b’nai zion

Sunday Feb 17

by


After a rather monotonous
day spent the Evening at
home with some friends
(Bluestone, Blaustein & Julius)
at a little sociable game.

—————

Papa was hanging out that night with at least two important figures (Bluestone and Blaustein) from the early days of the Order Sons of Zion. I learned this when I called B’nai Zion’s New York office a few months ago; I don’t remember exactly how the conversation went, but I think one of the people I spoke to mentioned Bluestone and Blaustein without prompting, and the historical brochure they subsequently sent me devotes prominent space to them.

Since I’m not a practiced historian and I was just starting this project when I made that call, I didn’t yet know what it was like to stumble on the the answer to a question I’d never considered, in this case “who were Bluestone and Blaustein?” At most, I’d made a mental note to ask my mother if she’d ever heard of them, but they certainly weren’t on my mind or written down anywhere. So, it really rang my bell when they suddenly showed up in my research — it was like I’d found $20 in the lint screen of the dryer or bumped into David Bowie at the deli.

I half expected the B’nai Zion people to thank me for some reason. They had, after all, devoted their lives to an organization founded by Bluestone and Blaustein. If they hadn’t visited my grandfather that night, Bluestone might have gotten run over by a trolley, or Blaustein could have been falsely arrested for smuggling prohibition hooch. At the very least, my grandfather probably served them sandwiches. Doesn’t B’nai Zion at least owe me lunch?

Anyhow, nowadays the buzz of sudden discovery is more familiar and routine, more along the lines of finding a parking spot in Chinatown as opposed to hitting the numbers. Still, every name on my Cry For Help list could give me that Bluestone/Blaustein feeling again, so there’s nothing for me to do but chase the dragon.

Wednesday Feb 27

by


When I went up with Philip
to the School to pay for him
$2.00 the owner called him
out of the class and told me
and him that we would have
to pay the balance of 50 dollars
at once and when I told him
that I cannot do it besides
we have last week made up
for $2.00 a week, he sent
Philip and myself home,
saying ‘you can go home
Good night, good night’

I think it is an outrage
the way that school man
acted, I intend to take
action I will consult Sat.
Counsellor Levine about it,

Spent rest of the Evening
at hom adjusting my correspondence

—————

Matt’s Notes

This is a continuation of a saga involving Phil, who was Papa’s brother-in-law, the Success School, where Phil took English lessons, and Papa, who was paying for Phil’s lessons on an installment plan he’d arranged with the school’s headmaster. As I noted earlier, I think the headmaster wanted to kick Phil out in favor of a student who could pay in full. I don’t know why he needed the $50 so badly, but since he gave Papa so much grief I’ll take license to say he was an opium addict who’d promised Phil’s seat to one of the many prostitutes he owed money to. Poor guy. It’s hard to think straight when your brain is scrambled by syphilis and you’ve sold all your children to cover your gambling debts.

“Counsellor Levine” was, I expect, on retainer with one of the immigrant-oriented mutual aid societies Papa belonged to, most likely the Order Sons of Zion or the Sniatyn landsmanshaft. This would be a perfect example of why the services provided by landsmanshaftn were so important to people like Papa. He never could have afforded representation on his own, but for a few dollars a year in club dues he knew he could talk to a lawyer when jerks like the Success School’s headmaster tried to shit on his family.

—————-

Additional Notes

Sometimes little details in Papa’s entries really do a lot to illustrate the texture of his life in the 20’s. In this case, the headmaster’s bullying phrase “you can go home, good night, good night” (I can’t help but think of how Gene Wilder dismisses Charlie and Grandpa with a tight “I said good day sir…I said good day!” in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory) and Papa’s mention of “adjusting my correspondence” feel especially Edwardian to me. We shouldn’t forget, either, that Papa wrote this entry in a clothbound journal by gaslight, probably just before bed and just after using the communal toilet down the hall. The concerns of his life — political work, romantic adventures, sick parents, nasty school masters — were timeless, but his day-to-day experiences were, of course, strictly 1924.

Friday Feb 29/Saturday Mar 1

by

[1924 was a leap year, so I’ve published February 29th and March 1 on this page]

Little Ruchaly still seriously
ill, which worries me greatly.

After listening for some
time to the radio. —
I went to Jack Zichlinsky’s
house where in company of
friend I spent until 1:15 a.m
Ruchaly feels slightly better

after visiting some Zionist
societies in the Evening with
friend Louis Bluestone, I spent
the rest of the evening at the
Cafe Royal where I met many
friends until 3:30 a.m.

I sent to parents $5.00

—————

Matt’s Notes

Once, around twenty years ago, my mother, grandmother, sister and I were driving around Brooklyn when my grandmother looked at a building and suddenly blurted out “Jack Zichlinsky lived there!” I laughed for about three hours because she really exploded and I had no idea who she was talking about.

Obviously, though, Jack was a good friend of Papa’s since at least the 1920’s, so they had really been through the ringer together if their lives were at all similar. My mother tells me that, when Papa died in 1971, Jack cried while saying kaddish for him. Jack’s tombstone apparently displays the insignia of the Order Sons of Zion (B’nai Zion) the fraternal order to which he and Papa belonged.

Speaking of B’nai Zion, the March 1 post mentions Louis Bluestone, which surprises me because I thought the “Bluestone” Papa has talked about was Dr. Joseph Bluestone, one of the early B’nai Zion leaders (Papa often says “Bluestone” in the same breath as “Blaustein”, who was also a B’nai Zion leader). Perhaps Louis was Joseph’s brother or son; I’ll have to look into it.

————-

Update March 1

My mother adds:

What was even more funny about the J.Z. story is that every time we passed Sheepshead Bay, Nana would point out his home. It became a dumb family joke.

Sunday Mar 9

by


The unexpected happened
Brother Friedman’s wife
died suddenly, and it was
my sad duty as a brother
of one camp to attend the
funeral, which depressed
me.

I spent the evening at
Jack Zichlinsky’s house

—————-

Matt’s Notes

As noted earlier, Papa was an officer in a new chapter of the fraternal Order Sons of Zion (a.k.a. B’nai Zion) though this is the first time he referred to a fellow member as “Brother.” Papa usually called his friends like Jack Zichlinsky (he of Sheepshead Bay) by name even if they were B’nai Zion members, so I wonder if Papa wasn’t quite as close to Brother Freidman.

B’nai Zion functioned in part as a burial society (the rest of their charter included Zionist fund-raising, teaching Hebrew and providing life insurance) so maybe Papa went to Mrs. Freidman’s funeral more out of official, “sad duty” than out of pure friendship. Jews require a minyan — a group of ten or more men — to say kaddish (the prayer for the dead) at a funeral. I expect B’nai Zion guaranteed such a quorum for the families of all its members, which may be the duty Papa refers to here.

Speaking of which, Papa noted the day before that he “found a message from Lemus” asking him to attend the funeral. This brings up a lot of little questions: How, exactly, did he find this note? Did Lemus slip it under Papa’s door? Did he stick it in a mailbox? And who was Lemus? Was he an elected officer of Papa’s B’nai Zion chapter charged with distributing notes under such circumstances? Was he the superintendent of Papa’s building? Did people like Papa, who didn’t have a phone at this time, typically communicate by dropping notes at their friends’ and neighbors’ apartments?

Must…learn…more…

Tuesday Mar 11

by

Visited brother Friedman
with brother Stern

This was a terrible weather
night, deep slush rain
and snow a biting wind.

———————–

Matt’s Notes

A bad night to be out visiting, indeed. Temperatures were just above freezing and New York had gotten over an inch of precipitation, half of which was rain and half snow. Plus, “the worst gale in 20 years,” according to the Times, hit the East Coast that day, delaying the arrival of the Aquitania in New York and resulting in the deaths of several people (two were hit by cars when their umbrellas obscured their views of oncoming traffic, one slipped and fell under a freight train, and one was killed by a toppled billboard).

Of course, “Brother Freidman” (so called because he was a member of Papa’s fraternal order Sons of Zion) probably wasn’t too concerned with the weather, as he was as in mourning for his wife who had died less than a week ago. Papa, and presumably “brother Stern,” had attended her funeral two days earlier, and were now paying a shiva call. According to Jewish tradition, Brother Freidman would have been unshaven, seated on a box to deny himself comfort, and wearing torn clothing. All the mirrors in his apartment would have been covered to relieve him of vanity, and his rooms were likely filled with friends and family, his table set with food brought by visitors to make sure he could focus on mourning.

Papa had found himself depressed at the funeral, and probably felt even more out of sorts at the shiva call. He idealized marriage and desperately wanted to experience it for himself. Under other circumstances, a married friend’s home might have filled him with quiet longing. But what about now? Brother Freidman had already known, and already lost, exactly what Papa wanted for himself. Where did such a jarring variation fit into Papa’s view of domestic life? Did he think, on this bleak and miserable March night, that he would have preferred even the pain of lost companionship to his own unending loneliness? Would he have traded places with Brother Freidman?

———————

Additional references

Thursday Mar 13

by


Attend Maccabean camp
meeting.

———————-

Matt’s Notes

Earlier in the year, Papa co-founded a new chapter of the fraternal Order Sons of Zion (B’nai Zion) and persuaded his fellow members to nickname it the “Maccabean” camp. As previously noted, the Maccabees were legendary Jewish warriors, so the nickname carried with it a certain combative edge, a deliberate challenge to the caricature of Jews as physically inept and resigned to bad luck.

Papa may have had another inspiration for his camp’s nickname, too: “The Maccabean” was the flagship publication of B’nai Zion’s parent organization, the Federation of American Zionists (FAZ). My research here is a little muddy, but it looks like the FAZ became the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) around 1917. In any event, the FAZ/ZOA spun off B’nai Zion in 1908, partly to provide health insurance to its members but also to “help the Zionist Congress in the work of obtaining for the Jewish people a legally secured, publicly assured national home in Palestine.”1

I’m sure Papa had a lot to report at his Maccabean meeting that day, because the night before he’d attended a major event at the Hotel Astor (pictured below) at which a prominent rabbi declared his support for Zionism after years of ambivalence. Papa had felt discouraged in the course of his activist work over the winter, but with the weather warming up and his beloved cause making strides, his spirits must have brightened considerably.

—————-

Additional Notes

I didn’t say much about the Hotel Astor yesterday, but here’s what I know: It was a 500-bedroom, 300-bathroom beauty that rose ten stories above Broadway on the block between 44th Street and and 45th street.

hotel astor

The wall between its two ballrooms could be moved to accommodate large functions like the one Papa attended, though when it first opened in 1907 1904 the Times got most excited about its thermostats:

In each [room] there is a “temperature regulator.” The ordinary method of turning the radiator valves is supplanted by an automatic device enabling the guest to set a pointer upon a clocklike figured scale at a degree of temperature desired.

The building came down, temperature regulators and all, in 1967 to make room for the office tower known as 1515 Broadway, where Viacom now resides. Nyc-architecture.com mourns its passing with a typical, and justified, howl of agony.

(Image source: Library of Congress call number HABS NY,31-NEYO,72-.)

————–

My mother adds:

Lots of people, including yours truly. would meet their dates at the Astor (under the clock). I think this is mentioned in Salinger or is it Fitzgerald—and I’m sure many other books. I’m amazed that Papa allowed his priceless
treasure to go “into the city” to meet rapacious young men, but I did nonetheless. Relationships were more proper in those days and my dates always took me home.

———-

1 – Quoted from B’nai Zion’s 75th anniversary historic review pamphlet.

Thursday Mar 27

by


Again meeting at the
Maccabean

1st payment of $10 on 1924 pledge
for K.H.

——————-

“The Maccabean,” as we now know, was the nickname of Papa’s chapter of the Order Sons of Zion (a.k.a. B’nai Zion) a fraternal and mutual aid society dedicated to the Zionist cause. B’nai Zion routinely collected money for the Zionist fundraising organization Keren Hayesod (the “K.H.” mentioned in today’s entry) so Papa undoubtedly made his pledge through them.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Statistics, $10 in 1924 had the same buying power as $119.01 today. That’s a lot of money for a factory worker like Papa, even if he had gotten a $5 raise two months earlier. Looks like he talked the talk and walked the walk, in a Zionist fundraising sort of way.