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[Page 165]

On a side street stood the two-story house. This house was seemingly no different than all the other houses in the area, but when you entered the yard and noticed the children running around, the feeling of a festival encompassed you, for here you were thrust into an atmosphere different than the one outside, an atmosphere that was entirely freedom, mischievousness freed from the burden of exile. If you went farther and went up to the second floor and tried to listen to what was being said and paid attention to what was taking place around you, you had no choice but to ask, and to ask again: “what is unique about this school compared to all the other schools in the city of Lida – a mother city in Israel?” And indeed the “Tarbut” school was extraordinary. Today I see it from the perspective of time and life experience. And maybe only now has the recognition of its worth and its role in shaping the face of the generation and the formation of each individual's personality ripened. A great privilege fell to me, that I was counted among the first of the students of this school. Neither ornament nor splendor distinguished it, its rooms narrow and its walls “naked,” but a spirit of holiness hovered in it. In its spirit this school was “young” and extremely modern, for at its center stood the child. I remember the flowers of the teachers that came to us immediately after their completion of their studies in the “Tarbut” seminary in Vilna. They came lacking everything, but infused with educational-Zionist consciousness. With their honest enthusiasm they succeeded in infecting the most indifferent among us and in this way we came to identify completely with them and with their educational way. Our hands were always filled with activities of all kinds. Sport and work, a choir and a drama group, trips, and friendly conversations in groups, games and symposia on literary topics, and above all, they planted within us the love of the people and the land, the pride of the Jewish person. I will not exaggerate if I say that until this very day I come to draw encouragement from that same small fire that flickered in the dark rooms. The connection, until the days that we graduated and moved to other schools and added knowledge and stretched out our arms to embrace the world, was not cut off. The solid foundation was not weakened. On festival days as on days of suffering and fear, we returned always to that same not-disappointing source from which we drew encouragement. The idea of aliyah was the center of our being. The Hebrew language became our natural language. Here we decided one day, I and my sisters Shulamit, may her memory be for a blessing, and Miriam, may she be distinguished for long life, that we would speak Hebrew even at home. We decided - and we fulfilled and as a result of that our mother began to learn the spoken language diligently. These were hours of the elevation of the soul, when we could gather around for small talk in pure Hebrew.

And when the terrible disaster reached us, again we were comforted by the fact that at the end of the night the sun would shine again and we would arrive…arrive at our destination, to the distant land of dreams that was so close to our hearts.

In dark nights as in gloomy days, the hope did not cease to exist within us. When we were transported to the place of the first “slaughter” my sister Shulamit mumbled the horrifying sentence “Indeed our historical role is completely finished.” I refused to reconcile with that then, and afterwards in the forests and on the difficult paths, we continued to weave the thread. We sang the songs of Bialik in places where one couldn't bring them to mind, we harnessed our strength in order to arrive…and in the land I did not “succeed” even once in being a new olah. From the moment that my feet stepped on the soil of the land of Israel I was entirely here. The ways of the land and her language were clear to me and no power could interfere with me on my way to pioneering fulfillment. And the days, the days of the struggle were for me the greatest days of my life, for the possibility was given to me to participate actively in the struggles of the history of my land. I too engaged for many years in education, when my school served me as a source of inspiration and an educational symbol.

It is hard to accept that all that was, and is no longer. Let my short words be a modest gift to you, to my school, and to my teachers wherever they are.

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I will commemorate my father, my teacher and my master, a native of the town of Zhetel which is adjacent to Lida, a teacher and Zionist activist. A personality who stamped his mark on me, and from the distances of the time and the place, his traits of character, his ways, and his pleasant speech radiate to me. He was imprisoned by the Soviet Secret Police in December 1939, and from then his trail disappeared.

The language of instruction of our school was Hebrew. We learned Polish as an additional language beginning from Grade 2. Likewise Polish history and the geography of Poland we learned in the language of the country. All the rest of the subjects our teachers bequeathed to us in Hebrew and endowed us out of an educational effort of everyday life, a great love of the Hebrew language, the spiritual values of the nation, and an unreserved longing for the land of Israel. The land of Israel as a real thing, living and existing, a land that was intended for us, and we for it. Dream and reality were miraculously incorporated into this, and only the hands of expert educators were able to create that wholeness of the existing and radiant magic. In Grade 1 the teacher Miriam Stotzki taught us. The letters of the aleph-bet, the melody of the Hebrew language, the Keren HaKayemet box, a song about a cucumber that grew in the garden, and “On a Hilltop There in the Galilee,”^[1] hands on the shoulders in gym lessons, like a stream of water in spring, washing us all together and standing us up strong and thirsting for knowledge and experiences for the absorption of existence in the new world – the world of the land of Israel.

In the year 1935 the teacher Sternberg arrived at our school and was appointed as the Principal of the school in place of Mr. Bernholtz who moved afterwards to Vilna. Our teacher from Grade 2, Mrs. Efron, of whom we children were very fond, was married to him.

A number of years afterwards Mr. Sternberg taught us. He knew how to impose exemplary discipline in the classroom without scolding and without beating. The daring, the rejectors of order, and the noisy ones among us knew to become peaceful as grass in the presence of his piercing gaze and his quiet moderate speech. In the school he organized the “Ben Yehuda”^[2] society. Members of the society solemnly pledged to speak Hebrew and only Hebrew. “In your sitting in your house, in your walking on the way, in your lying down and in your rising up.”^[3] A member of the society received a ledger whose every page was divided into squares, a square for every week. With his own hands he would print the letter ayin [the first letter of the word “Hebrew”] in the appropriate square, a sign that the member fulfilled his declared commitment. When the echo of his steps was heard in the narrow hallway of the school, or in the yard, and we the students were involved in the hustle and bustle of the game, and exchanging loud words in Yiddish, we would become silent, as if we were caught in our failure, and change our language into Hebrew. Mr. Sternberg (his first name has faded from my memory, or maybe I never knew it, but his image is so alive and near to me), our dear Principal, was murdered by the Germans in the first days of the conquest of the city, together with the group of the Jewish maskilim that was taken out to be killed on a plot of land that is next to the airport. Among them were the teachers Chaim Yitzchak Persetzki, Chaim Kravitz, and others.

Mrs. Sternberg (Efron) remained with her child and was transferred afterwards to the Piaski ghetto. She was left without any means of livelihood of any kind, and my friend from the class, David Boyarsky, may his memory be for a blessing (see his entry in this book), would bring her food supplies from time to time. She was murdered with her child on May 8, 1942, in the mass murder that took place in the city.

The teacher Chaim Yitzchak Persetzki taught us Hebrew. He was a man of the book and the public as one. He participated in the founding assembly of the community councils of the region, which existed at the end of the [19]20s in Vilna, and he wrote a lot in the local newspapers.

Until the finish of the 1938 year of learning, the “Tarbut” school was located in Mr. Ilotovitz's house for boys, on Sadova Street. In this house there was, years ago, the yeshiva of Rabbi Reines, may the memory of the righteous be for a blessing. This was a two-story house, with a story underground, in which there was a carpentry workshop, a sewing workshop, and various tenants. In the yard was a small court for games, a soap factory, and behind it a lot with pits for ice storage. There were old wooden buildings whose planks had turned black and green with age, which were always closed, and we students did not enter to investigate. Adjacent to them were the outhouses. In the hall of the school, or as it was called by us “The Great Hall,” or the Hall of the Great Break,” a large book cabinet stood along the length of the wall, entirely netted, from the wooden floor until the ceiling. Only the classrooms were on the upper floor, where there was also a small room filled full with laboratory instruments, maps, and taxidermized animals. The narrow hallway, on whose walls were boards with hanging hooks for the children's clothing, was filled to overflowing with children playing and noisy during the breaks. At the entrance to the hallway, in the corner, dwelt the sideboard, which belonged to Mrs. Raizel. A warmhearted woman who with a broad smile sold the children cups of tea and cake at the time of the great break. Needy children, for the most part from the orphans' house, would receive each day a cup of milk with cake without payment. In the same hallway, adjacent to the sideboard sat the custodian, or as we called him, “Storozhe,”^[4] our large friend Yechiel. He and his wife would clean the rooms, light the ovens in the winter, and ring the bell every time that they were assigned to do so.

To erect a new building for the school was apparently the desire and the dream of the community council and the parents' council over the course of many years. For a long period of time money was collected, zloty by zloty, by means of fundraising campaigns, donations, and by student presentations to which an admission fee was charged. In the new neighborhood, “Vigan,” which was located on the outskirts of the city, the cornerstone grew into a new three-story building, a sophisticated and modern house according to the concept of those days. When the building was already standing, there wasn't the necessary money to cover the roof. A special collection was held among the residents of the city and everyone donated “tins” to the degree that they were able. Even the poor of the city participated in this collection, and they contributed “half a tin” or “a quarter tin,” just so that the Hebrew school building would be completed and open its doors without delay.

A special presentation was held by the students of the school in the “Edison” movie theatre, in which all of the revenue was dedicated to funding the completion of the building. Special postcards were published for the occasion, and on them was a photograph of the school building that was still given to faulty systems, and above the background of the inscription “from the foundation to the rafters, and the roof? Bring money also for the completion of the roof.”

Before the residents of the city, the teachers and the students got to bless the completion, and with the conclusion of the great vacation, on September 1, 1939, the war broke out. A week beforehand the equipment and the furniture were transferred

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from the old building to the new one. I remember how we, the students (for we were already big, for we had just passed into Grade 7, which was the highest grade), helped to move the laboratory equipment, maps and various accessories, which we dragged in our hands and on our shoulders for quite a long way.

During the course of the war, until September 17, 1939, with the conquest of the city by the Soviet army, the studies were not resumed. When they did resume, we were already under the rule of a hostile power, who decreed the destruction of the Hebrew school, and ended it. And so the magnificent chapter whose name was the “Tarbut” school in Lida “was effectively ended. Most of the bones and limbs^[5] of its teachers, its students, its active members, and its founders are no more, and there is no one to describe and tell its history. For us it was like a spring of living waters from which we drank and by which our thirst was quenched, and whose vitality lives within us till this day.

The teachers Portnoy and Kahane taught us Torah and Nach. The teacher Portnoy was a mitzvah-observing man, and was as careful with the light mitzvot as with the strict ones. He came to us from the “Yavneh” school, and taught us for about three years. With the conquest of the city by the Soviet regime they merged our school with another Jewish school, whose language of instruction was Yiddish and was under the influence of the “Bund.” The united institution was transferred to the supervision of the Soviet educational institutions, and resided in the new building of the “Tarbut” school. Mr. Portnoy refused to work in this school, and remained without a job, and without a means of livelihood. He then began to organize in secret and in underground conditions lessons in Jewish subjects for a group of students. The first lesson in which I was present took place in a residence which was nothing but a wooden shack, on the Third of May Street, and afterwards we moved to learning in his house, which was in the area of Pilkovska Street, across from a stream that ran nearby. In order to avoid the eyes of an investigator or informer, and so as not to arouse the attention of the neighbors, we would come to him individually and not at a uniform time. He taught us Gemara, Hebrew literature, and Tanakh. In contrast to the regular lessons in the school, in which it was hard to maintain discipline, and his students misbehaved with the mischievous spirit and disintegration that was good for them, the lessons were now conducted with exemplary order. We resembled soldiers that were undergoing battle training out of a sense of duty and the mission that was assigned to them. Each week he would distribute to his students reading books from his personal library, and with the return of every book he would make sure to know about the impression of the reader. In the last week before my leaving the house and my city of residence, I received from him a book for reading, and in it were booklets bound from a Hebrew newspaper that was intended for youth. He showed me in this book his story that he wrote there. The name of the booklet has faded from my memory, but the name of the story “The Clock” and a little of its content is kept with me.

The poet Dov Chomsky taught us Hebrew and Torah. The teacher Baum taught us Polish. The geography of Poland, knowledge of the land and nature we learned from the mouth of the teacher Chaim Kravitz. To the sound of his whistle and at his orders we toiled in the hall of “Maccabi,” and we played volleyball in the schoolyard. Hs wife, Mrs. Kravitz, taught us Polish history.

Our class numbered forty-three children (including the writer of these lines), among them ten girls and thirty-three boys, as follows:

Ivanski, Genia	Podolski, Chanah
Ogoshvitz, Shimon	Popko, Dov
Boyarsky, Dovid	Perl, Miriam
Barbada, Yaakov	Tzigelnitzky, Chaim
Breskin, Chanah	Kotlarski, Baruch
Berkovitz, Chaim	Kalmanovitz, Ze'ev
Gordon, Zelig	Kalmanovitz, Rivka
Gertzolin, Hinda	Kaminetzki, Naphtali, may he distinguished for long life
Dovtzensky, Hertzl	Kaplan, Binyamin
Teper Yosef, may he be distinguished for long life	Kravitz, Miriam
Losh, Yitzchak	Rodi, Aryeh
Levin, Simcha	Rubinovitz, Shraga
Levinson, Nechemia	Rubinovitz, Aharon
Movshovitz, Yitzchak	Rubinovitz
Muller	Ribak, Dovid
Milnik, Devora	Reznitzki, Shimon
Nislevitz, from the town of Niman	Shmulovitz
Nislevitz, Yisrael	Shepselevitz, from the town of Zheludok
Nislevitz, Rivkah	Shorski, Chanah
Stolovitzki, Michael, may he be distinguished for long life	Shklarovski, Yaacov
Shneler, Boba	Podolsky, Eliezer

The Tarbut School in Lida, 1931

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Out of 43 children only a few remained alive. Most of the children of the class were murdered with their parents in the mass murder on May 8, 1942, and a minority of them was brought to the crematorium at Maidanek. One of them, Yaakov Shklarovski, excelled as a brave fighter in the Partisan battle in the camp of Bielski. In the month of April 1942, at the time of the great German siege against the Partisan camps that were encamped in the forests of Naliboki, Russian Partisans attacked him and demanded that he turn his weapon over to them – a French rifle that he had fiercely acquired – and his boots. He refused to do it, and they murdered him on the spot.

The “Tarbut” school numbered seven grades and with the outbreak of the war about three hundred children learned in it; of them a small handful were left alive, less than a minyan. Entire classes with their teachers and students were destroyed at the hands of murderers without one survivor or refugee remaining. The paucity of human speech is unable to express our heartbreak over our tragedy and the extent and depth of our brokenness.

Translator's Footnotes:

1. Words by Avraham Broides and Yosi Banai, melody by Nachum Nardi. Return
2. Eliezer Ben-Yehuda,1858-1922, is generally considered the father of modern Hebrew. Return
3. These words from Deuteronomy 11:18-20 “Place these My words upon your heart and on your souls: bind them as a sign on your hand and let them be a symbol between your eyes, teach them to your children to speak of them in your sitting in your house and in your walking on the way, in your lying down and in your rising up…. and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates” are in the V'Ahavta prayer, and are among the words written inside mezzuzot and tefillin. Return
4. The Russian word for custodian. Return
5. This is rabbinic language that describes the parts of a human body that allows a person's remains to be identified. Return

The thin white paper, faded from many years, is newspaper which has not gone through the printing press, for its content is written upon it in handwriting. Fine and clear Hebrew writing, which was copied by a hectograph. Drawings decorate its main headlines and the margins of its pages.

This is the newspaper “A Stage for the Student” – a student journal of the Hebrew gymnasia in Lida, which appeared in the year 1928 (first booklet, May 20, 1928, 1 Sivan 5668), and whose two booklets, Number 1 and Number 4, were miraculously preserved in the National Library in Jerusalem.

The first [female] editor is Ch. Yoselevitz, the publisher D. Rozanski or the Student Community. The price of the booklet is 20 grush.

“A Stage for the Student” or “Our Stage” as booklet Number 4 was called, is a journal of “The Community,” which is an internal organization of the students. In the journal the roles and purposes of “The Community” were defined, and here they are in their own language:

1. The development of the independent strengths of its members.
2. The strengthening of the cultural recognition and the culture of the Land of Israel.
3. The strengthening of the connection among its members.
4. Mutual aid.
5. To accustom its members to public life.
6. The elevation of the level of education of its members.

Grade 5 of the Tarbut School (1937) From right to left - first row, above: Eliezer Podolski, Nislevitz, Barbada, Ogoshvitz, Rubinovitz, Shraga Rubinovitz, Yitzchak Lush, Simcha Levin, Baruch Kotlarski, Naftali Kaminetzki, Yitzchak Ganuzovitz, Shneler. Second row: Rubinovitz, Kaplan, Pinchas Tzigelnitzky, Yaakov Shklarovski, Dovid Ribak, Nislevitz, Kravitz, Shimon Reznitzki, Nislevitz, Hinda Gertzolin. Third row: Miriam Perl. The teachers: Chaim Persetzki, Baum. The Director: Sternberg, Kravitz, Chaim Kravitz, Portnoy, The Student: Dovid Boyarsky. The last row, below: Yitzchak Movshovitz, Rivka Kalmanovitz, Chanah Breskin, Genia Ivanski, Chana Shorski, Devorah Milnik, Chanah Podolsky, Gordon, Chaim Berkovitz.

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The means of realizing these functions is:

1. Organizing banquets, lectures, discussions, literary trials, etc., in which the unique creativity would come to be expressed.
2. From time to time the community would arrange lectures and discussions on the situation of the Hebrew movement in the land of Israel, in the dispersion of the exile and in the country, on the value of the Hebrew language in the lives of the people of Israel, and the ideological clarification of the Zionist movement.
3. Members of the council are obligated to speak Hebrew.
4. The organizers in the divisions and in the clubhouse are obligated to see to Hebrew speech. The one who refuses to heed the warning of the organizer will be removed from the clubhouse.
5. Lectures and discussion on the history of the new land of Israel and on the value of the land of Israel in the lives of our nation.
   Not only the roles and the means to realize them are spoken of, but vibrant communal lives are also related. And here is a note of “the Director of the Groups” under the heading “A Historical Group or Not:”
   On Shabbat day May 19^th, it was necessary according to a decision of the administration to organize a history group in Rushlaki forest. At 9:30 the history group assembled with Mr. Gris on the bridge and waited for the arrival of the rest of the members. But to our sorrow Division 6 had not yet thought to arise from its sleep, and only now had it begun to get dressed.
   And therefore we walked forward with Mr. Gris at the head, until we came to the area that we sought. Mr. Gris sat on a tall rock and began to tell us about the matter of the last great war. The interest was great. Not one person uttered a sound. The cuckoo was the first to disturb the silence and informed us of the approach of the guest – our unsought acquaintance Mrs. “Atzlut.”^[1] At first she attacked Mr. Gris and began to caress him and hug him until he submitted to her, and we of course did according to the commandment of our Rabbi Noach, and all of us received her warmly. As she desired, we played with a puppy until Mr. Gris grew tired. Meanwhile friends from Division D arrived with our Grodzienczyk at the head. He kidnapped a beetle and threw it at everyone's necks. The screams of the girls everyone surely heard. Mr. Veisman came to the forest and we received him with pine cones. In this way we played and ran until we remembered that in the house “the hidden one” waited for us and at 12:00 we all returned home.
   The Director of the Groups

In the section “Chronicle” it is told, among the rest:

On Shabbat, May 11^th at the 6^th hour, a literary group was held under the direction of the teacher Mr. Veisman. A portion of the division took part in it, and a few from Division 6. At the time of the gathering of the group they spoke about David Copperfield by Charles Dickens.

An assembly of the community took place with the participation of Dr. Tvigel, the Director of the Teachers' Seminar in Vilna. Mr. Bernholtz opened the assembly.

On the day of June 14^th there was a fire in our city of Lida. We have no information about the fire. To our great sorrow it was at the time of a lesson and the teacher did not allow the reporter to go to see the fire, at the time of the great recess the reporter went out to the city but it was already after the fire.

On June 26^th there was held a celebration of the completion of the registries of the Keren Kayemet L'Yisrael. At the conclusion of the celebration KKL certificates were distributed and besides that a raffle was held. Four students won the raffle: Ch. Goide, Goldshein (?), Savitzkit, and Yocheved Shlovskit, who won a map of the land of Israel.

A special section of the newspaper was “Interviewim,” in our language, “interviews.” “The Interviews” were with teachers of the school, and the interviewers were the students.

We meet the teacher Gris in the “America” coffee house. The questions that were directed to him were, among the rest, “due to what does his Honor engage in instruction? How were the relationships previously between the teacher and the student? Which books find favor in his eyes? What is his perspective on the community?”

The teacher Gris:

“When I speak with a child I feel myself as a child. I don't have more experience as an instructor, for this is the first year that I am a teacher, but over the course of time I came to know the students and their lives. ”

I would want that our work, that is to say the community together with the newspaper, the library etc., would not die before they had time to develop. In the journal, poems of the students are brought, riddles, drawings, and chess puzzles. There is a section that is called “Jester,” and in it are jokes, a section of “sayings,” for sports, and also news from the land of Israel:

In Tel Aviv there was held, in the presence of a large audience, a celebration in honor of the laying of the cornerstone of a house for Oneg Shabbat^[2] and a writers' center which will be called “The Tent of Shem.”

After it was told about the goals of the house, words of Chaim Nachman Bialik about “the value of Shabbat day” were brought.

In a special edition “List of Words” a list of 37 Hebrew names of flowers was brought, together with their names in Polish. In large part they are flowers of the land of Israel whose names and appearance was so close to their hearts, as if they took their first steps among them and they adorned the gardens of their houses.

The heart weeps for vibrant youthful lives that were cut down, and they are wrapped in pain – they saw the land of Israel in their vision, in the essence of their desires and the best of their dreams, they felt the smell of its fields and its flowers, they perfumed themselves in it, but they did not reach them.

The Culture Council of the “Tarbut” School – 5689 [1929] From right to left: The Director Sh. Bernholtz, the students: Eliyahu Vinograd, Taivlah Garbrovitz, Ze'ev Druk, Dov Rozshanski, Leon Ilotovitz.

1. “Laziness.” Return
2. The Pleasure of Shabbat. Return

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Cantors and Prayer Leaders

When we say that Lida was a musical shtetl (forgive me, my fellow townsmen for the use of the word shtetl), it doesn't mean that great composers, famous concert masters or opera singers came from it.[1] We just mean to say that Jews from Lida were always great fans of a little good singing. And if the Lida world had not one good Cantor, it was because their ideas surpassed their financial ability to support a good Cantor, or to stop him from seeking a better living elsewhere.

I remember the awe with which Jews from the older generation used to tell of the accidental visit to Lida of the “Vilna Young Householder”[2] It was already at the time when he was “disturbed” and used to wander alone over fields and woods. On a summery evening, a young man with a strange appearance, a little ragged, suddenly came into the Bais Midrash, and asked that they let him lead the evening prayer. Well, a weekday evening prayer, what can happen? There are always those eager to make a little fun of such a strange person. So they let him. The funsters were ready to mock and ridicule. But suddenly, a tenor voice rang out, leaving everyone with their mouths open. In the middle of the week! They understood who this was, while they had already heard of him. He finished praying, and no one noticed how he left quietly and disappeared. A lot of time has passed since this event. Figure it out: the Vilna Young Householder died around 1850!

Whether Lida Jews weren't able to keep a Cantor because of their big ideas, or because of a different reason, there weren't any great Cantors in Lida from ancient times. The first time we hear of a Cantor from Lida is in the eighteen hundreds. He also attained renown outside the borders of Lida and her nearest neighbors. This was –

In recent years Lida Jews heard the older generation reminding themselves with longing of Mayer Lider, who was for them the ideal of a Cantor, both a “singer”, a “sayer” and also a master at “a cappela.” Prayer leaders and householders who loved singing, used to sing his “pieces”.

To our regret, nothing remains in writing of his compositions (at least nothing that can be found), although we are told that he wrote musical notes well. Bits of his prayers remain in the memory of the writer of these lines, the way he heard them from his father, and a small fragment is brought here (without a guarantee of accuracy).[3] We were also not successful in finding biographical material about his derivation, where he got his musical-Cantorial culture etc., also from whence came the large number of children that he had, except that they said they were from four wives, about whom, it seems, he worried little.[4]

We only know that in the eighteen hundreds he already was the Lida Cantor. They used to relate certain things about his musicality. Near his bed, which stood by the white-coal stove, he always held a coal.[5] Thus they would relate: In case a “thought” should come to him in the middle of the night, he would be able to write it immediately on the wall. Thus his head and his body were always in the world of music.

He was an artist with a constantly restless spirit. Often he would wander around together with his choir to cities and shtetls, far from Lida, often leaving the city without a Cantor for a long time. It happened one time that the householders gave up hope of his return, and hired a new Cantor. This was Noach Lider. When Mayer Lider heard, he turned around directly and came back to Lida. A great division of opinion was inflamed in the city between two sides – the Hassidim of Mayer Lider, and the followers of the new Cantor, Noach. According to the narrator, there “weren't enough stones in the brook for the battle”. It seems there was a certain time when there were two Cantors in Lida, each in his own synagogue.

Mayer Lider did not return from one of his trips. As we heard, he died in an old age farm, lonely and forlorn, far away in a strange place.

Noach Lider (Zaludkowski, 1860-1931) was Cantor for a few more years in Lida (and which Cantor remained in Lida more than a few years?) until the “big fire”. He was also loved by the householders, even Mayer's Hassidim. Afterwards, he went to Kalish, where he remained as Cantor for forty years. Nevertheless, the name Lider remained his name, by which he was known more than by his family name Zaludkowski.

Noach had more luck than Mayer in that he left a son (Eliahu), who followed in his father's footsteps. He was a knowledgeable musician and Cantor, and also an excellent student and writer. He put some of his father's compositions together with his own creations in a book for Cantors, which was printed under the name “Noach's Prayers and the works of Eliahu”.

Patshimak was from the modern school of Cantors who were in Lida since the beginning of this century. He was a cantor with a musical background. After several years in Lida, he went to Warsaw where he was Cantor in his own synagogue, (so our townsman Yakov Ilitowitz told us). After the first World War we heard about a course for Cantors that was taught by Patshimak.

Aphendik was the second from this modern school, and like Patshimak he left a reputation as a brilliant Cantor. As it seems, he was also a businessman in the city. For example, when the Cantor had helped the “Kazianer Rabbi”, Kramnik, they related in Lida: It was 1903 when the Kaiser Nicolai II rode through Lida and leaders of the Lida community welcomed him, among them Jews. The atmosphere was very strained. It was a restless time. There were special security measures taken around him. Kramnik suddenly didn't feel well, and as the Kaiser came toward the Jewish delegation, Kramnik had such a tremor that he couldn't say a word. The Cantor, who luckily spoke good Russian, did not lose his aplomb, took from the Rabbi the silver tray holding the “bread and salt”, and made the blessing from the Jewish community. He, also, didn't stay long in Lida, and left for London (quite a spring!) where he was hired as a Cantor.

Rabinowitz (they also called him “The Yellow Cantor”) was in Lida, I think, until 1910 or 1911. There is nothing remaining to remember him, other than that he was one of the beautiful Lida Cantors, and if he left Lida, it was not his fault. Lida householders surmised that the Cantors wanted the title of Lida Cantor as a springboard to careers further away.

We called them “modern Cantors”, not just because of the new trends, new manners (a Cantor in a broad cape, speaks Russian,) but something also ended in the soul of Cantorial behavior. Together with the old commonplace versions, the Cantors started to bring in the Western European choral style, or even arias from operas. Many Cantors sang “Mimkomo” in the Kedushah, with the melody from Elezar's aria in Heloise “Yidishke” (Zhidavka” in Russian); or “Kulam Ohavim” from Shacharis with the melody from “Troubador”.

Weinhouse was the last Cantor, who stayed in Lida a number of years. He came from Chernigov around 1912, and he lived in Lida through the First World War. There he married off his daughters and thus, as we say, put down roots in the city. Yet, after some years, he left for America.

Weinhouse was a fine musician, well founded in both music in general and also in Jewish music, also an observant Jew who would sit down with a page of Gemarah in the Beis Midrash. Half of Lida kept singing again and again his orchestral rendition of “Al Tira” and the melodic “Emes V'Emunah” (by Seidel Rovner, whose student he had been), “B'Tsait Yisroel” and other of his compositions.

After Weinhouse, Lida remained without a steady Cantor. Several Cantors, who became well known later, tried to take on Lida Cantorial duty. Among them, Teichtel (later a candidate for Warsaw Cantor after Siroten), and also, no more and no less, than Moshe Koussevitsky in the first years of his career (when he was still Cantor in Zavels shul in Vilna), but it didn't come to be a “match”.

The Cantors received their salaries from the budget of the Great Synagogue and from Beis Midrash (where they used to pray in the winter because the Synagogue was too cold). The salaries were not the only income they received. They had to go to timely gatherings, like weddings, etc. where the Rabbi, Cantor, and Shochet each received a small amount. In our times also, the Cantor used to go around at Chanukah time with the head Shamash (Sexton) of the synagogue (Yakov Lande) to the respected householders who used to give them “Chanukah Gelt” (three or five rubles was a donation from a middle class householder; a smaller amount was received by the Shamash.) Our townsman, Yakov Ilitowitz, tells us about the older times, before Cantor Patshimak, when Seidel Voss used to go around with a coinbox, collecting for the choir.

Besides the Great Synagogue and the Beis Midrash, there were in the city another twelve houses of worship, larger and smaller (not counting the “Rabbi's Minyan” in the house of Rabbi Reines, and later, until the First World War, in the building of the Yeshiva). The Kitsvishe, tailors, shoemakers, carpenters houses of worship, the burial attendants house of worship, two Hassidic “little shuls” (Koidanover and Lubovich), Vilna Street, Zaretsher and Kaminker houses of worship, “Tiferet Bachurim”, “Saltz house of worship”. There a whole range of prayer leaders took up positions. Thus the Jewish folk melodies were carried on from generation to generation from the traditional Yiddish prayer chants.

The psalm readers held a special place among these folk singers.

I'm reminded from my childhood of the warm feeling, saying psalms in brotherhood in a wintertime between mincha and maariv in the burial attendants house of worship with Yedidiah (Yedidke) the Kirschner as leader. [Note: “Kirschner” is the German word for “furrier” & may well be the Yiddish word as well. In the days before Polyfil, this was an important occupation in countries with cold winters].

From the long, narrow table with psalm readers, old and young, over the collections, by the dim light from two standing naptha lamps, they intone the monotonous chant of the sad melodies, passage after passage: a passage read by the leader, with his clear pronunciation and ringing voice, and a passage by the congregation. A mixture of old and young voices, that blended together in one choir. And thus chapter after chapter, a long way from Psalms to Lamnatzeach until they came to the last chapter of “Yom”. The melody asks to become more lively, more raging, and more heartrending. Each passage ends with “Upwards and Upwards”, as if with something of a question, a plea without an answer…

And from the holy day to the weekday – weekday melodies.

Entertainments, or simply – amusements, in Lida (and also in other Jewish Lithuanian cities) were probably a foretaste of later developments, as, alas, when did a Jew from olden Lida have time, outside of Shabbat and Yom Tov, to think of amusing himself? The shops were open, according to the popular custom, until eight or nine o'clock in the evening. When they heard the policeman's whistle, they would wait a part of an hour behind a closed door (in order not to be reported). It was the same story with the workers who worked till the late hours of the evening.

Nevertheless, sing they certainly could, in Lida as in all other Jewish cities and shtetls, not only in synagogue or small houses of worship, and not only for celebrations and amusements. Workmen sang about the hardship of making their livelihoods.

Thus works a shoemaker,
This is how he raps.
He labors a whole week
And earns six groschen with a hole.

And thus works a tailor etc. (and maybe their young wives sang and lamented their fate). Seamstresses sang, drawing their thread, or running their sewing machines, or ironing the new garments, dreaming of a more beautiful world with a clearer sky. The usual worry of how to provide for the Sabbath inspired the following little song:

A weekday we must sing;
A weekday we must scream
The whole week
One toils
And Shabbat we must pray…..

There was also no lack of satiric songs. Thus writes the anonymous writer about the beautiful young people, who seek rich dowries, and in the end:

Thus, thus
One fools a groom (Chasen)
One promises a good dowry
And one doesn't give him a groschen.

(The rhyme of “Chasen -- Groschen” gives clear witness about the Litvak ancestry of the writer who says “s” instead of “sh”.)

Wandering peddlers used to sing often in the streets their sad songs to elicit pity from the listeners. In order to “grab the public by the heart”, they used to attach their song to a local happening. The writer of these lines remembers, from his early youth, a blind peddler (real or imagined)? who had a song that he had composed about the terrible event that happened in Lida when murderers fell upon a Jewish family and killed the father and son. This song ends with the moral that we are all equal before the Angel of Death (and, therefore, naturally, we must all throw a coin into the outstretched hand…). A partial text of the song is below:

Have you, dear people, heard
What happened in Lida on Saturday night
The clock struck 11:30.
In the city everyone was already asleep
Only in their house alone
Was it still light.
The daughter was supposed to come home from the city.

Suddenly there was a knock at the door
The mother thought that the daughter had arrived
When she opened the door
The murderers approached her
And cut off an ear
And the father and his son
They did even worse to
They pushed them in their young years into the grave.

Dear Brothers, bear in mind
We are all equal.
The Angel of Death doesn't choose
Between rich or poor.
He runs quickly from the sky
He does what he is commanded.

We must ponder on what the local folklorists did not record. There must be many happenings of primitive local folklore, but only a few crumbs remain in our memories.**

They used to tell, that also in Lida there were once “true” Purim Players, dressed up in brass hats, with swords and the like, who made the people of the city and all the small towns nearby happy with their performances. In our time this no longer existed. There remained only a couple of Purim Players “Epigonen” , so called after the folkloric art. (Peshte, with his unclear speech, and “Arke Mazik” who spoke as if shooting out his words with a tune: uphill, downhill, and further – completely up.)

On Purim, they used to go around the city wearing colorful cardboard high hats on their heads, repeating the short poem that sounded like “Galagan, galagan” and ended: “Today is Purim, Tomorrow it's over, Give me a Kopek, And toss me out” – and they would get their Purim money.

In short, the old custom of the Purim-Play, which had within it a kernel of folkloric theater art, disappeared.

Masses of new young people came to Lida – the students of the Lida Yeshiva, among whom were many lively and talented young people. When Purim came, they made themselves joyful and prepared a Purim play. And as on Purim one may, in fact, it is even a mitzvah, to enjoy, they brought the performance to the Rabbi himself, Rabbi Yitzchok Yakov Reines, in his apartment. The Rabbi, good-naturedly, watched the play, in which among the characters were a Rabbi and, the opposite, a Gentile. When the boys asked him how the play pleased him, he smiled and said: The Rabbi was so-so, but the Gentile was truly a Gentile.

The boys had given also a performance in a hall (Landes Hall) for the public. This was the play “The Sale of Joseph” by Elikum Tsunzer. The role of Joseph was played by a boy named Shkap, who was extremely talented.

The performance had, it seems made an impression on the Lida public, as years afterward, people used to continue singing the various melodies from the play: “How bad is it here in the Grave,” “On the way to Shechem,” etc. Most of all the children repeated the song of the Ishmaelites, which was the composition of the richly-creative director, who had written both words and music. And as Ishmaelites areTurks, this song should have been in Turkish. Here is the exact text, in its own language, as the writer of these lines remembers them:

Gan, gan, gan, gadn gidn, gidn gadn,
Gan, gan gan, gadn, gidn, gidn gadn gan,
Kurreitn, varreitn, zakem zikem lusatov
Korina smatrina, korina yan.
Gadn gidn gidn, gan, gan, gan,
Gadn gidn gidn. Gan. Gan. Gan.
Korina smatrina, korina yan.

Lida boys were disappointed when they met the young Turk from the Turkish Confectionery in the street. They wanted to show him their proficiency in the Turkish language by saying a true Turkish phrase from “The Sale of Joseph”: Kurreitn, varreitn, zakem zikem lusatov. They saw that the young Turk understood not even half a word, and they wondered how a Turk could not understand any Turkish.

Yiddish theater companies begin to seek out Lida and find welcoming audiences. The younger generation, and even householders, fill up “Landes Hall” or the “Summer Theater” in “Pietrovsky Park” where were presented Goldfadden's “Caldonia”, “Shulamit”, etc. This was an opportunity for the culture-thirsty Lida youth to discover their own local acting abilities.

It seems, that several years before the first World War, two parallel drama groups were organized, a Yiddish one and a Hebrew one. It's hard to say today which one came first.

From the Yiddish group we can remember the names of the first founders: Tsiderowitz, the temperamental director of the group; Hoichkevisik, thin, agile, with rich facial gestures, good diction and a rich, lingering voice; Katz, the second in the group, showed himself to be a talented dramatic force, who stood out in character roles; Krashinsky, (the son of the Shochet from Pinsk), the comic, tall and lively, an intelligent and talented artist. The role in which he was outstanding – Shammai, the servant in Gordon's “Yiddish King Lear”. Mendele the wigmaker (His family name we don't remember), was the make-up man, played small roles and when needed played the cornet with the musicians of Noach Rentowitz. Of the women: Frume (Frumtshe) Yudelowitz,[6] who played roles of various types of women; Hinde Shelovsky—intelligent and a born talent, with a sharp sense of humor; Rivka Lande—excelled in roles of maidservants, countrywomen , etc.

The World War separated the members of the circle. Mendele, Frumtshe, Hinde and Krashunsky travelled to Russia. (I think Krashunsky made an artistic career there.) The circle fell apart for a while, but not for long. As soon as things normalized a little under the German occupation (1916-1917), the dramatic group renewed itself. New forces arrived. Yakov proved himself to be a worthy heir to Krashunsky in his roles. Chaim Kivelevich (shortly back from the front with a finger shot off and remaining in Lida freed from service) was capable in a variety of areas: with an inborn artistic talent, he was musical and played the violin, he was also a painter, a storyteller with a rich imagination, and also a gymnast.[6]

Later other young forces joined: The younger Fromberg, Nachman Arluk.[7] From the new women members – the sister Bodin (later Bodovnitsh and Tshertak), the woman Rabinowitz and generally – Leahke Ilitowitz, who had shown herself to be an important talent and who became the prima donna of the circle. In smaller roles there appeared on the scene Yablonsky, Gedalia Tshertak, Moshe Lovitt (when his time was enough by the Germans). Let's remember also the young prompter of the circle – Chaikl Feimushevitz[8] who from childhood participated in Hebrew activities.

During 1917-18 there was a director and manager in the circle from Vilna or maybe Bialystok, Perel Marian (the name by which he was known in Lida), a very able and temperamental artist who had a strong effect on raising the stature of the circle.

Pieces by Yakov Gordin (“Jewish King Lear”, “God, Man and Devil”), David Pinsky (“Yenkl the Smith”), Peretz Hirshbein (“Nevila”, “The Empty Inn”), Sholom Aleichem (several one-act plays), Leon Korvin (“Yenkl Boile”), B. Shveiche (?) (Theolinda), and others. Unfortunately, I don't remember all the performances.

The circle group remained until the end of the German occupation when it fell apart. Everyone separated: Yakov to Russia, Tsiderowitz to Warsaw, Katz married Perel Marian and went to America. Others were absorbed in worries about making a livelihood, about family, and simply getting old. Younger strengths were needed.

As previously noted, parallel with the Yiddish dramatic circle, there had been organized in Lida a Hebrew group, which called itself “Friends of the Hebrew HaBima”. From the Manager of the group, whom we remember: Israel Aaron Shelovsky, who took a lively interest in all Zionist and Hebrew cultural activities in Lida, and Chaikl Vishnievsky – a new type of teacher. Chaikl was a born pedagogue, as well as a musician, who played the violin. He taught the children in Cheder to sing (very unusual for a teacher at that time). He also organized a mixed choir of boys and girls, from various Cheders and Shuls, that took part in the dramatic circle in the evenings. When he found a musical boy in Cheder he took him into the choir with the “big ones” – quite a prize for a Cheder boy.

The evenings, when the choir would meet, would usually be composed of two parts: a musical vocalization by the choir, and a dramatic performance either of a children's instructive play or a national instructive play. Of the pieces which we remember from the evenings: “The Bad Boy's Punishment” (a warning for a bad boy), in which took part, among others, Chaim Krupsky[9] (The father –Good-Heart) Yakov Shiffman[10] (“The Bad Boy” ) and Chaikele Feimushevitz (the poor boy, the fiddler); “Hannah and her Seven Sons” – A Chanuka play (Mattithias –Israel Aaron Shelovitzky, Antiochus – I think, Minuchin, from the Yeshiva, Hannah – a Vilna strength, brought especially, from Chanhas children –Yakov Shiffman, Chaikele Feimushevitz, Breina Kivelevitz,[11] a comedy “The Glutton Tailor”, etc.

During the German occupation (in WWI), The Hebrew circle was not torn apart. The Hebrew teacher Shiman took over the musical group and led it with great devotion, also during the first years of the Polish rule. He acquired fame as a professional conductor and was even invited with his choir and the dramatic children's ensemble to perform in Baranovich.

A war of words broke out around the performance of Yitzchak Katzenelson's “The Sale of Joseph”. It was thus: In the beginning, the performance was supposed to be in Hebrew. The income was designated for worthwhile causes. At that time of the German occupation there were many who were needy. So the philanthropic workers insisted that in order to increase the income, the performance should be given in Yiddish in order to make it more accessible to the public.

They found an excellent interpreter (Kalike, at one time a fervent Zionist, who later moved to the left). As stage manager a young talent was invited -- Yakov Dworetsky[12] in the place of the very young stage manager in Hebrew, the already well-known Chaikl Feimushevitz. Each line was repeated in Yiddish. A protest rose from the Zionist Hebrew culture lovers in the city, who saw in this a break from the Hebrew culture tradition of the young people of Lida. This time the Hebrew lovers won. Thanks was given to the interpreter for his craft by an idealistic young Hebrew teacher.[13]

The performance was given in Hebrew with the participation of both stage managers. It had a great success. In order to demonstrate the nationalistic Zionist spirit, to each number was added a “living picture” of a prisoner (meaning the people Israel) that yearns for a free home (i.e. The Land of Israel) and sings with a young old voice, the allegorical “Song of a Captive” by Y. L. Bruchewitz.

The Germans didn't understand the allegory and their military orchestra accompanied well the young soloist-prisoner. The décor of the jail cell in the production by Velvel Lande was masterful. In order to capture the feeling , the decorator added an effect: a small mouse with grey whiskers, that ran around the cell. The fully packed hall showed its appreciation with much applause.

“Living Pictures” was one of the numbers during the evenings of the dramatic circle. They were pictures with a nationalistic subject. The figures had to sit still in the pose as if in a picture, accompanied by a musical passage from behind the curtains. Before the days of the electric light, the scene was lit by “Bengalish Fire”.

The picture”On the Rivers of Babel” was one of the pictures that the Hebrew circle had presented on the stage, accompanied from behind the curtain by sounds of the Hebrew song.

The Jewish circle once copied the well-known picture from Hershenberg: “Diaspora” with an accompaniment from the well-known “Diaspora Song” (“with wanderlust in the Hand”) specially arranged for a choir of four by David Ginzburg, a talented musician violinist who had then played in “Vienna Café” by Jablonsky. After the sorrowful “Diaspora March”, when the stiffened picture marched across the stage, the same choir, in a symbolic manner, sang a fiery “HaTikvah”, arranged by the same Ginsburg (himself an ardent Zionist).

After the Yiddish dramatic circle, there was established in Lida in about 1917 under the direction of Yakov Dworetsky, a workers' dramatic group to satisfy the longings of the Workman's Circle for their own cultural corner. The director, Yakov Dworetsky distinguished himself with a great dramatic talent, by playing the starring roles. Latuta, was a comic. The prima donna was called “Chava Leah Good Shabbas”, in memory of the song she sang in her role.

The circle was liquidated afterwards, as the top actors left: Latuta was killed in the pogrom which the Polish soldiers made in Lida in 1919 while capturing the city, and Yakov Dworetsky, shortly afterwards, left for America.

In the years 1924-1925, there was a second Yiddish dramatic workers' circle, about which our old Lida friends, Esther Kapushtshevsky – Sigbaum now from Dafna (Upper Galilee) and Tziporah Levin-Bleichberd, now from Haifa, tell us:

In 1924, there was formed in Lida by the Professional Union of the Needle Workers, a dramatic circle under the direction of H. Fromberg. The profits from the performances went to various business directions.

Afterwards, when Fromberg, for certain reasons left the circle, his place was taken by the artist Komai, who then served in the Polish Army in one of the regiments that was stationed in the Lida barracks. Every evening he would come especially in the city to the rehearsals. The directors were still Moshe Levin(the photograph) and Liava Poliatchek.

Lida Jews from all classes used to seek out en masse the performances which took place every couple of months. From the repertory it is worthwhile to mention: “Yenkl the Smith”, “Uriel Accosta”, “Mashkele Pig”, “The Week”, Ronny the Postmistress”, Mirele Efros”, “The Seder Night”, “The Scandal”.

These are the names of the members, who participated in the performances: Men – Yakov Brinker, Moshe Golomb, Hirshele Darshan, Leizer Levin, Noach Sosnovsky, Liava Poliatschek, Feike the tailor (i don't remember his family name), Abraham Renkatshinsky. Women – Zelda the seamstress (the family name forgotten), Peshe Lidsky, Rivka Levin, Chaya Mansky, Freidke Slonimitshek, Rivka Pupko, Esther Kopushtshevsky.

The circle had also formed in the professional unions various small cultural circles: For Yiddish literature, art and theater, the history of Yiddish theater, etc.

After the director Komai left Lida, in 1927, (after the military rule ended), the circle slowly fell apart. It later came to life once again with new strengths.

Page 178 has a picture of the circle “Friends of the Hebrew Habimah” in Lida with Chaikel Vishnevsky' children's choir.

Below the picture are two pieces of music. The first is from Mayer Lider's compositions, and the second is The Blind Beggar's Song.

Translator's footnotes

1. We have to remember the two Rentowitz Brothers, Dashe and Yenkl, son of Noach Rentowitz, the leader of the Lida Orchestra, who had (before the first World War) who completed with honors the Petersburg Conservatory. They were the best students of the renowned Professor Aver, and they themselves acquired fame throughout Russia as talented fiddlers. From earlier times, the writer of these lines heard from his father about a friend of his, Shlomo Shaike, who had a mighty tenor voice. He went to Italy and became a opera singer. Coming on a visit to Lida, he brought with him a mountain of newspapers with favorable reviews of him. After the visit, it was as if he "went into water". No one heard from him again. There were many suppositions about what happened to him. Back
2. A short biography of the phenomenal singer – See the "Encyclopedia of Music", men of Israeli and congregational music. Back
3. See page 178. Back
4. They used to tell that when one of his children came to look for him, his first question was: What was your mother's name? Back
5. To make Lida speech clear, to differentiate it from a "bullet" from a gun. Back
6. Later, well known artists of "Habimah", see the various remarks about him in the book. Back
7. In the one-act comedy, "Theodalinda", he, in his role as a gymnastics teacher, in order to demonstrate his manhood, introduced a scene where he lifted aloft very heavy iron weights and and ?. This may not have been the most artistic performance, but the audience applauded loudly. Back
8. Today, Chaim Amiti, well-known artist of "Habimah". Many years he worked in construction in Tel Aviv and Mikve Israel. Afterwords as he came to Israel in 1919, among the first pioneers, after WWI. Back
9. Later, Chaim Ariav, deceased, immigrated to Israel around 1910, was Secretary of "HaTachdot HaIcarim" and member of the Knesset. Back
10. Today, Yakov Ben Sirah, Tel Aviv Back Today in New York, Dr. Breina Kivelef. Back
11. Dr. Yakov Dworetsky, dentist, died in New York in 19? Until his last day, leader of Lider Relief in New York. Back
12. A Hebrew teacher's son. He was full of Jewish wisdom and strongly entwined in all kinds of ideas. Later, to everyone's surprise, he embraced another ideology and went over to a different camp, from which there was already no way back, even though he remained disappointed. Back

[Page 179]

“Lida Alley” extended from the navel of the city, and at its other end it touched the banks of the river “Lidzika.” This whole alley was not so long, and it appeared as a kind of bridge between the market, the central street Sovalska (or Vilna Street, as they called it beforehand), and the green meadows that extended, open on both sides, from the other side of the river. We called the “Lidzika” a river, because for us it personified a whole and complete world, even though the best jumpers among us, the group of children, would test their physical fitness with a jump from one side of the stream to the other. This stream twisted and turned among the wildly overgrown swamps in the back of the quiet yards of the city, at the feet of trash piles that had been piling up forever, and was swallowed up somewhere at the end of the world that we didn't yet know where it was. The water flowed in its quiet trickle, flowed always with a dreamy peace. Sometimes I would ponder while standing on the little wooden bridge that was stretched above the stream: from whence to where, and why is all this flowing, and I remain pondering about it even now.

Once we had a cruise along the Lidzika, an experience that is engraved deeply in my memory. My relative, a tall lad, broad-shouldered and muscular, at that time a locksmith's apprentice in one of the workshops, did me a kindness and took me with him – to row, and thus invited me to see the world for the length of a few kilometers of the stream - an area whose measurements had not yet been revealed to me.

The boat floated slowly. My big friend rowed and was the guide. Here this big wall belongs to the cemetery, where there are buried Jews whose rest is in Eden. At some distance, a place where the waters are shallow, Pupko's yard extends. The property where heaps of wood were arranged – his sawmill. And there farther on, in the place where a tall chimney kisses the sky – this is the “broiz” (the beer factory). As he rowed farther on, blooming and growing trees were revealed before us, willows robust from an abundance of water, rustling in peaceful rest. Meadows and a few solitary cows waiting for their meals in sleepy tranquility.

We went to the Lidzika to fish. We didn't need a fishing rod, for the palms of our hands would catch the small “kolyoshki” fish, which in their hordes wandered in the river's expanse. Or we would roll stones from under the water and pull out leeches. On the bottom of the Lidzika a whole world was confined, for the mountains of garbage from all the adjacent streets accumulated here, and all the residue, shards and broken pieces of implements that were prevented from going on the face of the water, sank here and was hidden in eternal memory. Thus, in addition to the “kolyoshki,” it was possible to hunt different and strange things, to find all kinds of buried treasure, which no eye had seen.

Two rows of houses continued in the “Lida Street” in whose center passed the “brook.” This was a road paved with rough stones of all sizes, and between them rows of grass and weeds sprouted. On one side of the street, at the end of the sidewalk, the “rina” continued. This was an open sewer that trailed from the beginning of the street and was swallowed up in the Lidzika. All of the things that the residents poured into the street went down into the sewer, and in the summer season, it flowed slowly, or was stopped due to a lack of rain water, and a stink and stench arose from it. Especially felt was that poured out by Bolosh: a tall and stout Pole

The Lidzika River

[Page 180]

whose livelihood was from a pork sausage and bacon factory, a factory that was set up next to his house.

On rainy days the “rina” would be filled with water, which streamed in its turbulent flow towards the Lidzika, carrying with it the remains of the sewage that were left in it from the dry days, and emptying the stench of the rendered meat and the innards that rose from Bolosh's yard. How good then to send boats on the water in their great race to the river, and from there surely to the great open sea, which was somewhere in the mists of the distance. A sailboat made from pages of used notebook paper or a stub of bark carved into a work of art. A piece of soft brown pine bark like a king's ship alternately ascending and descending on the shallow breakers of rain water and sewage. It's possible then to run after it barefoot, sweaty and wet from the puddles of water that pooled on the “brook” and to watch its fate until it disappears wading and bubbling in a whirlpool of the waters of the river.

The inferior sanitary condition of the alley caused great suffering to its residents, who from time to time attempted to lay out their request before the authorities.

In the newspaper “Lida Life” edition 4, from 24 Elul 5696 -September 11, 1936, there appeared an alarm letter in this language:

“We the citizens who sign below and the householders on Lida Street request with this to publicize in your important newspaper our letter, following:

It is already a long time that the town engages in its wisdom in the cleaning of the city and in its adornment to regulate hygienic needs. Thanks to that people pass the market, which exists in its place already for hundreds of years. Tiles, paving beautiful sidewalks, and even installing an underground sewer for the new streets (Pilkovska Street, Zamkova, etc.), and more. But did the municipality of our city think even once about Lida Street, the street that bears the name of our city, in order to improve its declining sanitary condition?

Already ten years ago, we, the residents of Lida Street, turned to the municipality and requested that it organize a sewer and to connect pipes to every house, since most of the houses on Lida Street do not have yards and there is no place to empty the sewage. But instead of an organized sewer, they saw to arrange for us a gutter for the sewage that runs the length of the market, crosses by way of Lida Street, and carries with it the filth of the entire city.

But this is not enough, because in addition to this the municipality granted us a second “gift.” They removed the carriage owners from Sovalska Street and transferred them to the “fortunate” Lida Street. Because of this it is already impossible to cross the street.

The filth that is caused by the sewer and the horse manure poisons the air. There is no possibility of opening a window. And thus the municipality grants us new “ornamental flowers;” in this way, allegedly, the city fathers see to the beauty of our city and to the sanitary and hygienic condition on Lida Street.

We therefore wish to ask the leaders of the city, the Jewish representatives on the city council: why do you not see to it that they will stop treating as a “stepchild” precisely the street that bears the name of our city, a street that is especially populated by Jews? Is it already impossible to find a more suitable place for the carriage owners?

We therefore turn to you, the Jewish leaders of the city, with a warm cry: save a street that is populated by Jews. Take the time with appropriate means in order that an entire street will not become a nest of diseases and epidemics. Do this before you have missed the deadline, for each minute is precious! The residents and landlords of Lida Street.”

In the last house on the street on the banks of the river lived “the kovlicha.” She was a tall and broad woman, a religious Catholic, who educated her daughters after her husband abandoned her in her youth. He left her in the lurch, leaving her only the memory of his profession, which he manifested with a nickname: “kovlicha,” from the word “kovel” – a smith. Maybe he also left her house to her, which was a low and rickety shack, whose roof was covered with patch upon patch, and a twisted chimney built of blackened burnt bricks looking out at the world. The property and source of livelihood of the “kovlicha” were a few boats that stood in the Lidzika and were connected to a lock and cables that were in her yard. Jewish and Polish youths, young men of toil and exertion, or gymnasia students in their shiny uniforms, would frequent her yard and rent a boat to row for a limited time set in advance.

The “kovlicha” had learned from experience, and she knew her “customers” well. It happened that one would take one of the boats for an hour, would pay for that hour, but would sail with his girlfriend or one of his friends for two hours or more, as his heart desired. Afterwards he would leave the boat in one of the corners of the stream, and would also let a joke slip at the expense of the “kovlicha,” to the thundering sound of the laughter of the gang, and then all of them would sneak quietly home. Therefore, she instituted a rule that each renter had to leave his hat as a deposit. This arrangement remained in effect for a specific period, until she realized that most of the hats remained with her, and the boats were sent out on the water, and her daughters were looking for them along the whole length of the Lidzika. When I chanced upon her house with my big friend, there was revealed before me a display of hats that were hung horizontally and vertically on nails. No hat resembled its neighbor, neither inside nor out. Each one of them, with its own shape and stains, constituted a chapter in and of itself of the history of its incarnations.

Summer evenings short and bright. The night spreads deep, hot and clear. Above, the teeming worlds of the stars, which also flutter below in the flowing mirror of the Lidzika. How magnificent then to send fire across the face of the water! As of yore so it is now, all of them in the gang on the small wooden ramp that looked out on the river from the yard of the “kovlicha.” All the children, Jews and Gentiles as one, fill wooden boxes with paper and remnants of cardboard, place a burning match in it, and send it out with the flow of the water. The box is washed away by it, flares up a little, gets farther and farther away as its fire crackles, grows, and makes the shadows of the trees dance in the bosom of the night, to the sound of children's jubilation.

On Rosh Hashanah is the time that the residents of the city come here en masse to fulfill what is written “and you shall throw into the depths of the sea all our sins”^[1] the time that women and children, elders and youth stand up here on the shore and on the “kalada” (this is the wooden bridge that is above the stream), in the yard of the “kovlicha,” and in the yard that is across from her house, all of them wrapped in holy fear, and their lips mumbling prayer, then the heart swells with pride and pleasure, for after all, all of them needed our kingdom! Here we are the rulers! We completed our prayers fluently, emptied our pockets of all the crumbs, and they are as many as our sins that accumulated during the year. We begin to walk among the worshippers, an act of landlords, quieting the dogs so that they don't disturb anyone. Because after all, they are our friends during the course of the whole year, and we know them by name. Moving the boats at once so that they do not disturb anyone who might come near. And here is a fastidious one from the center of the city, trembling from every splash of the water,

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peeking at us strangely, at our hands trained to grip the oars, and the stones of the shore, at our stealthy movements at the end of the planks of the “kaldaka.” For maybe we would fall into the river, and maybe not. And they are afraid for us, wondering at our unrestrained ability to do everything.

The wooden bridge that was above the Lidzika continued onward above the meadow marshes and reached the foothills, upon which a dirt road extended and went up on the way to the “Rushlaki.” “Rushlaki” for what reason? From the language of our neighbors, this is a trail junction, for indeed there curved sand paths sunken in a sea of grain fields and meadows green with layers of grass, which were open within each other and swallowed up as they passed by solitary villages and scattered forests to boundless open spaces.

The Rushlaki forest. There was a thing in our city. In the fiery summer season, every Shabbat in the afternoon, mothers of Israel would stream there with their children to walk and inhale the pure air. Emaciated Jews, coachmen, porters, shopkeepers and laborers tired from the week of arduous labor would wend their way slowly by way of our narrow street towards the Rushlaki, with the splendor of the Shabbat imprinted on their peaceful, somewhat drowsy, faces. They walked heel to toe with their wives and children, discussing and arguing about the events of the week in their small world, and about the wondrous events in the world at large.

Flowing song of the youth would erupt here on Shabbat nights, a time of arrangements together, dressed in the uniforms of the movement, and their footsteps echoing sure and rhythmic, making a journey to the Rushlaki. All of them completely given to their dream, in their aspiration and the longing of their youth to the journey of their future – the land of Israel. Meanwhile only their heart's desire was with them, and a song of renewal and awakening was in their mouths –

Both in the storm and in the rain,
Guards are on the way!

On ordinary days students with their teachers would pass by here, and the joy of children like the humming of a hive would fill the street. Yeshiva boys with their curled peyot, their coats hung carelessly on their shoulders, and under their arms a thick book. They would walk together with their Rebbe in the direction of the Rushlaki, to enjoy the radiance of above, and the splendor of below.

Sunday was not for us, but for our enemies. In the afternoon hours a “zababa” was held in the Rushlaki forest, a “dance and games party” for the army. The elite of the Polish settlement in the city, officers in uniform with their swords, policemen with their rifles shouldered, young maidens, adorned and wrapped in a variety of colorful clothing, went back and forth in our Lida Alley. Within the joy of their words and their rising laughter, they would rest their haughty gaze on our low houses, on the open gutter overflowing into the length of the street, sending up a choking stench, and different and strange reeking smells, and on us, Jewish children innocently playing. They would direct derogatory words, contempt and jokes at us, arousing both anger and fear in us, and the world of our glorious childhood became tarnished, dirty and agitated.

Until the late hours of the night the revelers were returning from their “zababa,” emitting the sounds of their laughter and insults, their drunken screams, echoed threats on our quiet street, and keeping us alert to what was going on outside. Sometimes they would strike blows on the closed shutters of our houses, while in their mouths were hateful curses or just “Jew.” In the darkness of these nights we children felt our uniqueness and our aloneness as Jews, and it is possible that these fists were some of the warning signs and signals for the future destruction to come, which was expected for the Jewish street in general.

Translator's Footnote:

1. Micah 7:19 “You will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.” Return

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