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The city of Lida is very old. Already in the 14^th century there was a large congregation of Jews there. The city was renowned for its rabbis. In the 19^th century the rabbis Reb Eliezer Shik (Rabbi Elinkah Lider), Rabbi Mordechai Meltzer, and the well-known Rabbi Yitzchak Yaakov Reines held highly respected positions in their community. The last rabbi of the holy congregation was the Holy Rabbi Aharon Rabinovitz, who was killed with his community. The city was also renowned for its cantors. Of Meirka Lider, of Noach Lider, a reputation went out to all the dispersion of Lithuania. The preacher Reb Meir Hecht was also from Lida, and the famous Maggid who was called The Maggid from Kelm lived in Lida at the end of his days.

The city was destroyed a few times and built anew, but the destruction that the Nazis caused still remains. It is not known if the city has been rebuilt, but there is no community of Jews in it… However, I tell the memories of my childhood. I still remember until today the great fire that there was in the city of Lida at the beginning of the year 5652 [1892]. The city of Lida went up in a blaze in the year 5652 at the end of the second day of Sukkot. Two thirds of the houses were burned then, all the prayer houses were burned, and also the Great Synagogue that stood on its foundation for more than three hundred years. Also the shtiebl of the chassidim of Koidanov, which was connected to it, was burnt. On the night of Hoshanah Rabbah, four days after the first fire, a blaze again broke out in our city of Lida, and another eight houses were burned. Apparently the fire chief wanted that city as a dwelling for himself.

My father Rabbi Moshe Gronem son of Reb Zalman Reli'ess son of the Gaon Reb Rabbi Eliyahu Hindes, scribe and judge of the Gaon from Vilna, son of Reb Mordechai, was a man of the great wide world, a Koidanov chassid, and also a maskil.

In our bookcase, together with the volumes of the Shas and books of Mussar and homily, there were also books of Haskalah. In a special corner there stood, together with holy books, volumes of Sokolow's “HaAsif”^[1] and the books of the “Knesset” by Shaul Pinchas Rabinowitz.^[2] When my brother, Rabbi Zalman Leib, may his memory be for a blessing, who was afterwards head of the community in Slonim, grew up, my father set aside his books of Haskalah

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from the bookcase, and put them in a special box closed with a lock, so as to not create a stumbling block for his sons.

In general my father was involved with the creations. He was garbed in flawless, fashionable pure clothing. He appreciated the lofty and also the mundane. His shoes were shining, and he also knew how to tell proper jokes and also spicy ones. For the purposes of his trade he was in big cities like Moscow, Lodz, Warsaw and Berlin. He was a chassid with the chassidim and a merchant with the merchants, and also did not hold back his hand from playing cards, not only on “Nittel”^[3] and Chanukah nights. Nevertheless, his worldly education did not prevent him from travelling to Koidanov to the Rebbe every year for Rosh Hashanah. My mother, from the family of Berlovitz Strashun, (the daughter of the sister of the wife of Yaakov Mark, the well-known maskil), a daughter of mitnagdim, was opposed to these trips, but later she came to terms with the situation.

My older brother Zalman Leib, may his memory be for a blessing, inherited from our father (in me, too, there are traces of this inheritance) devotion to chassidut, even if he was a consummate maskil. My brother, who was killed by the Nazis, who supported himself after his marriage to the daughter of Veinstein from Slonim, in his youth would argue with father on various topics. When the Hebrew writers (Peretz and his friends) began to give a literary shape to the chassidic stories, father would say: “apparently men of the new generation have weak minds, a drop of schnapps mixed with a hint^[4] of water. We chassidim are able to drink 90 proof schnapps without water.” One time my brother said that he read in a book that the entire globe of our earth is a grain of sand in the face of the great creation, the world and all it contains. “This thing does not constitute innovation for me at all, rather, that from this day forward it is incumbent upon one to pray with devotion and trembling that you are praying before the Master of the world and universes…” my father answered dispassionately.

My father did not skip his travels to Koidanov, and a few times he would take my brother with him, and also me a few times. In the year 5651 [1891], the work of the devil, my father could not travel to Koidanov, and on the Festival of Sukkot all of our possessions went up in flames. My mother was horrified and urged my father to travel to the Rebbe for the last days of Sukkot… and so it was. My father traveled to Koidanov, and on the night of Hoshana Rabbah^[5] a blaze again burst out. At the exact hour of the fire a well-known chassid, Noach the Angel, took his staff and his rucksack and travelled to the Rebbe. The angel was a holy man and would not lie, and brought the news to my father, who was in Koidanov, that a second fire had broken out in Lida… There is an expression in Yiddish “Shemini Atzeret^[6] of Darkness.” Such a Shemini Atzeret my father had in Koidanov, and despite the words of comfort of the Rebbe himself, he did not want to be consoled, and was worrying about the members of his family.

When my father, may his memory be for a blessing, returned from his trip to Koidanov, he found all the members of his family healthy and whole. My father cried like a child from joy, and my mother the mitnagedet said that by the merit of his trip to the Rebbe they all were saved. After the festival he sent my brother to Vilna to learn, and they sent me there, too.

His real name was Noach Novoprutzki, and it seems to me that I am the first who is revealing this secret. All the people of our city called him by the name “Noach the Angel.” I am certain that if a strange man would come to our city and ask for the residence of Noach Novoprutzki, every one of the residents of our city would stare at the one asking and would answer: “There is no such man in our area.” However, even a small child knew who Noach the Angel was.

Why did they call him by the name of the Angel? The jesters of the generation of the mitnagdim would simply say: this name came to him because Noach was not a human being. He was not a clever demon, and therefore they called him by the name angel; in the way that an angel is not a human being, so too was Noach not a human being… However the mitnagdim, who did not believe in anything holy, fabricated this explanation. The truth is, that the chassidim called him by this name for his holiness, and he was indeed a holy man. His dwelling place was in the women's section of the Koidanov shtiebl in Lida. He was one of the veterans of the chassidim from Koidanov, and he would sit day and night with the Torah and with worship. From dawn, after he would immerse himself in the mikveh, even if the water was covered in ice, and until midnight, he would pray, study and “say” Zohar, and at midnight he would recite “Tikkun Chatzot.”^[7] His son, Mordechai Gershom, would provide his meals, and also a clean shirt for Shabbat.

I knew him in his extreme old age. In his speech he did not use his palate or teeth, rather lips and tongue, and mainly his throat… if one of the youths who also studied in the shtiebl, would ask him for an interpretation or the plain meaning in the Gemara, he would answer him in rude language: “stupid, stupid, you are a complete ignoramus….” And the youths were afraid of him…but nevertheless they would say that he was a holy man. And on Thursday night, when we the youths, at the age of studying Gemara, would study all night in the Beit HaMidrash, on the “watch,” at midnight we would approach the shtiebl, and a voice would emerge from its walls. Noach the Angel would be praying Tikkun Chatzot in a trembling voice with the continuous chant

And the chant would terrify us… I still remember it until today.

They said about Noach the Angel that he had the Holy Spirit in him, and also that he had “the revelation of Elijah” at midnight. We the youths of the Gemara would come at midnight to at least see Elijah's emergence, but we did not succeed.

Once, in the dark of night, we saw that a strange creature with a beard as white as snow emerged from the shtiebl. And there were differences of opinion among us. The youths who were mitnagdim decided that it was the community's goat, whose resting place was the vestibule of the shtiebl, and the chassidic youths determined clearly that this was Elijah the Prophet disguised as the community's goat…

I don't know until now if Noach the Angel had “the revelation of Elijah,” but that he didn't have the Holy Spirit I came to know from an event that happened, and this is how it was:

Noach the Angel would grant us a great honor and come to our house for kiddush on every festival. My father would honor him with good drink. One time my father brought wine from Crimea. I tasted the wine and it was in my eyes like borscht,^[9] and such was its appearance. When Noach the Angel came for kiddush on Pesach, Father ordered me to fill the bottle with the Crimean wine… the wine was in the cellar and there were mice there that I was afraid of, so I decided on my own to fill the bottle with borscht, since there was no difference in its appearance between it and the Crimean wine. When I brought the “wine,” father filled a glass full and gave it to Noach to make kiddush over the “wine.” Noach sipped from the glass and said with excitement “Indeed this is good wine, the mitnagdim don't know the taste of good drink, and they drink raisin wine.”

When father tasted the drink he understood what I had done. He threw enraged looks at me, and to Noach the Angel he said in a fearful voice “Rebbe Noach, you made a wasted blessing.”^[10]

But Noach the Angel did not pay attention to his words. At first I thought

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to myself that a miracle had happened and the borscht had been changed into wine in Noach's mouth. However miracles don't happen in our time in such an easy way.

My mother too came to know that I brought borscht instead of wine, and burst out in laughter, and this laughter saved me from a harsh punishment. I was very sorry that I had caused a transgression as serious as a wasted blessing for Noach the Angel, but I stopped believing that he had the Holy Spirit in him. A man with the Holy Spirit would have discerned immediately that it was not wine.

At the same time that the second fire began in our city, Noach the Angel travelled to the Rebbe, and from then he disappeared from my memory. It's possible that he wasn't an angel, but I have no doubt that he was more pious and pure than all the angels.

Our city Lida was a city of significant mitnagdim, but the chassidim that were gathered there were ardent chassidim, who were ready to give their lives for their beliefs. The chassidim had a special Rabbi, Reb Shlomkeh, the brother of the Rabbi from Koidanov. The disputes between the chassidim and the mitnagdim continued until I left Lida.

When they brought the Rabbi the Gaon Reb Yitzchak Yaakov Reines into our city in the year 5643 [1882] in order to turn over the Rabbinic post to him, I was a small child of about three years old, however the event is engraved very very deeply in my mind.

The chassidim opposed Rabbi Yitzchak Yaakov Reines, either because he was an enlightened rabbi, or because they wanted to turn this post over to Rabbi Shlomkeh, the brother of the rabbi from Koidanov. The conflict reached its speak when they brought Rabbi Reines into the city in a grand procession. They tell that several of the chassidim blew whistles at the time of the procession or demonstrated in another fashion. Yet at the end of the matter, on the same night that they crowned Reines as the rabbi in our city, all of the windowpanes were broken in the houses of the chassidim. The windowpanes of our house, too, were broken. A piece of glass fell into my right eye, they did an operation on my eye, but a mark remains.

Rabbi Reines aspired to bring the chassidim near, however his Bet Din was comprised of extreme mitnagdim. In Rabbi Reines' Bet Din there was a judge, a great scholar and an ardent mitnaged by the name of R' Yosi Eliyahu. On one occasion this judge said that when the Messiah would come, he would transfer all the chassidim, like all the idols, from the land. When the chassidim heard this revelation of opinion, their faces reddened with anger, and they decided to take revenge on this mitnaged and to pay him what he deserved. The revenge went into effect about two years before the great fire in our city.

On the day of Simchat Torah,^[11] when R' Yosi Eliyahu slept his sleep in the afternoon, a group of old chassidim and a youth entered the judge's house. They woke him from his sleep and forced him to dance in a circle while the chassidim sang “to transfer idols from the land.” I too participated in this Mitzvah Dance.

Rabbi Yosi Eliyahu was shocked or regretted this harsh statement, and asked for forgiveness.

It is possible to learn from this typical event the extent to which the hatred for the chassidim was rooted in the hearts of the mitnagdim. All of the prayer houses in our city were burnt by the great fire. The synagogue that had historical importance, the Great Beit Midrash, all of the kloizim, and also the “shteiblach”^[13] of the chassidim of Koidanov and Lubavitch, in the yard of the synagogue there remained only the kloiz of the tailors. They waited until all the minyans had finished, and at midnight Feivel Yanover (the grandfather of Mr. Mordechai Yudelevitz from Tel Aviv) began to say the Kaddish prayer and had just reached the words “may redemption sprout forth and may He bring near His Messiah” (which the chassidim say in the Kaddish), the shammash from the kloiz suddenly appeared and in a frightened voice screamed “come out impure from this, blood will spill, and in a holy place they will not say “may redemption sprout forth…”” At the sound of his voice many men gathered who were in the kloiz after the fire, and the chassidim were driven out. The holiness of the tailors' kloiz was not desecrated, and the chassidim transferred “may redemption sprout forth” to Kazimir's house, which remained from the fire, and the uncircumcised one^[14] precisely was not strict about “may redemption sprout forth.” The chassidim did not walk in the hakafot^[15] of this Shemini Atzeret.

Rebbe Zissel the Scribe of Torah scrolls, tefillin and mezzuzot, was a holy man. Before he wrote one line in a Torah scroll, in all seasons of the year he would go for immersion, and he would write each and every letter in purity. Rebbe Zissel had an additional privilege, that the Rabbi of Koidanov himself would order his tefillin only from Rebbe Zissel. He also ordered a Torah scroll from him, and its writing lasted for three years….

However all the acts of grace and the successes did not provide food for the members of Rebbe Zissel's house.

Rebbe Zissel never complained about his bad situation. However, he had a “cursed” wife. She had a bad nature. She demanded food specifically with screams. Rebbe Zissel himself never raised his voice; but she, the “accursed” one, screamed in a loud voice: “bring food!”

One time his wife came and in her way demanded for Shabbat. Zissel, it is the Shabbat eve today, and I don't have fish, or challahs for Shabbat… from where should I take money? From the threshing floor or from the winery? Zissel answered innocently “why do all the scribes have money but you don't have a penny?” “All the scribes are righteous men and God helps them” he answered, “but I am not righteous” he answered innocently. “What? All the scribes are righteous and you are wicked? Who are you telling this to? Evil wicked one, there is not a person as righteous as you in the world” his wife erupted in anger.

Rebbe Yosi was a mitnaged. He was a relative of Rebbe Zissel, but he had different luck. He too was a scribe of Torah scrolls, tefillin and mezzuzot,

Reb Yosi Belagradsky (Yasha the Scribe) and His Daughter Batya (1920)

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however he did not rely on miracles and sought other sources of livelihood. He had a book store and also a small “library” where customers could read books for a small fee. He found his livelihood with honor and he had the opportunity to involve himself with the needs of the public in his old age. His son Shlomo Feinstone, the author of the Yiddish book “The Chemist,” expansively provided him with his needs. His son Finston also founded in Lida a “Gemilut Chassadim”^[16] society that rose to fame throughout the area, and Rebbe Yosi was really devoted to the Torah, to worship, and to acts of lovingkindness.^[17]

In general Rebbe Yosi engaged with communal needs faithfully in my town of Lida. He was in America for a short time, however he couldn't get acclimated there and returned to Lida. Reb Yosi was as far from the spirit of America as the distance from east to west. His son Shlomo Feinstone finished his studies at the University of Syracuse, and chose for himself a typical American profession, forestry, and specialized in chemical theory. Nevertheless the scent of my town still stayed in him to a great extent. Reb Yosi's grandson was the famous actor Ezra Stone.^[18] So pass three generations in Israel.

In 1937, at the time when I visited in Lida, I brought gifts and letters from his son and I had an opportunity to see Reb Yossi engage faithfully in tzedakah and deeds of lovingkindness. When I left Lida I was astonished to see the elderly Reb Yossi at the railway station among those accompanying me. He did not take a taxi but went on foot, and he was already old and advanced in years. “What's all the panic, Reb Yosi?” I asked him. “I will deliver regards to him, in any case, and what was all the trouble needed?” “I brought a gift for my son, and I am seeking for you to deliver the gift into my son's hand. I brought for him an “aristocratic” pair of tefillin, the tefillin are small but they are totally kosher, I myself wrote them,” Rebbe Yosi explained.

Of course I transmitted the gift perfectly into the hand of Shlomo Finestone. Finestone received the gift with thanks. I am doubtful that he prayed in them every day, but I suspect that in difficult moments of life, Shlomo would wear the aristocratic tefillin and pray in them with devotion. Who knows the spirit of a human being?

Zalman Shimshon had a store for tar and kerosene and other things like these, but his store was only secondary for him. The essential thing in his eyes was the service of God and the study of Torah. His mouth never stopped reviewing the Gemara by heart, even in the store.

One time when Zalman was engaging with a book two customers came to him, two customers at once. Reb Zalman Shimshon lifted his eyes from the book and said to the customers in anger: “why are you bothering only me? On the street there are a few stores, and precisely to me you come to interrupt my Torah learning.”

Yaakov Papirmeister was a wealthy man, not in quotation marks but extremely rich. He was the owner of a beer brewery that developed a reputation in all the country of Lithuania, and he was also a partner in a large cigarette factory. Papirmeister was one of the first “Lovers of Zion,” and his brother was a well-known colonist in Rishon L'Tzion. However, Papirmeister did not shock the inhabitants of our city with his education, but with the dowery that he gave to his daughter.

Papirmeister took a groom for his daughter, a brother of the well-known Hebrew writer Kantor, and gave him a dowry… Unbelievably, 15,000 rubles. Yes, 15,000. This amount was beyond the comprehension of the residents of Lida, and they talked about it for many days, this matter was the principle topic of conversation. 15,000 rubles, would it be believed if it was told?

Leizer Mendel the doctor, whose daughter fled with a high ranking Russian army officer, entered a group where they argued about this unforgettable event. “What's the noise?” Leizer Mendel asked, Yaakov Viner (Papirmeister) paid for half a goy^[19] 15,000 ruble, and I took a complete goy groom for my daughter and it didn't cost me a penny.

Chaim Noach was a learned chassid, in his youth he transported chassidim to Koidanov by horse and wagon for a small fee, he remained a wagon master all his life, however his work caused them to deprived him of aliyot^[20] to the Torah. When the gabbai in the shtiebl was Mordechai Aharon the shochet, who remembered him from his youth, there was an aliyah for Chaim Noach every month. However when capitalism developed in the city of Lida, and the position of gabbai passed to the wealthy Shmuel, the owner of the iron store, he led a capitalistic regime, and decided to honor Chaim Noach with aliyot only rarely. And this Chaim Noach was a hard man, and he demanded aliyot out loud, but Shmuel the iron man did not pay attention to this.

The matter was finished with a delay in the reading. Chaim Noach ascended to the bima and claimed with this language: “I am a man of work, a man of toil, a laborer, and an aliyah is essential for me each month.” The delay in the Torah reading softened the heart of the iron man. They counted and concluded that for Chaim Noach an aliyah was required each month.

His real name was Pesach, and since he stuttered in his speech they called him Petchi. Petchi had many sources of livelihood. On Pesach he would bake matzas and on Purim he had a monopoly on the Purim play. In this play of his he would employ a helper by the name of Ahar'ke the mischievous, a man whom he had educated in his labors.

The first time after Ahar'ke the mischievous played the role of the evil Haman perfectly, he requested of his “Lord” a wage. Petchi took a five-cent coin and gave it to his helper. “Petchi, for a day of work, you give me five cents?” Ahar'ke the mischievous protested. “And the tricks that you saw all day for free are not considered to be anything to you? For tricks like these I could have obtained a whole ruble…” Petchi justified himself.

Ahar'ke did not agree to take the equivalent of money for his work, and the war of property and labor seriously flared up, and came to trouble. The next year Ahar'ke was again Petchi's helper. I don't know if Petchi increased his wage, or if Ahar'ke agreed to take his wage with real pleasure….

These are a few of the folk types that I was reminded of in my visit to Lida, my birthplace…

They called the residents of Lida “drunks.” The reason for this was written in a ledger of the Chevra Kadisha which, of course, is no longer available, and I tell the event here according to my memory.

In the area around Lida there dwelled villagers of wealthy “settlements.” The men of

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the Chevra Kadisha would bury the poor of the city for free. However, when an incidence of a dead person from this “settlement” came into their hands, they would “remove the skin”^[21] from the heirs and demand large sums from them. One time, it was written in the ledger, an event like this occurred –

One of the stingy wealthy ones from the “settlement” died. His sons were also stingy, and in no way did they want to pay the large amount that the members of the Chevra Kadisha specified, and they returned with their dead to their village. On the way, not far from their village, they met a poor tailor who was seeking livelihood in the villages, and the heirs fell on this means: they got the tailor drunk on brandy, stripped his clothing off him, and dressed him in shrouds. They dressed their father in the tailor's clothing, dirtied his face with blood, and left him near the city of Lida. In Lida the voice went out that murderers killed the poor tailor, who had a large family.

In short, they buried the cheapskate in the tailor's clothing for free, with great honor, and they also received funds for the support of the widow. Those who took care of the abandoned dead body were in an uncomfortable situation - the tailor was a young man, and the dead man had a beard that was white from old age. However, they solved the problem by saying that he aged from trouble, and they blamed the murderers who so cruelly murdered the poor tailor that he grew old.

Meanwhile the heirs held the tailor in a stable and gave him brandy to drink for a few days, and afterwards sent him away dressed in the shrouds. In the city they began to forget the matter of the murder of the tailor. But then, they suddenly saw him in the marketplace dressed in shrouds. The sellers were frightened to see the dead rise from his grave, and left their wares abandoned, and ran to the Rebbe's house to tell him that the dead were walking about in the marketplace. The tailor, too, was astonished that he was dressed in shrouds, and he wondered: “if I have died, why am I hungry, and if I am alive, why am I dressed in shrouds?”

The tailor got food and brandy from the abandoned merchandise and went to the cemetery. There was food aplenty, and also ample brandy. To placate the dead the Rebbe sent a minyan of men dressed in talleisim^[22] and tefillin to ask forgiveness from the abandoned dead body, and how great was the astonishment of those who came to see the tailor sitting in shrouds and drinking brandy. The drunks of Lida…. One, apparently a stranger in the city, said “they drink even after their deaths…” What happened in the end? I do not remember, but from then on the name “the drunks of Lida” remained. And from then on they used to call the men of Lida drunks.

A story of this kind is told by Tennyson, and also by Yaakov Gordin, “The Stranger.” I cannot vouch for the truth of this story, however the story is typical. It describes the situation of the towns from the recent past, the tragic and also the ridiculous aspects.

Translator's Footnotes:

1. Nachum Sokolow, 1859–1936, was a journalist, writer, and Zionist leader. He founded and edited the annual “HaAsif” (1884–1888; 1893), volumes of literature and criticism that were widely distributed. Return
2. Lived 1845–1910, contributed to the Hebrew newspapers “HaMaggid” and “HaTzefira.” One of the founders and leaders of the Chovevei Tzion movement, and the editor of Knesset Yisrael (1886–1888). Return
3. Christmas. Return
4. A biblical measure of liquid equal to about 5 quarts. Return
5. The seventh day of Sukkot. Return
6. The eight day of Sukkot. Return
7. Tikkun chatzot is a midnight ritual which focuses on mourning over the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, and entreats God to rebuild it speedily. Return
8. Jeremiah 31:15. Return
9. Fermented beet soup. Return
10. Since the blessing was intended to be over the fruit of grapes, and the beverage was made of beets. Return
11. The holiday of Rejoicing of the Torah, which comes at the end of Sukkot. Return
12. This is a phrase from the Kaddish that states the aspiration for God to redeem Israel and bring the Messiah. Return
13. Small, informal prayer houses. Return
14. The Gentile Kazimir. Return
15. When the Torah scrolls are carried in circuits around the congregation. Return
16. Acts of lovingkindness. Return
17. The three things on which the world stands, according to Pirke Avot 1:2. Return
18. Born Ezra Chaim Feinstone. Return
19. Derogatory name for a Gentile. Return
20. An aliyah, plural aliyot, is when one is called up to the Torah to recite the blessing for the Torah reading. Aliyah also refers to ascent to the land of Israel. Return
21. Overcharge. Return
22. Plural of tallis, a prayer shawl. Return

The city of the years of my childhood and youth. In the eyes of the indifferent stranger, Lida surely appeared not overly pleasant or romantic. This was a typical city in White Russia, which numbered about 30,000 residents, mostly Jews. It was the seat of the Lida region's government, and thus an important center of the railway network in both strategic and economic aspects. It was blessed with all the regular institutions of a city of its size and position, from movie houses, which mostly Jews visited, and including a prison, whose criminal residents came mostly from the non-Jewish population, and the political, almost only from among the Jews.

In Lida there dwelt a mixed population – Poles, Russians, Jews, and the Jews, as was said, were the majority. But a person from the outside would see mostly the Jews. The Polish “Fritzes” and government officials, and likewise the Belarusian farmers who came to buy and sell, appeared only as a kind of appendage to the body of the city. The Jews constituted the soul of the city, left an impression of their feverish activity and the stormy temperament of the stores and markets on the streets. They appeared always in motion. It seemed that they were in each and every place. Their vitality and mobility caused it to seem that their number was greater than it was. A Polish Gentile asked me once: “How many Jews are in the world?” “About 15 million” I answered. “Don't talk nonsense” he called out, “in Lida alone there are more than 15 million Jews.”

As in all of the cities in the Pale of Settlement, Lida had a special Jewish economic face. At the top of the economic ladder stood the thin layer of the wealthy – and the definition of wealthy was one who had a few tens of thousands of zloty. After came the middle class, and the independent professionals, especially doctors and lawyers. At the bottom of the economic ladder – the masses, from the many people of the open air^[1] to the small shopkeepers, to the craftsmen, the laborers, the peddlers, all on the threshold of poverty, who earned only enough for the most necessary needs of life, who were never certain of tomorrow, and were always at risk of starvation.

From the days of my childhood, the lives of the traditional and nationalistic Jews had a special magic in my eyes. My contact with them was from the time of learning in the cheder, in the yeshiva. But the same world that was near to me in the place and so wonderful had for me a huge gravitational force. I was drawn to this world by something that I can't explain or define. There acted within me a kind of “national sense” that apparently passed to me in inheritance. This was the sound of the blood of the Zionist race to which I belonged.

The small surrounding Jewish world, the world of the streets and the masses of Lida was for me a world that always pinched my heart and grasped my imagination. I sensed how much human suffering was hidden behind the façade of this world, how much faith and devotion were submerged in the customs and tradition to which its residents were so attached.

In the fall evenings the streets appeared the most sad, the bent figures of the women sellers in the marketplace aroused additional compassion. On a corner of an adjacent street a few elderly women offered their wares and argued about the doubt of a customer, and all of each one's merchandise was nothing but a basket of fruits or vegetables. How could the woman - and maybe even a family – be sustained by the earnings from “bounty” like this? The wind howled

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and penetrated into their clothing, but they did not move from their places, and they watched patiently for the miracle of the sale of their baskets before the coming of the rainy night.

On the winter evenings, under the layers of snow, the streets did not appear so muddy, and it was as if the melancholy of the fall had been swept away by the cold. But the women who were selling in the cold market or in the poor shops shivered in their patched clothing, and hugged their arms in a useless attempt to get warm by their primitive ovens, which were nothing but a few embers in a clay jug. Porters stood for many hours next to the houses, and waited for earnings of a few zlotys in order to buy the evening meal for the family. All of them were immersed in their anxiety to get rid of the danger that always lay in wait for them, that they would remain another day and evening without any kind of earnings.

I used to leave them and walk home, and I felt perplexed and unfortunate. But suddenly rays of light appeared that drew nearer and nearer. A group of small boys was returning from cheder, where they spent the whole day in Torah study. The lanterns in their hands helped them to find the way in the maze of the streets and foggy alleys, the shimmering light lit up their faces, and again they were swallowed up by the darkness. My mood was changed. I knew exactly what the life of the cheder showed, and I looked with jealousy at the boys who appeared weak, and who were dressed in poor clothing, small knights of the Torah of Israel, romantic images of a mysterious and traditional life.

I am reminded of one of the discoveries that I discovered on a warm summer day. I visited in the poorest suburb of Lida. In the yard, behind a rickety wooden house, a wedding celebration was being held. The chuppah^[2] was put up in the yard, the guests were gathered around it. A procession emerged from inside the house. First, the groom accompanied by bearded Jews, who appeared festive. Afterwards, the bride underneath the veil, in a company of women dressed in festive dresses, as it were, with candles in their hands. This mixture of joy and sorrow appeared so strange. The joker recited his rhymes, as he joined humor with tradition. Suddenly the celebrating assemblage caught a feeling of sorrow; the “El Malei Rachamim”^[3] prayer was heard in memory of the father of the bride, who did not get to see his daughter's chuppah. The men wiped their eyes, the bride and the women burst into bitter weeping. The thing was so unexpected, weeping and tears at a wedding. Afterwards came the Kiddushin^[4] ceremony. The festivity in the ceremony, the melody of the prayer that pinched the heart, the joy stored in the blessings, the special folklore of the kind of every play- all of this made a great impression on me.

Almost every street had its own synagogue. However the main synagogues of the city were centered around the courtyard of the synagogue (Shul Street). Most of them were not only prayer-houses, but also batei midrash.^[5] Day and night young and old men would sit next to large heavy volumes, immersed in Talmud study. During the day the Shul Street was never empty. Before prayer and afterwards it served as a meeting place. There always stood groups of Jews that discussed politics, or the troubles that were never absent. But in the evening, after the Maariv prayer, after the last ones left it, the Shul Street became silent and empty, only from within the dimness of the candle-lit synagogues, sounds of song partially burst forth, full of enthusiasm, for learning the Talmud.

The Jewish holidays were much more numerous than the holidays of other peoples. They are great national and historical reminders, which are expressed with the nicest customs. They make a strong impression on the Jewish child, and even in the cold hearts of the Jews that distanced themselves from their people over the years, kindle for a moment their memories of the light and warmth of the days of youth. The Jewish holidays greatly influenced my opinions and inclinations. They provided me an opportunity for a better perspective on the nation's past than the few books that I read afterwards. On the holidays I saw the Jewish men and women around me as they wanted to be, and when they dismissed for a moment the worries of existence, their true souls were revealed.

I was too young to make ethnographic parallels. I felt the wonderful difference between the Jewish Rosh HaShanah [New Year] and the New Year of the Gentiles. For the Gentiles the New Year was a sign for joy and noisy celebration. The holiday began with drinking and rejoicing, drunkards wandered around in the streets or were lying on the sidewalks. Even the police did not pay attention to them. They celebrated the New Year in their own way, while for the Jews Rosh HaShanah was a day of trembling, a day of judgement and accounting for all their bad deeds in the past year, and every man and woman had what to think about, on the side of debt for accidental and deliberate sins over the course of the year. And only repentance, prayer, and righteous giving could expiate for the sins.

Yom Kippur, which came after Rosh HaShanah, made an impression not only on the houses and synagogues. The whole face of the city was changed. It was as if all of the community threw off the chains of the body and devoted itself to the domain of the spirit. All of the community repented, and from the bottom of its heart entreated its Father in heaven. The stores were shut up tight. The houses were empty. It seemed that on every corner the voices from the synagogues and the minyans were heard, the voices of men and women who were pouring out their hearts in fervent prayer.

In all of the synagogues there burned countless candles. Also “soul candles”^[6] in memory of the dead. Many of the living appeared as dead underneath the kittel^[7] that they wore over the tallitot, and from the minute that they began the first prayers, it was recognized that the men and women were stripped of their individuality and became one soul with all Israel.

The Jews felt and behaved like their ancestors thousands of years ago. Out of regret and repentance they struck “for the sin” on their hearts with fists, and fervently confessed all their transgressions. Many of the transgressions that they confessed they could not have done even if they wanted to. With their bodies they prayed in the synagogue in Lida, but in their spirits they stood in the Temple in Jerusalem. They sang about the Yom Kippur worship in the Holy Place, about the High Priest in all his splendor, and their voices were filled with longing for the past, until the past seemed like part of the present. Many of them had relatives and loved ones who were murdered in pogroms in Russia and in Poland, however on that most holy day they did not mourn for the afflicted of the their generation. They mourned for the Ten Martyrs,^[8] victims of the Romans in the land of Israel nearly 2000 years before.

The holiday of Chanukah^[9] brought me the consolation of Jewish illumination, and the contrast was amazing. It was as if the candles of the Gentiles symbolized the physical power of the world to which they belonged, great and sure of themselves, while the small thin lights of Chanukah, that illuminated thousands of dwellings places of Israel, made a festive impression even in the rickety houses of the streets of the poor.

Many years went by since I saw Duvi, may his memory be for a blessing, kindle small candles in the traditional chanukiyah, but I still remember the unforgettable sight of Chanukah evening, the tune of the blessings, before the lighting of the candles, that has in it some feeling of the victory of the weak over the mighty, the excitement in my father's voice, my mother's smiling face, the warm and happy atmosphere in all of the house, and the countless candles

[Page 155]

in the windows of the houses of Lida. On every street, in every house, in every dwelling place, in every hut.

And on the days of Pesach, the festival atmosphere was already felt in the Jewish city of Lida a few days before the festival. And in those days nothing could keep me in the house. I walked about in the streets of that were thronged with Jews, which suddenly had changed so much. In every Jewish house a feverish eradication, but it was not the spring cleaning of the Gentiles; this was the first part of an ancient symbolic custom. Nothing that they had used during the year could remain in the house in the days of Pesach, until it became clean for the purpose of kashrut and any residue of chametz was destroyed in it. Everything – dishes, pottery, cups, plates, spoons, forks, knives – everything needed to be purified in order for it to be used during Pesach. The grocery stores had two sets of dishes – for year-round and for Pesach, and the closer the day of Pesach became, the more people increased the purchase of needs for the festival in order to prevent any concern of chametz. The meat and poultry market, the fish market, the wine shops, were full of customers, the poorest of the poor crowded together with the wealthy. It was impossible to describe a Jewish family, and even the poorest of the poor, sitting on the night of the seder^[10] without all of the needs of the festival. The streets were crowded with Jews carrying baskets of matzot,^[11] bottles of wine, raisins, baskets of fruit. Pesach had not yet arrived, but it was already in the air. It shone from the eyes of the men, the women, and the children.

According to tradition, every family would assemble in the father's house for the Pesach seder. I still see each and every detail, as if it was yesterday, not only the lamps and the candles in silver candlesticks, but that special light of the Jewish festival. My father, may his memory be for a blessing, was the king of the seder. He leaned on the pillow fit for a king, one of the many remnants of the life of the east that are in the memory of the people. Afterwards the seder, which fascinated me from beginning to end, began. We sang the songs and the melodies in the version accepted hundreds of years before. We ate matzot and maror,^[12] symbols of the events of days of yore.

The Festival of Shavuot:^[13] Are there words in my mouth to describe the joy in Lida of the festival of the giving of the Torah ? Every Jew without exception rejoiced with the Torah. In the synagogue with the special melody for “Akdamot”^[14] and in the house, with the eating of the traditional foods for the festival.

Tisha B'Av^[15] was a tragic contrast to Pesach, and also to the festival of Shavuot. On that day the desperate opposition of the Jews to the Romans was finally shattered.^[16] Judah fell, and the Temple in Jerusalem went up in flames. In my lively youthful imagination, the Jewish nation on Pesach resembled a bride celebrating her chuppah, while on Tisha B'Av, a widow standing next to the open grave of her murdered husband. If a Gentile wanted to understand the secret of the existence of the Jewish people in exile, he had to come to one of the synagogues in Lida on the night of Tisha B'Av and there he would understand it.

The synagogue that night has no resemblance to the synagogue on the rest of the days of the year. The lamps are not lit, only candles are burning, candles of mourning, and semi-darkness prevails. Deep shadows are hovering on the walls. The curtain has been removed from the Aron Hakodesh and it stands in its orphanhood. The synagogue is filled with worshippers. All of them are sitting on overturned benches or on the floor. They are shoeless, as if mourning in the house of the dead, and likewise are singing the lamentations in a heart-wrenching melody.

If a stranger would enter the synagogue he would be shocked. His first idea would be that something terrible had just now happened to the congregation that was gathered here. He would not believe that this worry and this outcry of pain came not from a holocaust of today or yesterday, but was due to a disaster that happened one thousand and nine hundred years before. No other nation in the world would behave in this way, for no other nation in the world has the same blessing and the same curse of unceasing national memory.

This evening of Tisha B'Av was one of the crucial moments in the days of my youth. All that was Jewish within me, consciously or unconsciously, was shocked, as if I looked for a moment into the most hidden corner of the heart of the nation. And what I saw arouses in me – more in the sense than in the mind - all the tragedy of my people.

As if alive there stands before my eyes an event that is typical of the emotional process inside me. Relatives of mine, orphaned of father and mother, emigrated to the United States in the year 1920. I too joined in to accompany them to the train station. I met other families there that were emigrating to America because of a lack of livelihood in Lida. Suddenly I noticed a strange and unusual scene. Actually there was nothing unusual, but I never before saw a thing like this, and a strong pain pinched my heart. Migrants from Lida to America loaded their meagre baggage onto a long train. The platform was full of emigres and their relatives, who were talking and yelling, waving their hands and trying with all their might to hide their sorrow from each other. Red-eyed women held babies in their arms, children with sleepy eyes helped their parents carry the baggage to the train cars. The first ringing of the train bell shook the air – a warning that in a few minutes the parting would come, departure in the direction of a land that was thousands of kilometers away. With great sorrow they jumped into the arms of their fathers and mothers, their brothers and sisters, their relatives and loved ones, and here they could not overcome themselves, and agitated groans, bitter tears of despair flowed down their faces. Groans filled the platform, men, women and children were thrown into each other's arms, trembling kisses were heard on tearful faces. The station's second bell, the arms were emptied, the human freight hurried to the train cars. Hundreds of young and old faces peeked from the windows, the tears choking their voices, the anguish of the final separation seen in their eyes. A third ringing of the station bell. The engine began to move the full train. The relatives ran excitedly after the train, waved their hands, cried and screamed, and tried to feast their gazes with a last gaze at the faces that they would never again see in their lifetimes.

So Lida appeared, a mother city in Israel.^[17] The city in which I grew up and was educated, in which I spent the years of my childhood and the years of my youth, this Lida, which was and is no more, which was erased from the reality of the Gentiles, but not from Jewish history.

Translator's Footnotes:

1. Those who worked outdoors and on the land. Return
2. Wedding canopy. Return
3. “God full of Compassion,” a memorial prayer said for the dead. Return
4. Sanctifications, the marriage ceremony. Return
5. Study houses. Return
6. Yahrzeit candles, lit on the anniversary of a death, Yom Kippur, Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot. Return
7. A white robe that men and some women wear during High Holiday services and on other occasions. Return
8. 10 rabbinic sages killed by the Romans during their occupation of Israel at the start of the Common Era. Return
9. Chanukah menorah. Return
10. The ritual Pesach meal. Return
11. Plural of the word matzah. Return
12. Bitter herbs, often horseradish for Ashkenazi Jews. Return
13. Weeks. Return
14. “Introduction.” A piyyut, a liturgical composition, sung on the first day of Shavuot as an introduction to the Torah reading. The poem was composed in Aramaic about 900 years ago by the famous liturgist Rabbi Meir ben Yitzchak, the prayer leader in Worms, Germany. Return
15. The 9^th day of the month of Av. Return
16. In the year 70 CE. Return
17. From 2 Samuel 20:19. Return

[Page 156]

The sounds and the voices of the learners in the Great Yeshiva founded by Rabbi Reines still come to my ears and reverberate, the voices of hundreds of young men thirsty for Torah, spending nights and days in the Beit Midrash by the light of a flickering candle. The hum of the learners poured out onto all the adjacent streets, inspiring a spirit of confidence and faith in the residents, whose worries about livelihood stole their sleep and serenity.

In the year 1913 there arrived in Lida “HaBimah Ha'Ivrit,”^[1] under the direction of Nachum Tzemach, may his memory be for a blessing. The troupe presented “The Eternal Wanderer” of Osip Dimov. An elder performer of Israel, Yehoshua Bartonov, participated in this play. That same day in the yeshiva one of its gifted and diligent students died. An argument broke out among the young men about whether it was proper to go that same evening to the play, for weren't we in mourning? Part made the visit to the theatre obligatory, since this play was serious and tragic, and by means of that the sadness and the grief would be aroused even more in our hearts, and part were opposed for the reason that I mentioned. On the next day, when it became known to the supervisor, the Rabbi Reb Eliyahu Dov Berkovski, may the memory of the righteous be for a blessing, about the visit to the play, he did not rest the whole day until it was made known to him who were the ones who had gone. Among them was one by the name Lev Melichovitz. The supervisor reprimanded him to his face, and preached Mussar to him: how is that one visits the theater, when they sit there with bare heads. Lev opened the “Yoreh Deah,” and showed him that is permitted to go bare-headed within the house. The supervisor was not placated, and showed him on the same page an explicit halakha that it is only permitted to sit bare-headed within the house, but to walk about is forbidden.

After the evening prayer the atmosphere was already electrified and alert, for the supervisor said that he desired to deliver a message. He went up on the pulpit, and with tears in his eyes he began and said: “how did those who went to the theater ignore mourning the loss of their friend. The deceased was one of the best of the students, humble and diligent. The day before he went to his eternity, and his friends did not succeed in overcoming their evil inclination. Instead of taking control of it, it took control of them.”

Silence prevailed at his words. Immediately he opened with a saying that is written in the Talmud: “ Most of the thieves… are Israel.”^[2] Apparently this is defamation of the entire nation of Israel, and so what are we that we will complain about the antisemites? Is it possible that most thieves are Israel? But it is incumbent upon you to understand to whom the saying refers. Indeed you know that most of the theatres perform on Shabbat night – and in the sanctifying of Shabbat, every Jew receives an additional soul, and if he is unable to control his inclination, he submits to it, he goes and buys a ticket and enters the theatre on Shabbat night, indeed with one ticket he causes two souls to enter, that it is say also the additional soul. It turns out that he is deceiving, for indeed it is clear and known that the rest of the nations are not favored with an additional soul, and because of this, “Most of the thieves… are Israel.”

I will again mention the nights of Purim and Simchat Torah in the house of Rabbi Reines in the company of the young men of the yeshiva, a time when they were having rhyming contests about the purity of the Hebrew language.

The masses of the nation too were perfuming themselves with the fragrance of the Torah. On his own, Reb Eizel the shoemaker founded the “Tiferet Bachurim” society. Each and every Shabbat he would gather the working youth and teach them Pirke Avot, the abridged Shulchan Aruch, and the accepted social manners in daily life.

Reb Yitzchak Dzimitrovski, known as “Reb Itche the white,” with the beard as white as snow, with the blue eyes, and the almost transparent face always smiling, would gather the poor of the city on Shabbat nights in the shoemakers' kloiz, and explain the weekly Torah portion to them.

In the days of the First World War, a time that hunger prevailed in the city, with the entry of the Germans, the young generation began to seek means to found an inexpensive communal kitchen for the needy, who at that time comprised most of the residents. The first meeting was assembled at the house of Zelig Ilotovitz, and it was decided in it to found a theatrical troupe, whose proceeds would be dedicated to the establishment of the communal kitchen. Participating in the meeting were: Yakov and his wife Zhenia, Yitzchak Katz, Tzidrovitz, Yablonski, Levit and Gedaliah Chertok. Afterwards they constituted the foundation of the troupe.

At first they presented Yaakov Gordin's play in Yiddish: “The Jewish King Lear,” and also the plays: “The Unknown,” “The Village Boy,” “The Empty Inn,” and more. During the whole time of the existence of the troupe they attempted to bring to light plays from the best of Yiddish Literature. As a result of this troupe a musical troupe was also founded in which music played an important part. At the end of the First World War a symphony orchestra was also founded which used to appear in the “Nirona” theatre in the courtyard of Dloskin.

The best of the writers and the intellectuals would visit in the city. Shalom Aleichem's visit, for example, turned into an unforgettable experience for both the writer and the congregation of his readers and admirers. When the train arrived, the audience's enthusiasm also reached its peak, and the affection and the admiration with which they welcomed Shalom Aleichem exceeded all bounds.

With awed respect the large congregation listened to the words of Sholem Asch, who came to Lida after his visit in the land of Israel, and read a poem by the name of “The Jews of Yemen.”

Enchanted and intoxicated the young men of the yeshiva sat in the butchers' kloiz and listened to the Hebrew lecture of Chaim Greenberg. This was the first time that the sounds of the Hebrew language in a Sephardic accent were heard in Lida.

On the other hand, the appearance of Zev Jabotinsky was in Russian. The topic of the lecture was: “The Jews in the Near East.” The Lieutenant of the Russian Ispravnik^[3] sat in the first row, bent his ear like an earpiece, waited for the lecturer to let even one word slip about Zionism, and then would arrest him. The tension among the congregation was great, and the magnitude of the vigilance was as great as the magnitude of the joy after the lecturer concluded and everything went by in peace.

And so it is possible to relate countless revelations about the cultural and intellectual life that gurgled in the city, creating a cultural and national-Zionist atmosphere within the Jewish settlement.

Translator's Footnotes:

1. “The Hebrew Stage.” Return
2. Babylonian Talmud Avodah Zarah 70a. Return
3. A historical name for a low-to-mid-level administrative position or title in the nobility hierarchy in the Russian Empire and the Romanian Principalities. Return

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