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So many years separate us since I left there and yet the beloved shtetl stands before my eyes to this day, with its streets, lanes, tree-lined walks, forests and its dear Jews. And no wonder. My cradle was there and there I spent the loveliest years of my life - my childhood years. As I begin to waken in my memory the landscapes, events and the occurrences of those happy years which I can never not affirm, those events are stronger and more truly etched in my memory. It seems to me that I have not forgotten one thing.

Here I see before my eyes the “cold” wooden shul, the shul courtyard, the river, the market, the shops, the downhill streets: Bernardina and Horse Market; the labyrinth of poor houses that were thrown up without any order, that people used to call “gardens”; the river and the bridge, all the lanes and passageways.

Here I see the shtetl on a shabes day after tsholent. The young people, dressed in their sabbath clothes, strolling behind the church, the length of the avenue, that led to Graff Zamoyski's estate, or all the way to the forests that ringed the town on all sides.

It reminds me of an event: one shabes in 1903 we - a group of young girls - went out to walk all dressed up and wearing our hats for the first time; Rishe the Rov's had brought them from Vilne. As soon as we appeared in Bernardina Street, some boys began chasing after us and throwing stones at us. Our hats were a sensation in town, until then people in town had not seen girls wearing hats.

Who of my generation does not remember Meyshe Lerer? We learned Hebrew, khumesh and Torah from him. The classroom was in Vilne Street and only girls of various ages studied there (boys learned prayer, liturgy and Talmud from rabbis). I recall the names of some of the pupils: Malka and Gaile Ore-Leybe's, Khaye-Gitl and Sorke Fulie's, Dinke Khasye-Peshe's, Kroyne Yisroel-Bere's, Bashke Mayle's and others.

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I remember that we had to know a Hebrew song by memory, which we would sing to a lovely melody. I remember only the beginning of the song, “Evets nodekha, evets umalal, tsar li elekha” and so on. The melody was difficult and we would constantly repeat it in order to remember it. Once we went to the teacher on a cold dark winter night, woke him up from sleep and asked him to sing the song for us once again. The teacher was not annoyed with us at all. He sang the song with us several times and we went happily back to sleep.

My brother, Yosef Goldshmidt, was already a young man. He was busy spreading culture and science among the Jewish youth. The intelligentsia of Ivye used to come to our house in order to conduct discussions and talk about literature and writers, about the revolutionary parties that were in the mode in tsarist Russia, such as the S.R.s, Social Democrats, the “Bund”, Poeley-Tsion and others. I remember well the writers whom they mentioned: Akhad-Ha'om, Bialek, Sholem-Aleykhem, Perets, Mendele Mokher-sforim, and the Russian ones Turgenyev, Tolstoy, Dostoyevski and others. There were disagreements about Zionism, Erets-Yisroel, and the battles and the shouting never stopped. Of my brother's visitors I recall Asher Slonimski, Khayim Boyarski, Yisroel-Dovid Gutelevski, Shakhna Epshteyn, Notke (Nosn) Rogov and many others.

Later I went to America, and all those years I longed for and hoped to see my shtetl Ivye once again. In 1932 my dream was realized. But I was too late to see my parents (Merke and Mendl Goldshmidt), they were already in the True World.

I will never forget the day when the small-gauge train brought me and my family to Ivye. The entire town was waiting for us at the station yard. It seemed to me that I had awakened from a deep sleep. Ivye looked different from the way I had left her; instead of the little wooden houses with shingle roofs there were brick buildings with tin roofs, that were built after the great fire in 1929. It made the impression of a fine, modern town.

But the landscape and the people were the same. I recognized the town and could not be satiated with it. It awakened a wave of sweet memories in me of my childhood. It seemed as if I were reliving those years again, with all their events and occurrences.

Our visit passed quickly, as if in a dream. It was very hard to part from everything and everyone. Again the whole town came to see us off and accompany us. I sat again in the small gauge train, had a last look, another tear, and separated again. This time forever.

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Who then could have thought, to whose mind could such a thing come, that so horrifying a misfortune was closing in and that Jewish Ivye would be wiped off the earth? Hard to believe that in the twentieth century it was possible to murder an entire people. Let us not forget our dear martyrs! Let us also not forget the murdering people, the German persecutors!

Our yisker-bukh will memorialize their pure and honest lives and their terrifying deaths, for all time and all generations.

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We read about a Purim-shpil in Ivye in the journal “Yidisher folklor”, published by the “Y. L. Kahan folklor klub” at the Idisher visenshaftlekher institute (YIVO) in New York (Volume 1, Number 3, March 1962).

____ F. S. from Ivye (about 90 kilometers southeast from Vilne), born 1886. ____ by Rivke R. Rubin (New York) in May 1948.

Here I will relate how we used to put on a Purim shpil in own town.

All the workers, tailors, shoemakers and others, but especially a chimneysweep that I recall who, for the whole year was blackened with soot but who on Purim washed himself and we could never recognize him because we suddenly saw him as a handsome man with a fine face and laughing eyes, and wearing a sword on a belt and a crown as he played Prince Akhushverus. And we children would dance after him as they would go into a Jewish house and sing:

Good Purim, good Purim, my dear Jews, Party, celebrate, be happy as you can We have a God who takes care of us For us Jews the best He can Ta-di-bimbom, bimbombom, bibabombom, bibombom

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After that came an old Jew with a big broad beard. He was always a shoemaker and sat curled up so he could not be seen, but on Purim he spread out his broad shoulders and put on a beard, entering with a big stick and singing:

I am the old man Yankev [Jacob]
With my twelve sons.
I have done the world struggles
Here and there.
Laban the Amori
Came against me
And God made a miracle
And we defeated him.

After that Polish princes came to us. People were supposed to receive money from them, because all this was done for Passover provisions for the poor and for the poor hospital. We would go to the Polish prince and sing.

The words were in a scrambled-up Polish which cannot be completely reconstructed. Perhaps it's something like this: God the Lord in heaven, have you sent a king, a lovely king.

And the King would respond in Polish,

A king, a king will I be
I will be a leader for you.
I am Prince Amints
In short, an officer, a high official.

And then they sang in Polish again:

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To go to a Purim-shpil
We make ourselves crazy like the uncircumcised,
We do not do this
For ourselves,
But for the hospital here.

If the Polish is not correct, I am to blame. This is how I remember it, how I heard it from all the workers who did such a good thing and collected money for the hospital and so helped our town. There was also a Russian prince with us, he also went in and sang.

Those who know Russian will see that the grammar is not correct. The song means that if we were in Jerusalem and have been driven out of there three times, the prince will still need to help us and give us coins.

In our town Jerusalem, people say:
We have been here three times.
We sinned before God
And were driven out.
Thus my song.
If you are a householder,
Give us some money.

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Is it a small thing, what the bathhouse meant to the shtetl? First of all, the bath was on the outskirts – perhaps half of the town went to the outer bathhouse; and many would just as soon go to the nearby little stream to wash their hands and recite the “asher yotser” prayer.

The wives went to the bath unclean and came out cleansed. Each woman brought along two or three of her girls, washed and rinsed their hair and their little bodies. The attendant washed the woman's body three times according to the laws of immersion, cut her nails, immersed her in the mikve, cried out “kosher” and wished her that God may give her a boy next time. All the wives wished one another out loud that next time it should be a boy. The blessing especially was laid on women who already had four or five girls.

Moshke the male attendant, a Jew with a stately bearing, knew his assignment: before heating the oven, to prepare hot water and a clean, full, kosher mikve; and he also did not forget to stand with his face to the wives as they exited, in order that they could stare at him so as not to encounter any animal on the way home that would make them unclean again and have to be immersed again.

Friday in the sweat-bath Jewish men rubbed themselves with a bunch of twigs on the high bench, breathed deeply, moaning with pleasure from the hot steam, calling to the water-pourer to “give us steam!” and feeling the sense of a clean body. They walked home with red, steamed faces, holding their dirty laundry bundled in a trouser leg of their underwear.

On erev Peysakh people immersed the utensils in a big vat and burned their khomets.

The bath had another good characteristic: It did not have any mezuzes, and as it had no mezuzes it could maintain “malekhaytshikes” or demons and other no-goods. Around 1903 a group of “malekhaytshikes” came to the Ivye bathhouse. They put on a show in the window high under the roof that looked out over the bridge.

Every evening when the sun went down they put on an exhibition of dance. People in the shtetl learned about it by chance, because they did not hang up any posters about it… Someone standing on the bridge one evening

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chanced to look at the bathhouse and see dancing through the window. He told this as a secret to someone else, who told a third and as the saying goes, “the secret is out of the bathhouse”.

Crowds of people, young and old, stood on the bridge every evening to see the free exhibition of the demons in the bathhouse. There were some who believed in it whole-heartedly. People saw how they made obvious figures while dancing. There were even some who, even in their hearts they were afraid of it, still dressed themselves in strength and denied it through and through, there is no such thing. Of course, since they were among the “progressives”, the “show” would always stop when the rays of the sun shone into the bathhouse window. As soon as the sun set behind Oleshnik the “malekhaytshikes” disappeared.

In the years of the German occupation during the First World War, the Jews and Jewesses did not go voluntarily but they were driven to the bath with weapons. As the German policeman with the big moustaches came into the Jewish streets and houses to drive them to the bathhouse people would hide, but all the tricks did not help them and the poor things had to go to the bath under police accompaniment.

It is no wonder they did not want to go to the bath. The Germans had introduced showers (until then Ivye did not know about them). People stood under them and water poured down like rain. Also the Germans were curious and looked in at their heads and their beards, as if it were their business what was there among the hair. There were cases when the German doctor decided to shave the hair, a beautiful head of hair of a young woman, or the distinguished beard of a respected Jew… A miracle that there was a Jewish “sister”. She was called Mere the darling (lives in Israel) and she convinced the doctor to abolish the bitter decree.

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I remember Ivye from the years 1904 to 1907. The town was small, poor and respectable. The people were divided into closed “castes”. The religious functionaries, teachers and the few wealthy proprietors held themselves apart and looked with disdain on the ordinary Jews: peddlers, craftsmen and others. Those who did not have a distinguished heritage did not belong, as they say, to the proprietors' social position.

There was a teacher in Ivye then whom we called “Petke the rabbi's wife” because he taught the rabbis' daughters to read and write. I organized a class, paid for with my own money, in order to teach reading and writing in Russian. The pupils were Feygl (Nekhemye the baker's), Freydke (the wagon-driver's) and a daughter of Yankl the blacksmith.

As a girl I had read a translated khumesh, blessed the shabes candles and was very observant, guarding against the sin of speaking evil, as all good and religious Jewish children did in those days. Then a teacher from Krementshug arrived in Ivye, by the name of Moysey Ovseyevitsh. He was a teacher of Russian language and grammar. I of course wanted to study with him, but unfortunately could not pay the required five rubles. His pupils were Krayne Baksht (Yisroel-Bere's), Feygl Rishe's (the rebitsin), Dovid Gutelevski, Yosef Goldshmidt (Yoshke Merke's) and Asher Slonimski; Shakhne Epshteyn was already in Warsaw and teaching at the gimnazie. I sought a way to be able to study with Moysey Ovseyevitsh and I decided to bring him lunch to pay him for the lessons.

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Moysey Ovseyevitsh was not only a good teacher, but also an excellent narrator. He gave us the books of the Russian classics to read: Turgenyev, Nekrasov, Dostoyevski and others. After reading the books we discussed them together with him and criticized the work. He got basic books from Vilne about the history of human civilization, its development from primitive folk, the rise and development of religions, Darwin's theory of the origins of the human species and other books. He did not agree with my orthodox lifestyle and said that it hindered my progress in study. After reading through a series of books on sociology, I came to the decision that God is a product of a primitive way of thinking, and the more a person is educated and learned the less necessary was a God. Little by little I became a heretic and quit my religious lifestyle.

Meanwhile our circles for self-education were greatly enlarged. Our religious elders naturally opposed our activities (what do Jewish daughters need education for, only to diverge from the level path). We were forced to study in a small room in the courtyard where we were not noticed by anyone. One time, while deep in our reading a Russian book together, we heard a loud banging on the door. It was the father of Dovid Gutelevski (Ore-Leybe) who had spied out where his son went off to every Friday night. He shouted at us, “Your impudent ones, go home!” But we did not give up our self-education and enlightenment work among the Ivye youth. Then a teacher, Shmulovitsh from Smorgon, helped us in the work that we had initiated in Ivye.

We also organized a professional union which included a few seamstresses and even organized a strike for shortening the workday (people worked twelve hours a day and even more). All this goes to say that we were burning socialists, believed in proletariat international solidarity and hoped for a better tomorrow for humankind and for the Jewish people.

There were also curiosities. Freydke the tailoress, who would often travel to the large town of Vilne, became saturated with “culture” and became very “progressive”. When her mother died she did not cry, but explained that only electricity came from her mother. (In those years electricity was an explanation for many mysterious happenings.)

Our goal was to spread culture and science among the Jewish masses. And into the neighboring towns: Baksht, Lipnishok and Loybtsh created circles for education. The literature that we received from Vilne

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later migrated from town to town. The teacher Shmulavitsh concerned himself with that. As stated, we were disrupted in our work by the older generation. Yeshaye the wadding-maker (he lived in Eliahu Drayshe's house) came to my parents' house to size me up. His excuse was ostensibly to discuss a marriage match for my sister. But he said that because I had veered from the straight path, no one would marry my sister.

We decided to establish a library in the town. To that end we ran a money-collection among our friends and sympathizers, who gave to their last groshen. Our boldness and hopefulness soon led to our sponsoring a ball in Meyshe-Ali Pertshik's house. His two children, Falke and Hinde, belonged to our circle of progressives. We danced and sang revolutionary songs in Russian and Yiddish, sent from Shakhne Epshteyn who already lived in Warsaw and had begun to be popular as a labor leader.

The religious Jews held a meeting and decided to lay a banishment on us and not to rent any space to us for our library. It came to a battle and even physical blows between children and their parents.

A woman came to us once and related that the police planned to conduct an investigation in the morning and search for illegal literature. I quickly buried in the garden everything that they could take as illegal in tsarist Russia, and then ran to Dovid Gutelevski, knowing that he would also have illegal literature. He quickly hid it. In the morning during the inspection the police found nothing.

I was very active in the revolutionary movement and would often travel to Warsaw on various missions. That became known in the town and I earned respect for it.

Ivye stands before my eyes to this day despite the fact that it has been many decades since I left it and came to America. It seems that I see every street, every house and its residents. There were very few rich people in Ivye; poverty whistled through the houses of the respectable artisans, who made their living from poor peasants.

One could not feed a family from the single market day in the week. People sent their sons to the Talmud-Torahs and yeshives in the surrounding shtetlekh, where they studied Torah and had “eating days” when others gave them meals. The young women knitted socks on machines for a broker who sent them to Vilne. The girls toiled hard for their pennies. The only one who benefitted from their work was the broker. So they lived in poverty and piety for generations.

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I could not look on the pain of my religious mother Zishe – who very much took to heart my non-Jewish behavior and was shocked by my revolutionary activity – and moved to Warsaw. There I worked in secret, organized and won a strike. I had to cope with hunger in the times of unemployment, and there were many such times. Later I traveled to Penza (near Moscow) but had to leave the town because I had no residential rights (pravozshitelstvo). Later I, like so many other young people, left for America in order to continue the struggle that I had started in the old home and to begin a new life in great, free America.

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At the end of the nineteenth century, the beginning of the twentieth century, Ivye was a town of very fine artisans and scholars. There were no illiterates in the town.

In the old study-house there were such householders as: Yoshe the baker, Yosef-Khayim Kabak, Aron-Leyb Gutelevski, Mote Kabak, Boyarski the apothecary, Khayim-Arye's (Levin), Dovid Frumke's (Malokhovski), Mayer the Rov's (Goskind), Yankev-Meyshe Shishke's (Blokh) and others. At the new study-house were as: Ayzik Goldberg, Yitskhak Yisroel's, Leyzer Ratusher and others.

The town rov in those years, until his death, was Rov Shleyme-Dovid Grodzenski, Rov Khayim Ozer's father. After his death his place was taken by his son-in-law Yitskhak Kosovski. He was married to a rov's daughter who died young, just a few years after their marriage. He then married his former wife's niece, Feygl Goskind (daughter of Mayer the Rov's).

There were two rabbinical judges in Ivye: Rov Hirsh in the old study-house and Rov Eliahu in the new study-house. They were both honest, dear Jews and great students of Talmud. They were very much respected in the town but they lived very poorly because the householders themselves were poor as well.

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Ivye had a cantor. People called him “Fotshke”. He had a lovely choir of five choirboys and on shabes prayed only the blessings in the new study-house and occasionally in the old study-house. He also helped the ritual slaughterer because one was not enough for the town. After he left Ivye there was the cantor Kalman. I believe that he died in Ivye. The town's slaughterer was Noyakh, a fine Jew. After his death, his son Rafael took over the slaughtering

Ivye possessed many artisans who were also very good prayer leaders: in the old study house it was Eliahu Dreyshe's, Kalman Bender, Mayer the Rov's and others. The new study-house it was Fulia Baksht, Hetse, Berl Shefke's, Tuvye the shopkeeper and others.

The beadles were Eli Kritshniker in the new study house and Leybe in the old study-house. Leybe was a very clever Jew. The proprietors once said that they wanted to fire him as beadle, so Leybe got up on the bima and announced that if he were fired from being beadle that he would then be a proprietor like the others, and so he went on being beadle.

Tuvye lived in the poorhouse in the shul courtyard. He was a beadle in the big wooden shul. He was also the burial-man. On Friday evenings he would stand at the edge of each street and call out “into the shul!” For a funeral he called out “Go to the cemetery!” When it came time to recite “slikhes” [pardons] he knocked on windows at dawn to get people up for the prayers.

Every shabes at dawn – three or four in the morning – Khayim-Yitsik the shoemaker went even in winter, in freezing weather, to knock on windows with a melody, “Get up for service to the Creator!”

There were two gabays in the study-houses, who gave out the aliyes. That was one of the hardest assignments, pleasing the proprietors. One of the members in the new study-house had a yortsayt for his father on Shmini-atseyres and he got the maftir aliye every year. One time when an honored guest was in town the gabay, Yitskhak Yisroel's, gave the guest the maftir aliye and the gave the townsman a regular aliye. The townsman and his son went right to the excise tax controller and reported that the gabay was selling whisky. The controller then conducted a search and in fact found whisky in the gabay's house. All the Jews in town avoided the betrayer and for a long time it was as if he had been banned.

During the day on Shmini-atseyres the congregation went to the gabay for a reception. (Yoshke the baker was gabay in the old study-house, Yitskhok Yisroel's was gabay in the new study-house.). They entertained one another until night, then the members escorted the gabays to the study-houses with singing and dancing.

Until the young people became heretically inclined,

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people would hurry to the study-houses on the New Moon of Elul to hear the shofar blasts. People prepared for the holidays as for a grand event. On Rosh-hashone the whole town walked up to Bernardina Street, to the river for tashlikh.

On the eve of yom-kiper people used to spread straw on the floor of the study-house. Before the afternoon prayers Jews lay on their knees with their shoulders up and the beadle delivered [symbolic?] lashes with leather straps. At the entrances of the study-houses and in the courtyards there were plates set out for various causes and Jews fulfilled the mitsve of charity by donating. On Hoshane-rabe women stood in the study-houses and sold little honey cakes and honeyed dough-balls, a symbol for a sweet, good year.

A wedding in town was a big event and everyone celebrated with the family. The Shabes before the wedding, the groom was called up to the maftir aliye, and during it the congregation tossed nuts and candies on him. We, the boys, often came to blows while collecting the nuts and sweets. For a week before the wedding the bride did not go anyplace alone, someone always had to be with her.

The musicians arrived from the neighboring town Liubtsh the day before the wedding. The Liubtsh musicians had a good reputation in the whole area and the band consisted of six or seven players. Many times they took on Ivye's Meyshe the fiddler to help them. The also used the help of Zalman, the Ivye badkhen. Just before the wedding the band would go to the main in-laws' homes to play a “good morning”, and generally the fathers-in-law would pay them for playing the “good morning”.

Zalman the badkhen “enthroned” the bride on an overturned washing basin; all the children already knew his throning song “Dear little bride, weep” by heart. The bride did indeed weep. The badkhen also announced “A fine mother-in-law on the bride's side, Beyle Khaye-Sorke's, go and greet the bride”. The band beat out a fine march and the mother-in-law kissed the bride, weeping. The groom and bride were escorted to the khupe in the courtyard of the shul. The bride walked around the groom seven times. Going back home from the khupe, Yoshke the mute met the party with a bucket of water, into which people tossed small coins, a symbol for happiness and good fortune for the young couple.

A prepared meal was served in the home. During the meal Zalman the badkhen called out in rhymes the names of the in-laws and the wedding gifts they were giving to the young couple. I recall how he used to sing out, “A fine gift from the bride's side, with great parade, give a wedding gift of one dozen plates.” After eating they celebrated the seven blessings, which were repeated the whole week. The Shabes after the wedding the mothers came to the bride and led her into

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shul. It often happened that 60 or 70 women accompanied the bride to shul. It looked like a celebratory procession.

In the villages and estates around Ivye there lived very many settlers, fine, honest and hard-working people. There were many such that were well-learned. Some of them were artisans: bakers, smiths, some merchants, some operated taverns. They were called after the name of the villages where they lived. In particular there were many settlers around Lazdun, like Meyshe-Itshe Lazduner, Shaye the Tsivnievitsher, Leybe Zshikevitsher, Shmuel-Hersh Yantsevitsher, Leybe Deverger, Mayer Bobrevitsher, Meyshe Guzshenater, Leybe Guzshenater, and others.

There was a little shul in the village Guzshenat, where they prayed on Shabes with a minyen and for holidays they hired a prayer leader from Ivye. Many of the settlers who did not have a minyen in their villages would come to Ivye by wagon with their wives and children for the holidays.

A wave of emigration to America began in those years. There were various reasons for this. Young men who were likely to be conscripted and who did not want to serve the Russian tsar for four years, went to America. Many Jews who could not make a living in impoverished Ivye, traveled away to seek a better livelihood for their families. Young people who had gotten married – and did not have any prospects – left for America “where the streets are paved with gold”. In the years of revolution, 1904–1905 and later after the outbreak of the wave of revolution, many left for America in order not fall into the hands if the tsarist police and be sent to hard labor in Siberia.

Of the people in their middle years who had lost families and went to America, many encountered great difficulty in settling themselves there. Some were religious and found it hard to acclimate to the American lifestyle; they also had no taste for the fast pace of American life and did not see any possibility of bringing their families to America. It turned out to be very hard to work in the tailoring shops in America, so many took up peddling. They could not succeed in living as they needed to. They scrimped on everything to save up a few hundred dollars to travel back to their families in Ivye.

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In Russia one could get two rubles for an American dollar. A Jew who possessed a thousand dollars in Ivye was a rich man. But after a few years they had eaten up that imported money or if one was not “victorious” in a business, one had to go to America a second time to make a few dollars. Many traveled to America and back three and four times. Many stayed in America for years without their families and sent money back to their families in Ivye. When the children were grown, they also went to America and helped bring over the whole family. Many Jews emigrated to America in those years. There was not a family in town that did not have someone in America.

The Christian residents from around Ivye also began to ask my father what to do, to travel to America. My father used to travel to Vilna to buy dry goods and fabric, and there he spoke with the agents and began to partner with them. It was impossible to leave tsarist Russia in those days. Passports were not made, because very few people could get a government passport and everyone had to “steal” the border to Germany or Austria.

There were two agents in Vilna who had connections with people who lived near the border. The smugglers would take their “passengers” across the border at night. The names of the Vilna agents were Krizovski and Gershnovitsh. The Christians from around Ivye had a great deal of trust in my father and would come to him to confide that they wanted to emigrate. Father sent them to the Vilna agents and for that was paid well.

Over time many more Christians began to emigrate to America. Being an agent became a very good livelihood, and other Jews too started partnering with them.

The first was my father's sister, Beyle Kashtsher, joined by Hirshke Yente's, Yisroel-Meyshke Mune's (the butcher), Yankl Verebay, Gutke Gutelevski, and others. All the agents of Ivye later united and created partnerships, in order not to compete among themselves. Plus the wagon-drivers who drove the “passengers” to the train to Bastun (the end of the train line) also united in order to avoid stealing fares from one another.

This went on until America closed its gates and stopped immigration. Then Jews fled the poor, depressed little towns to any country that would take them in.

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The Baredinshtshikes

It is hard to remember names and dates after so many years. Many people in town were called by their mother's or father's name and even more were known just by nicknames.

I grew up on Bernardina Street. I had a lot of friends. We were great jokesters, and people in town call us “the Baredinshtshikes”.

I recall that an engaged groom was coming from Lida to visit our neighbor Eliahu Zelig Tsalel's daughter Nakhomke (we called that “summoning”). They set up the samovar and put it on the porch, and we boys opened the spigot and let out all the water.

At Peysakh for the seyder Eliahu Zelik [sic] Tsalel's observed various ceremonies, and he showed his children how Moses split the Reed Sea for the Jews. We boys tied a goat to his door, so when they opened the door for Elijah the Prophet the goat ran into the house and we children stood around laughing.

Among our boys was one by the name Yekhiel (Nakhman's) Goldshmid, whom people called “Yekhielke the duck” as he was a very good swimmer. He soon showed his artistic abilities. He would give a performance of the entire Purim-play on the street, and we boys were his audience. His father and elder brothers in America brought him over to them after his mother died. In America he became an expert tailor of clothing and in his free time he participated in a drama club.

In time the actors' union recognized his artistic talent and took him in as a member. He played with Yankev. P. Adler, with Kessler and other famous actors. He was one of the best actors on the Yiddish stage in America. When Moris Shvarts opened his “Folks-theater” in New York he included Yekhiel Goldshmid in his ensemble. Unfortunately, as fate would have it, he would die in his best years. Sweaty after a performance, he took a cold shower and was dangerously chilled. He was operated on but died. He was only in his early forties. The Yiddish stage suffered a great loss with his death. In Tsile Adler's book of memoirs there are many stories about the great actor from Ivye, Yekhiel Goldshmid.

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Melamdim and Teachers

There were numerous teachers of children in town. On our street there was a melamed for young children, Yoshke the peg; there was a teacher Artshik Pruzshiner, a clever Jew, whom the children loved and he loved the children. And a melamed Sender Yitskhak, he was mean, he used to not beat the children but pinch them. I myself got pinched many times by him. Reb Mayer-Khayim Bobrevitser was a good teacher, he was a kind Jew, he taught Talmud to boys. He suddenly decided to leave Ivye and indeed moved to Erets-yisroel. That was in 1897, I believe.

Those parents who wanted their children to learn Tanakh [bible] and Hebrew sent them to Borekh Stotski (Gavier). He was many-talented, an Enlightener. In town people said that whoever studied with Borekh Gavier developed beautiful penmanship. He had a good influence on his pupils and they had great respect for him.

Near the new study-house in Ivye there was a good teacher – Hirshe-Aron, a quiet and honest person, everyone loved him. There was a teacher on Vilna Street, a worldly, intellectual person, Shmuel-Khayim (Meyshe Fiselevski's father), he taught Talmud to mature children.

At the beginning of the twentieth century the youth began to be interested in secular studies. Teachers came to Ivye from other towns and taught children Russian language and grammar. I began learning Russian with Avrom the doctor's son, Asher Slonimski. My father was not allowed to know about that, but my mother helped me.

There was a small yeshive in Ivye at the time, the head of it was a Jew named Ziskind. He taught the Talmud lessons wearing talis un tfiln. The administrator was Rov Shleyme, a recluse who devoted all his time studying (he was later burned during a fire in the study-house).

People enjoyed spending time together, particularly on Shabes. On Friday evening the young people strolled on Bernardina Street and on Vilna Street; on Shabes after the afternoon meal people strolled behind the Catholic church along the avenue to the estate, and also on Vilna Street along the “prisades” to the estate. In summer the youth came to the fruit orchards, which Ivye fruit-sellers leased, in zakoshtsheltse – in the priest's orchard and in the big orchard at the estate. There were several small orchards on Vilna Street,

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where people came to buy fruit, and youths came there to meet with girls.

Weddings in those days took place only through a matchmaker. This was the case with my sister: A match from Novoredok was discussed, she had only seen the young man once, but the parents needed to decide on the match. I recall how the parents talked with the matchmaker about meeting with the man's parents at a halfway point in the town of Shellib. My sister stayed at home and the parents signed an engagement contract with the groom without the knowledge of the bride.

Several love affairs began in the town as well. At the end of Vilna Street lived a fine Jews, they called him Hirsh the Judge. He had a very lovely daughter, Rokhl-Minke. People began to talk, that she was in love with Yankl-Dovid the furrier's son. In a small town this was a sensation and people talked about it as if it were a world event. They married, moved to America and lived a happy life there.

At the other end of Vilna Street, across from the shul courtyard, lived Ayzik Goldberg, who married for the second time. His wife had a daughter from her first husband, named Alte. She was very pretty and intelligent. Ayzik had a son, Dovid, who fell in love with his stepsister, and they married and lived happily.

One of the loves did end tragically. Boyarksi the pharmacist's daughter Gole was an exceptional beauty and a very accomplished girl. She was still quite young, 16 or 17 years old. A teacher of Russian arrived in Ivye, a handsome man. Gole fell head over heels in love with him. It was said around town that he did not return her love. One night when everyone lay sleeping she took poison and soon died. It had a terrible impact on everyone and everyone in town sympathized with the parents' misfortune.

Military conscription came every Fall. Young men of 21 years had to stand for conscription. Many Jewish men who did not want to go serve the Russian government for four years gave themselves some corporeal flaw – some cut off fingers, others mocked some illness with the help of a doctor; many young men prepared for the conscription in advance, by starving, not eating or drinking, not sleeping and taking various medications so that they would not meet the minimum weight for the military statutes. A short time before the conscription these “novebrantses” as they were called

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would come into the study-house and demand that the proprietors give them money and they did not allow the Torah scrolls to be taken out for reading. Often it came to physical battle between the Jewish “novebrantses” and the proprietors.

The Christian “novebrantses” would come into town on Wednesday (market day), get good and drunk and snatch cookies or fruit off the tables. They often came to blows with the Jewish youths.

I recall that when I was a little boy I was once left in the study-house overnight with another boy on yom-kiper after kol-nidrey. We lay sleeping on the straw that was spread on the floors of the study-house on erev yom-kiper. Moshe Fiselevski had to stand for conscription, and he stayed up the entire night reciting psalms so he would be freed from it.

My parents gave me to the best teachers in the town and later sent me to study in yeshives in the surrounding little towns. The dream of my parents, as of all the Jews at that time, was that their children would become rabbis or, at least, good teachers.

But new winds began to blow in those years. Several revolutionary parties were on the rise, whose goal was to destroy the tsarist self-rule and fight for an eight-hour workday. The “Bund” was especially popular then on the Jewish street.

I was also dragged along with the current of that time, and I ran with the secret “Skhodkes”, where one heard lectures and discussions, and distributed proclamations against the tsarist regime, which were brought to Ivye from the big cities. I remember very interesting gatherings in the homes of Yoshke Merkes, Meylekh Yente's, Asher Slonimski, Perets Kotler, Meyshe Statski, Shakhne Epshteyn and others. I learned from the disputes and my participation in the gatherings of the intelligentsia made me an intelligent member. We loved one another and we called one another sister and brother, and we really did feel like sisters and brothers.

Then, we were preparing to celebrate the First of May 1904 in Ivye. We had gotten an invitation from the neighboring organization in Lida, that we would send a group of May First members to them, to help them realize their plans. I was one of that group who went to Lida, where we went from factory to factory to agitate for the workers not to work on the First of May. I remember we went into Popke's beer factory and the workers did not want to toss of their work. We picked up the barrels

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from the wheels and the work stopped. We had a large demonstration, in which we, the Ivye group, marched. Then it turned into a collision with the police.

Arriving back in Ivye from Lida we went straight to the “prasadas” where many friends were enviously waiting to hear our report from Lida. Among those was Feygl, daughter of Mayer the Rov's (she later married Rov Kosovski). She was one of the leaders of the revolutionary movement in Ivye and even marched at the head of revolutionary demonstrations under the red flag.

As to how far the heresy reached in the A. D. circles, one can see in the following episode:

This happened on the holiest of days, a yom-kiper afternoon. I don't remember which year it was. A group of young men and women went up to the loft of ___________ on Bernardina Street (on the hill). One of the boys tossed down a match after lighting a cigarette. Ivye merchants used the loft to dry out _____________. A fire broke out. The group quickly went down from the loft and tried to put out the fire. The wind drove the fire up Bernardina Street and the fire only stopped at Vigdor Kutshak's house. My father may he rest in peace was standing at that moment in the study-house at the cantor's stand as the prayer-leader of the musaf service. All the people praying heard the shouting of FIRE and ran to their homes. Only my father remained gripping the stand and would not stop his praying for any reason. Finally, people convinced him that, for saving a life, he could interrupt the prayers.

My father lived in fear that because of my illegal activity the whole family would be sent to Siberia. Soon mass arrests and transportations really did begin. The revolutionary wave stopped. In 1905 I left for America, stealing across the border.

Ivye, the town of my birth, has been dear and loved by me for my whole life. It is baked into my heart. I remember to this day the people and the events. When I meet others from Ivye it is as though I am meeting with my own family.

Let us hope that the few remaining Ivyers in the world – among them the few that were saved from Hitler's fire may his name be blotted out – honor the precious, unforgettable Ivye Jews with their deeds and lifestyle. Let us also find a comfort in the revived State of Israel. A shame, such a shame, that the millions of murdered Jews –among them the unfortunate victims of our town – did not merit seeing the miracle of our land with their own eyes. Avenge their blood!

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