in the gymnasium. This precluded for him the possibility of entering, one of the universities–in Moscow, Petersburg, or Kiev–which were among the best. He decided to wait for a year so that perhaps he could then attend one of those universities. Meanwhile, he threw himself into the movement with all of his vigor and energy. He led the Skhodka, the workers circle, and a circle for the intelligentsia. He also never abandoned his technical work.

Among the workers from various professions there arose feverish activities. At first people had in mind to improve the economic situation of the workers. The working conditions were awful. People worked 14 or 15 hours a day. In some of the professions, the work week began on Saturday night right after Havdalah and ended on Friday shortly before candle lighting. The wages were pitiful–2 or 3 rubles a week. At the end of 1897, the tailors went on strike (not from all the workshops). I do not remember what their demands were. But I do remember that they demanded a shorter work day, because that demand was very popular among the workers. The strike was bitter. The bosses were stubborn, and the strike was unsuccessful, because a number of tailors, without asking anyone, returned to their work under the old conditions and the others had no choice and had to return to work. But amazingly,

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a short time later in the tailor workshops, the working day was reduced. Shortly thereafter, the locksmiths went on strike. Their major demand, I recall, was a 12-hour workday–from 6 in the morning until 6 in the evening. The gendarmes were not silent over this strike. Several workers were arrested. One of them–Velvel Shalit–I remember very well. He was my good friend. I do not know why the policeman who conducted the investigation held that Shalit was the leading rebel. The policeman tried to make the other detainees say that Shalit was their leader, but he could not. The detainees were kept in prison for a short time and then released. And the workers won the strike.

The first time, the police did not bother our circle. It was natural that 10-15 young men and women should come together, sometimes even more, in a residence to read or discuss various issues. We saw no reason to take precautions. But it was quite different when the workers movement began to organize. Then people began to look behind their backs, and we had to guard ourselves from prying eyes. I knew three spies who were watching us: a long-bearded gendarme whom we called The Plum, a civilian–Chavkin–and the third–Yoshke Podvorotnik. The first two we could evade, but the third one gave us trouble. He would always spring up where he was least expected and least desired, as if from under the ground. It is appropriate to dwell a little longer on this person. Yoshke was a shoemaker, but after sitting on his cobbler's bench, he was as much involved in thievery as in shoemaking. Eventually he gave up shoemaking entirely and specialized in horse thievery. In order to gain entrance to a courtyard when the gate was locked from the inside, he would dig under the gate. That is how he got the name Podvorotnik. Later, when he was associated with the underworld, he thought he could do better if he would work for the police and reveal the secrets of that underworld. He went to the police, who accepted him. At first he revealed secrets of the criminals, but when the workers

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movement began, he used his criminal talent to sense when something was cooking. But what was happening he did not know. Yoshke then began to shadow individuals, to listen carefully, in order to learn what was going on. As our movement grew, Podvorotnik took entirely to spying on “the rebels,” and he gave us a lot of trouble.

Until 1898, we used to celebrate the First of May in small groups and in different apartments, and often even on different days. This time we decided to celebrate the First of May in a big way. Without considering the police stipulations, we wanted to organize a large gathering somewhere in the woods. We estimated that about 200 people would attend, and perhaps even more. We chose a special committee for the preparatory work. They had to locate a suitable spot, make a banner with appropriate slogans, and so on. A couple of weeks before the First of May, Abram Ginzburg let me know that the preparations committee was meeting on a particular evening in Treitshonka (a neighborhood in Vitebsk), where we had a secret apartment. On that evening we came together and considered several issues. We were there late into the night, and some of us, including Abram Ginzburg and myself, stayed over night. In the morning, Abram Ginzburg said to me that today he was going with Rokhke Berozovker to look for a suitable spot for the gathering, and he proposed that I should go with them. I agreed.

During the day, the three of us left the city toward Lutshesse, a couple of versts [a verst is a little more than a kilometer] outside the city. There was a large forest there. We went into the forest, wandered around for a couple of hours, and finally found an ideal spot–a large meadow surrounded by tall, clustered pines. It was as if the meadow were surrounded by a natural wall. We were very happy with the spot, and we went back to the city. On the next day we called together the preparatory committee. But before we could gather for the meeting, I went to the Vilenskys and Batya told me that she had gotten a good book. The censor had forbidden distribution of this book, so that it was hard to obtain. She could only hold on to it for a few days, so if I wanted to read it with her,

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I should come that evening, and over the course of several evenings we could finish it. That night I was going to the Vilenskys and near their house I ran into Yoshke and Podvorontik. He looked at me intently with his spying eyes and went away. I did not go to the Vilensky's, nor did I go to the committee meeting. I wandered the streets for a bit and then went to spend the night with my friend Alter Maryashin. In the morning, just as day was beginning, there was a knock at the door. Maryashin went to open the door, and I heard someone ask, “Is Leibke here?” Hearing my name, I went to the door. I saw that it was Abram Ginzburg, and he called to me, “A catastrophe! They arrested the committee.” By chance, he had come late to the meeting. When he approached the place, he saw a policeman by the entrance. He hid so that he could not be seen. He waited a long time, until everyone had been led out, surrounded by police. He followed them at a distance until they had been led to the police station.

The window in the room where our comrades were sitting opened onto a little park. Ginzburg worked out a plan for how we could join them. We had to organize a group of young women, two of whom would sit there on a bench and keep an eye on the window. Perhaps they would be able to get a few words to the detainees, or perhaps they could slip them a note. The young women should stay there for an hour, or maybe two. Ginzburg himself could not carry out the plan because he did not want to be seen, so I did it. I went to Zelda Plagov, an important worker in the movement. I told her about the arrest of the committee and about our plan to contact those who had been arrested. She undertook to carry out the plan, and we discussed where to meet in the evening. When we met that evening, she gave me a note that the detainees had thrown out. They wrote that the chief groom of the whole wedding was Yoshke Podvorotnik. The note said that they had heard how Podvorotnik had been ordered to seek out and arrest Friedman, one of our smart members. Friedman, you understand, had to leave Vitebsk immediately. To give the details

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of how I helped him out of the city and who helped me would take too long. I will only say that I helped him disappear.

On the next day I again met with Zelda on Schloss Street. We walked here and there. After a while we saw that Yoshke Podvorotnik was coming toward us. We quickly said goodbye to each other and went off in different directions. I felt him following me. I did not want to encounter the spy eye to eye, so I started to consider how I could be rid of him. I remembered that at the end of the street there was a laundry that had a back door to another street. I knew the owners of the laundry quite well. I could enter the laundry and disappear through the back door. When I was holding the doorknob to open the door, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked–and Yoshke was standing near me.

“What are you called?” he asked me.

I answered his question with a question:

“What's it to you?”

“You have to tell me. I'm a police officer.”

So that I would believe him, he showed me a badge that should serve as evidence that he worked for the police. Then I gave him a name and a family name and where I supposedly lived. The name, you have to understand, was from the Haftorah. Yoshke thought, as if he were considering what to do with me. I used that moment to enter the laundry and went out the back way to the other street. Then I ran out of the city. I roamed around for a couple of hours, then returned to the city. I went to my friend Alter Maryashin and told him what had happened to me. Maryashin packed up some dirty laundry and went to the laundry as if to have his clothes cleaned. But actually he wanted to be sure about what happened after my disappearance. He came back with sad news. As soon as I had escaped from Podvorotnik's hands, he went into the laundry and asked, “Where is that young man who just came in? I didn't see him leave.” The owners of the laundry–a father of four sons–shrugged

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his shoulders as if they did not know whom he meant. They said that no one who had come in was still there. Yoshke made a thorough search and discovered the back door. He quickly realized where I had gone, and he ordered them to tell my name, my family name, and my address. They told him that they did not know who I was. Yoshke left. A couple of hours later he returned with a police commander and two policemen. They had an order to close the laundry if the owners would not give them my information. It could not be helped: the father of the family had to tell my real name. On the next day, the detainees were told that Yoshke had received an order to arrest me. I had only one choice–to leave Vitebsk. I had to smuggle myself out of the city.

When the Vitebsk workers organization joined with the “Bund” is hard to say. Shortly before his death, Franz Kursky told me that the Vitebsk organization joined the “Bund” long after its founding, which happened in September of 1897. I myself was in the “Bund” in May of 1898, when I came to Bialystok. Before that time, I did not know that the “Bund” existed. Although both Kursky and Hillel Katz recall in their memoirs that Idel Abramov had represented Vitebsk at the founding conference of the “Bund,” I still think that the Vitebsk organization joined the “Bund” somewhat later. Why this was, I do not know.

Now I should give information about the pioneers who played an important role not only in the Vitebsk workers movement but also in other cities.

Abram Ginzburg could not remain in Vitebsk for long after his arrest in April of 1898. He went, I think, to Kharkov, where he entered the university. Then he settled in Dvinsk, where he threw himself wholeheartedly into the local workers movement. For a while he carried the whole movement on his shoulders. His turbulent nature would not allow him to rest. It drove him to greater things. While he was still in Dvinsk, he had ties to other cities in southern

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Russia, and he went there after being for a while in Dvinsk. There he united all of the revolutionary groups and founded the central union–“The Southern Workers.” Ginzburg directed an illegal publisher in Yelisovetgrad and there began to publish the journal with the same name as the organization.

Working in the illegal publishing house were: Abram Ginzburg himself, Chanahke Rosenfeld, Rhoda Terman, and Boris Zeitlin, who a short time before had been expelled from Moscow University.

Ginzburg and Zeitlin were close friends since their time in the gymnasium. Zeitlin was a young man with amazing abilities. But he lacked Ginzburg's energy and initiative. At the end of 1901, or perhaps at the beginning of 1902, everyone who worked in the publishing house was arrested and held in the Odesa prison. We were in the same wing, so we had a chance to speak through a window. His being in the jail was surprising. Everyone in the jail–both the prisoners and the administrators–had the greatest respect for him. Through the gendarme Ussov, who had oversight over the political prisoners, Ginzburg established contact with the city organization and the political Red Cross. He would get all the news about the movement. After the turbulent hunger strike, a group of 16-18 were arrested because they were considered the leading rebels. They were sent to various prisons. Among them was Abram Ginzburg. In 1903, he, along with the others who had been arrested at the publishing house, were sent for five years to the area of Yakutsk. Before he was sent away, he married Chanahke Rosenfeld. He came to the departure area shortly after the rebellion of the “Romanovtses.” The village where he lived was not far from the spot where the tragedy had occurred. He immediately sent a letter to Governor-General Kutaysov saying that he greatly regretted that he had arrived too late and could not take part in the protest, but that he was ideologically allied with the protest. As is known, the “Romanovtses” were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor. Ginzburg was not sentenced. After the revolution, he and his wife

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settled in Moscow. For a long time he worked in the metal workers union. In 1931, when there was a trial of 12 Mensheviks, he received a sentence of 10 years. I have heard nothing else about him.

Chatzkel Ussishkin took a prominent position in the socialist movement–first in the circles and then in the workers movement. He was arrested several times. But whenever he was released, he again became active in the movement. In March, 1902, I met him in Mohilov. There he was under watch by the police. Therefore we met at night in a side street. I was then traveling around on behalf of the tanners' league. I had no ties to the Mohilov tanners. Ussishkin took me to them. He died a couple of years later.

Abrasha Amsterdam and Liza Greenblatt went around 1895 to Vilna. There they got married and established a home. For a couple of years the police left them in peace. Eventually Abrasha was arrested. I believe that he was imprisoned for about a year. Then he was released and sent to Shklov. The Orthodox Jews of Shklov were hostile to him. They persecuted him. Consequently, he would go to bathe at a spot distant from where others bathed in the river. But the water at that spot was more violent. One time, when he was in the water, the tide took him and carried him further and further. Amsterdam tried with all his strength to reach the shore, but it was impossible. He drowned.

Liza, his wife, again became active in the movement. Until 1905 she worked in the illegal Bundist publishing house. For a long time I heard nothing about her. In 1927, when Mark Garvit (Mendel, the son of the Gluchov rabbi) was in Russia, he ran into her in Vitebsk. She worked for the government, and she remained a democratic socialist.

The three sons of the Gluchov rabbi (Shmuel, Mendel, and Motya) in 1905 went to Homiel [Gomel]. There, it seems, that the youngest of them–Motya–was not only brilliant but had good hands. From boards and blocks of wood he made a contraption that he called a printing press. They got some

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type and published proclamations. They wrote these proclamations themselves, published them themselves, and distributed them themselves. I do not know how long they performed this work. When they thought that the things in Homiel were too hot for them, they separated. Motya, the youngest, took his press somewhere in southern Russia and did the same work as in Homiel. And when things got too hot in southern Russia, he returned to Vitebsk. And there he continued to work with his illegal press. Later he again went to southern Russia. In Poltava he got a job in the statistics division of the local government. Over time he became a specialist in statistics as well as in political economics. Eventually he rose to such a level that he received the seat in these fields at Kharkov University. He was a professor there for many years, until age forced his retirement.

Mendel went from Homiel back to Vitebsk. He lived there for a little while, but he no longer participated in the movement. Later he went to Dvinsk and again became active. For a long time the police did not bother him, but eventually he was arrested. When he was released from prison, he was sent to Poltava. In 1903 he went to America. There he graduated as a dentist and changed his name to Mark Garvit. After the Bolshevik Revolution he became a fervent communist and took a prominent place in the local communist party. He died in 1952.

Shmuel went from Homiel to southern Russia. There he was active in the revolutionary movement. He was not free for long. He was arrested and spent a long time in the Odesa prison. Then he was sent to Siberia for three years. In 1905 I met him in Vitebsk. He soon left for France. There he graduated as an engineer, and he also studied in a special school for aviators. During the First World War he returned to Russia and worked in an airplane factory. He died several years ago in Leningrad.

Abramtshik the tailor was, since 1894, and important activist in the Vitebsk labor movement and took a prominent place.

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After his arrest in April of 1898, despite harsh police conditions, he remained in Vitebsk for a long time. From there he went to various cities, but everywhere he was active in the labor movement. In 1905 he went to France. There he married Rokhke, the daughter of the Gluchov rabbi. Rokhke had been active since 1904 in Vitebsk and in other cities. After she had been in prison a couple of times, she went to France. Both of them–Abramtshik and Rokhke–joined the group of Russian social democrats. A couple of years after the First World War, they came to America. They live in New York. They belong to the group of social democrats. In America they changed their name to Kottin.

Among the intelligent workers was also Itzke the painter. In 1905, a young man was brought to meet me. We spoke together and he made a good impression. I would meet with him often. He quickly joined the movement and became an agitator. Itzke the painter left his profession and joined the Skhodka. In 1898-1899 he was already an important activist in the movement. In that same year he was taken into the army. He did not like life in the barracks. He decided that the Russian army could survive without him, and he fled. In 1900 he came to Bialystok, where he was arrested. He was sent back, under escort, to Vitebsk. He as allowed to escape from the police, and he disappeared. Then he went to France. He lived in Paris for several months and for a couple of years in London. In 1904 he came to America, where he was a contractor. In America he remained a faithful democratic socialist. He changed his name to Isaac Lief.

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