b’nai zion

Thursday Apr 10

by


Maccabean Meeting
Paid 2nd installment of $5.00
on my pledge for the K.H.

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Matt’s Notes

Papa was Master of Ceremonies of the “Maccabeans,” his local chapter of the Jewish fraternal organization B’nai Zion, so he frequently attended their meetings and reported them in an offhand way. “K.H” refers to Keren Hayesod, the Zionist fundraising organization to which Papa had pledged a donation several weeks earlier.

Interestingly, while I was searching the Library of Congress Web site for a picture of a baby’s cradle to use on yesterday’s post, I stumbled across a photo of a nursery in a 1920’s Jewish settlement in Palestine labeled “The Keren Hayesod. Agricultural colonies on Plain of Esdraelon…A baby in a crib.”

There are other Keren Hayesod images there, too:



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A family standing outside a house, a communal dining room, a spare, dusty settlement. Had Papa seen slides of such photos at the lectures he attended, passed them around at “Maccabean” meetings, or clipped them out of the Yiddish dailies he read? Were these the images in his mind when he sent $5 he couldn’t afford to Keren Hayesod?

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Image sources:

The Keren Hayesod. Agricultural colonies on Plain of Esdraelon. “The Emek.” Ein Harod. The baby creche. A baby in a crib.: Library of Congress # LC-M32- 3220

The Keren Hayesod. Agricultural colonies on Plain of Esdraelon. “The Emek.” Kafr Yeladim. Formerly “the childrens’ colony.”: Library of Congress # LC-M32- 3205

The Keren Hayesod. Agricultural colonies on Plain of Esdraelon. “The Emek.” Ein Harod. Communal dining room: Library of Congress # LC-M32- 3217

The Keren Hayesod. Agricultural colonies on Plain of Esdraelon. “The Emek.” Afouleh. One of the earlier colonies: Library of Congress # LC-M32- 3202

Wednesday Apr 23

by


Visited Kinereth Camp
in Borough Park with
Jack, Julius and Shapiro
there were representatives
of other Camps, The occasion
was a Passover festival

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Matt’s Notes

Papa, Jack, Julius and Shapiro were all members of B’nai Zion, a fraternal order that, like many such organizations, provided support services to its members (like life insurance and burial services) but also had a strong Zionist agenda. Papa was Master of Ceremonies of his chapter, or camp, which had formed only a few months earlier. At the time, he argued to nickname his camp “The Maccabeans” after the Jewish warriors of old. This resulted in what he called a “big battle” — perhaps his fellow members objected to the political or social implications of such an aggressive nickname — but, driven by his desire to challenge the popular image of Jews as weak and vulnerable, Papa eventually prevailed.

Though a chapter’s nickname was worth battling over, I hadn’t thought much about what other B’nai Zion chapters might have called themselves until I read about the “Kinereth” camp in today’s entry. Kinneret is the Hebrew word for the Sea of Galilee and, more significantly, the name of an early kibbutz, or collective farm, built on its banks. Maybe the Borough Park members chose this nickname because they felt like pioneers out in distant Brooklyn (so far from B’nai Zion’s head office on 23rd Street in Manhattan). The name’s socialist-agrarian flavor is certainly on the mellower side, though the settlers who started Kvutsak Kinneret in the early 1900’s must have been mighty rugged, tenacious people.

I wonder how much a chapter’s nickname really reflected its personality. Papa and his Maccabean pals certainly weren’t prancing around the B’nai Zion Passover party like young Turks, turning over tables and snatching matzoh out of the hands of less assertively-nicknamed chapter members. Still, I would wager his camp’s nickname continued to trigger debates at larger gatherings. How would such arguments have sounded, at a time when Zionist organizations felt that the future could turn on every gesture?

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Additional References

Sunday May 4

by

Attended games at Polo
grounds, and after that attended Maccabean
meeting at Pennsylvania
Hotel.

I am glad to notice
that my beloved camp
is progressing even if
slowly, at every meeting
it is my pleasant duty
to initiate new members.

Our meeting was visited
by guests of various O.B.Z.
camps in the city.

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Matt’s Notes

I enjoy the ironic, playful tone of the New York Times’ baseball writing from Papa’s day, but I think the anonymous New York Giants beat writer is my favorite. Here’s how he (presumably not she) opens his account of the double header Papa saw:

If 42,000 persons had not been present it would be kinder to say nothing about what happened at the Polo Grounds yesterday. But by this time it is no secret that the Giants brutally assaulted the hapless and helpless Phillies, winning both ends of the Sunday double-header, 13 to 3 and 12 to 3. Not all of the 42,000 saw the massacre through, for some were faint-hearted and others wanted to get home while there was still daylight enough to find their way there.

He goes on to wonder why anyone would see the Phillies in the first place, “even though they were twice offered for sacrifice at the nominal price of $1.10.” This serves as a great example of the resourcefulness required of baseball writers to say essentially the same thing 154 times a year (the length of the season in 1924) and also answers my question of what Papa paid for tickets. The Polo Grounds would have had over 10,000 empty seats that day, but I think this photo of the more crowded stands on opening day of 1923 still gives us a good idea of what the field looked like from Papa’s point of view:

polo grounds

I also continue to be amazed at how quickly baseball games were played back then. The double header described above wrapped up in four hours (yesterday’s Yankees double header took 6) allowing Papa plenty of time to hop on the IRT at 155th Street, head down to Penn Station, and make his “Maccabean” meeting at the Hotel Pennsylvania.

“Maccabean,” as noted before, refers to Papa’s chapter of the Zionist mutual aid society B’nai Zion. It looks like the meeting he attended was larger than usual and included members of other B’nai Zion camps (it must have taken place in one of the Pennsylvania’s private dining rooms) because it was an induction ceremony for new members. Papa would have run the meeting and conducted the initiation rituals in his capacity as Master of Ceremonies.

On minor quirk in this entry is Papa’s use of the initials “O.B.Z” to refer to B’nai Zion. This must be an inadvertent conflation of the group’s Hebrew (B’nai Zion) and English (Order Sons of Zion) names, unless I’m reading his handwriting wrong:

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Additional Notes:

The Jewish Daily Forward, descendant of the venerable Yiddish daily that Papa most certainly read in his youth, published a story about Papa’s Diary Project in this week’s English language issue. It’s called “Dear Diary: Back in Time” and you can read it here.

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References:

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Image source:

Opening Day, Polo Ground, 4.26/1923. Library of Congress #LC-B2- 5982-1

Tuesday July 15

by


Went with Jack Z. to arrange
with a lawyer about the
camp credit union.

I am alarmed not having
received any call yet
about my naturalization.

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Matt’s Notes

“Jack Z.” is, as we’ve noted before, the august Jack Zichlinsky, one of Papa’s best friends and a brother in the Zionist fraternal organization Order Sons of Zion (B’nai Zion). Immigrants like Papa were used to getting a number of financial, medical and legal services through private, dues-supported organizations like B’nai Zion, which was already a burial society and a reseller of life insurance for its members. As an officer of his local chapter Papa was obviously responsible for organizing its credit union as well.

Though he’s discussed B’nai Zion many times before, this entry has the first mention of Papa’s naturalization status. According to The National Archives and Ancestry.com Web sites, naturalization would have been a two-step process for Papa: after living in the U.S. for at least two years, he would have filed a Declaration of Intention to naturalize (a.k.a. “First Papers”) and after a waiting period of another three to five years he would have filed a Petition for Naturalization.

Ancestry.com’s New York County Supreme Court Naturalization Petition Index shows that Papa probably filed his petition in June of 1920. He’d been waiting a while for his naturalization, but I wonder why he picked July 15th, 1924 to feel especially worried about it. Maybe Jack Z.’s own naturalization has just come through and he’d discussed it with Papa while they were out and about, or maybe naturalization chatter had increased in the local community, in the newspapers, or on the radio for some reason. The Johnson-Reed Act of 1924, a bill that imposed heavy immigration restrictions on Eastern Europeans (among other groups) had also become law couple of months earlier — maybe Papa had just gotten around to worrying about it now since it happened around the time of his father’s death. In any event, I have to look into this more.

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Additional References

Thursday July 17

by


Maccabean meeting

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Matt’s Notes

“The Maccabean” was, as readers of Papa’s diary know, the nickname for his chapter (or camp) of the Zionist fraternal organization B’nai Zion, or Order Sons of Zion.

As we learned back in January, Papa lobbied for the nickname and had to fight for its acceptance, probably because its reference to the Maccabees, the ancient warrior heroes of the Hanukkah story, struck other chapter members as too warlike. Papa was a pacifist himself, but he also believed in challenging the racist perception of Jews as weak and submissive. He and his contemporaries promoted the image of the “muscle Jew” for practical reasons as well, since physical preparation was essential to survival in the rugged, unforgiving terrain of Palestine.

In any event, Papa had felt rather aimless and depressed while temporarily out of work during the garment industry’s slack season, so I hope the chance to meet with his B’nai Zion compadres and do some work for his beloved Zionist cause relieved a bit his malaise.

Tuesday July 22

by


Attended the farewell
dinner for Judge Strahl
who is leaving for Palestine
to install in Jerusalem the
Judea Insurance Co, given
by the Order sons of Zion,

Only in the midst of
idealists I find myself at home.

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Matt’s Notes

Judge Strahl was one of the most prominent leaders of Order Sons of Zion (B’nai Zion) the Zionist fraternal order and mutual support society Papa belonged to. Here’s what the 1917-1918 Jewish Communal register had to say about him:

Jacob S. Strahl was born in the New York in 1876, was educated in the New York Public and Hish Schools and received his degree of Bachelor of Laws from the New York Law School in 1897. He was elected Justice of the Municipal Court of the City of New York in 1909. Prior thereto, for nine years, he was associated with former New York Supreme Court Justice James A. Blanchard.

Judge Strahl has shown a great interest in Jewish work. He is the president of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association of Williamsburg, and the Nasi of the Order B’nai Zion.

Archived New York Times articles about Strahl attest to his reputation as a liberal judge, as does this 1920 reelection campaign postcard depicting him protecting two hapless tenants from an eviction-minded “rent profiteer.” It looks like his campaign methods got him in trouble with the Brooklyn Bar Association, though their campaign to discipline him for “conduct unbecoming an attorney” eventually came to naught. Strahl was no longer the Nasi of B’nai Zion in 1924 (“nasi” roughly translates from the Hebrew as “prince,” so I suppose B’nai Zion was no different from other fraternal organizations in its use of grand, archaic titles for its leaders) but he was on its executive committee and obviously one of its most active ambassadors.

Interestingly, the Judea Insurance Company he helped install in Palestine would, five years later, list as its Vice President none other than Vladimir Jabotinsky, one of Israel’s founding fathers. This was part of a larger development in which B’nai Zion threw its support behind Jabotinsky’s Revisionist Zionism Movement, an aggressive strain of Zionism that put Jabotinsky at odds with the Chaim Weizmann’s more moderate, centrist movement. This brings up some interesting questions about which brand of idealism Papa preferred — as of 1924 he seemed enamored of Weizmann, and as a pacifist he may not have liked Jabotinsky’s militarism. I’d love to know where he stood when B’nai Zion aligned with Jabotinsky, but we can only speculate.

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References:

Wednesday July 30

by


Had an Executive meeting
in my house (Camp)

I am saddened, I am
so much out of luck
What will be the end
I am keeping my hard
luck toughts from my friends
and from my sisters,

I am so heavily indebted
the prospect for the future
is not bright, and all
that is boring and ebbing
the life out of me.

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Matt’s Notes

I think the second-to-last line of this entry reads “that is boring and ebbing,” but I’m not quite sure I’m reading the word “boring” right. Here’s how it looks:

In any event, I suppose that’s a minor point considering everything else Papa has to say. I’ve wondered at times whether he confided in his friends or showed outward signs of worry during more trying times, but he answers that question today when he writes “I am keeping my hard luck thoughts from my friends and from my sisters.” I suppose his friends, especially those in “The Maccabean” (a chapter of the Zionist fraternal order B’nai Zion in which Papa was an officer) and his sisters looked to him for too much support, relied too much on his seemingly endless strength, for him to show them how overwhelmed he felt at times.

But could his friends and family really not know? In recent days Papa’s been struck anew by sadness over his father’s death, his financial woes, and the monotony of bachelorhood. He’s felt especially low. I wonder if he mentioned his efforts to keep his concerns under wraps today because he thought he might have inadvertently revealed them during the Maccabean meeting in his apartment. Did he feel like his spare furnishings, the big radio around which his private time revolved, the telephone he installed specifically to relieve his loneliness, were all physical evidence of the internal struggles he hoped to hide?

Whatever the reasons he brought it up today, we know now how alone he really was in his sorrow. He had no guidance but his own, no confidant but his diary, no one to tell him him “the prospect for the future” was, in fact, quite bright. It’s all the more remarkable, then, that he eventually found his way.