Keren Hayesod

Thursday Jan 3

by


After work, at the Zionist Central
office I’ve been approached by the well
known poet, Imber to do something
for him, I promised to be on a comittee
to arrange an evening.

Attended afterward a meeting
of the E.S. Keren Haysod Comittee
and later in the evening
a banquet at Garfeins in honor
of Mr. Angrist, who is leaving for Pal.
I was happy indeed to do honor
to such a worthy Man as Mr.
Angrist, whom I count as one of
the best Zionists.

I was greatly impressed by
the speeches of the guests.
I reached home again at 2 am
but surely I don’t regret staying
out late at such gatherings.

—————–

Matt’s Notes

Like many Jews who had grown up in the repressive, sequestered environments of European shtetls, Papa passionately believed in the idea of Jewish statehood and spent much of his free time raising funds, “arranging an evening” here or there and “staying out late at such gatherings” as Zionist meetings and receptions. His mention of the “Keren Haysod Comittee” is historically interesting because Keren Hayesod (as its name is typically written in English) is now a large international organization, but it was only four years old when my grandfather and his colleagues gathered at the East Side chapter meeting described here. Were they in unheated rooms, wrapped in overcoats and sucking on cigarettes while they laid their plans? Or were they already well-established, pulling ahead of other organizations that hatched in the wake of the Balfour Declaration? Did they pursue their Zionist dreams in the very Lower East Side spaces where New Yorkers now pursue candied sea urchin cocktails and chocolate mojitos? I’ll write Keren Hayesod for more information and see what they have to say.

If you’re familiar with Israel’s history, you might have felt a little jolt at the mention of “the well known poet, Imber”, but settle down — Naftali Herz Imber, who wrote the lyrics to Hatik vah (the Israeli national anthem) died in 1909. Papa is probably talking about Samuel Jacob Imber, a Galician poet who spent a few years in America. With only the Internets at my disposal I can’t find out much about him at the moment other than that he wrote in Yiddish and was killed by Nazis in 1942, but please drop a comment below if you know more.

I’m also not sure who Mr. Angrist is or what Garfein’s is — perhaps it’s the home of a man named Garfein, or maybe it’s a long-lost, schmaltz-soaked eatery like Sammy’s Roumanian Steakhouse. I again picture my Papa and his cohorts crammed together, toasting the august Mr. Augrist with bread and salt, shouting over one another to pay proper tribute (and for some reason I also picture them seated Last Supper-style, which tells you more about my high regard for my grandfather than my knowledge of Zionist banquets.) Anyone out there have a picture of a 20’s era Zionist gathering, or any information on who Mr. Augrist might be?

Update:

A Jewish friend from South Africa, asked if she’s heard of Keren Hayesod, writes:

…of course I’ve heard of Keren Hayesod. The [South African] Jewish community was so homogenous and so Zionist that when I was growing up all tzedokkah went to United Israel Appeal and we had the blue and white ‘pushkas’ (charity boxes) from Keren Hayesod. I used to get mad because we were giving old clothing, etc to people in Israel rather than the poor of South Africa. I even did ‘bob-a-jobs’, as we called them, for KH. You’d go round to old Jewish people’s homes to help them with some small task in return for a donation to Israel.

Interesting. I just didn’t know about KH until I read about them in Papa’s diary.

Monday Jan 7

by


On my way from work Rabi
Davedel Horowitz from Meletz escorted
my home all the way from the
K.H. office.

Heard Mr. Bock the donor
of the $100.000 peace prize
explain the theory, I do not fully
agree with him as I believe in
Americas full participation in
the league of Nations.
I heard the above talk on the radio.
Universal peace in my
opinion is possible only
when the U.S. will officially
enroll as a member of the
League and exert its influence
upon the nations

—————

Matt’s Notes

The “Bock” Papa refers to is Edward William Bok, famed both for transforming Ladies Home Journal from an obscure publication into a national powerhouse and for transforming himself from an unknown Dutch immigrant into a wealthy and prominent Progressivist. Some time after retiring from publishing, Bok funded a $100,000 open competition to find a plan for world peace, and promised to push the winning plan through Congress. This caused quite a stir. Over 22,000 Americans submitted plans, and the winner, Charles Herbert Levermore, achieved some degree of fame, but in the end the whole effort never amounted to much.

When Papa tuned into WEAF on January 7, he heard Bok outline the winning plan, which called for greater U.S. participation in the World Court but fell short of endorsing U.S. membership in the League of Nations. Papa would have favored an active U.S. foreign policy — America’s “influence upon the nations” was essential to world peace, as he notes, but his beloved Zionist cause needed it even more. America’s navel-gazing in the 1920’s must have frustrated him, hence his ultimate disappointment with Bok’s suggestions.

One thing I like about Papa’s diary is what it reveals about the popular culture of the day, or at least what someone of his background and tastes would have picked up on. With only a small page available to record the day’s events he chose to write about Bok’s radio address, so the Bok Peace Prize must have been as widely discussed as a typical Britney underwear incident is today. By 1930, Time magazine would describe it in Bok’s obituary merely as a “prize of $100,000 for the best essay on how to achieve International peace” — a kind understatement of what a high profile disappointment the Peace Plan really was. But, Bok’s life story was an inspiration to many, his autobiography won a Pulitzer Prize and he was a legend in the publishing industry, so I’ll avoid knocking his Peace Prize just because I’d never heard of him.

I’d also never heard of Rabbi Davidel Horowitz, which attests more to my ignorance of the Zionist movement (not for the last time, I’m sure) than his actual degree of notoriety. There’s a good chance Papa is talking about David Horowitz, a prominent young Zionist of his day who went on to found a scholarly organization called United Israel World Union. If so, Papa must have been thrilled as they walked the lower East Side, perhaps wrapped in long coats but certainly oblivious to the cold as they talked, young and insistent, of changing the world.

——————-

Updates

WEAF was the American Telephone and Telegraph radio station in New York. An innovator in technical, programming and advertising operations, it would become part of NBC in 1926.

——————-

Additional references for this post:

– “Peace Plan“, Time, 1/14/24 (and search the Time archive for more on Edward Bok).
– “The Peace Plan” (editorial) The New York Times, 1/7/24 (subscription required; PDF).
– “BOK PEACE PLAN STIRS WIDE INTEREST; FIGHT OVER IT BEGINS; Founder and Many Others Appeal by Radio for Approval“, The New York Times, 1/8/24 (subscription required; PDF; search The New York Times archive for more on Edward Bok).
– Edward Bok biography on Wikipedia
– David Horowitz obituary at United Israel World Union Web site
– WEAF history at Answers.com

Saturday Jan 12

by


Slept late, in the evening visited
the K.H. office, the 2nd and 3rd Zionist
Districts and the remainder of the time
about 3 1/2 hours (from 11:30pm to 3:00am) at
the Cafe Royal.

Goldstein introduced me to Dr. Murdoni
the famous dramatic critic, the Dr. M.
told me of a sad experience
while in Siberia on a mission of the
Russian Jewish Relief Comittee during
the war, He met ther 500 Galician
Jews in one place, very religious
old jews and jewesses and children
were forced to live among the
wild Tatars in the villages in
Siberia, where they were forced to go
for no reason whatever, and what
horrible experiences they had to go there.

Only one picture of the Golus

————–

Matt’s Notes

Yesterday Papa talked about escaping to the movies, but today he’s got more serious things on his mind. It’s interesting to be reminded that, as modern and American as his life seems, he could relate quite closely the dark, almost regressive-sounding world of the Jews in “Dr. M’s” story. His life might easily have gone that way and he knows it.

I had a bit of trouble reading a couple of words in this entry. I’m not sure if I got “Dr. Murdoni” right or the word “Golus”. Take a look below and see if you think I got them right. Any idea who or what he could be talking about?

——————-

Updates

1/13 – I didn’t have much time to poke around when I wrote this yesterday, but a quick Web search today reveals a bit about the term “Golus.” “The Golus,” as my grandfather uses it, roughly refers to the Diaspora and the plight of Jews in exile. So, when he refers to “Dr. M’s” story of Jews being shipped to Siberia as “one picture of the Golus,” he means it’s one example of Jewish suffering in the absence of a Jewish homeland. The more strident Zionists scorned and sought to eliminate the “golus mentality,” which they saw as a tendency for Jews to resign themselves to defeat and abuse.

Papa didn’t have a violent bone in his body (my mother tells a story of him reprimanding my cousin for swatting a bee because “even a bee has a right to live”) but he must have had a touch of distaste for the image of the “golus Jew,” else he wouldn’t have pushed to nickname his B’nai Zion lodge “The Maccabeans” after the Jewish warrior heroes of the Hannukah story.

2/4 – I just came across a February 26th article in the New York Times about the Yiddish theater that mentions Cafe Royal. Looks like it was on 2nd Avenue and 12th street and was, according to the article, a hangout for Yiddish actors. My mother adds that “it was a gathering place for ‘intelligentsia’ to meet, greet and harangue each other. It was very popular back in the day.”

4/7 – Ari, an Assistant Professor of American Studies at UC Davis, adds:

…Second Avenue was known as “the Yiddish Rialto” or Yiddish Broadway, as it housed most of the Yiddish theaters in NYC. The Royal was the hangout for artists and intellectuals, who would go there before and after the shows, to debate politics, communism, and whatever they wanted to.

And:

Dr. Murdoni is, in fact, Alexander Mukdoni, a prominent and prolific Yiddish theater critic. Most of his work is rendered in Yiddish, and not much of it is translated, but there should be a good bio out there somewhere. He was quite well-respected and very serious about his criticism, scholarship and journalism.

Sunday Mar 23

by

this was the most beautiful
day this spring season.

Everything is fine and
beautiful but something
is missing.

Attended in afternoon
the East Side Keren Haysod
meeting with Weitzman at
Cooper Union. Nothing new
excepting the collection of about
$18,000 — the the fund, and
the presentation to Weitzman
of a $25,000 check by the Comittee.

In Evening I hung around
the Z.Z. with Blaustien, nothing
seems to be able to drive away
my monotony.

————

Matt’s Notes

Boy, Papa was really in a funk — he attended an event with Chaim Weitzman himself, saw 18 grand raised for his beloved Keren Hayesod, and still he said it was “nothing new.” This would be like me sitting next to William Shatner on a plane, seeing a gremlin crawl along the wing, and later reporting that my flight was “fine.”

He had a lot on his mind, though. When he said “something is missing,” he might have been talking about the ailing father he hadn’t seen for years, the longed-for company of the “20th Century Girl,” or, more likely, a little of both. As we’ve noted before, Papa would take stock of his life with apprehensive introspection at milestones like his birthday or New Year’s Eve. And here it was again: The beautiful weather made his melancholy stand out in relief; the world was thawing, but he felt more frozen than ever.

I understand these feelings because I’ve felt that way myself. But not always, Papa, because this was you and me:

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.

Thursday Apr 10

by


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

————

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?

————-

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

Monday May 5

by


Stopped from work at
Zionist Hdqtrs. to attend
to some publicity for the camp
in the Zionist publications.

Attended in evening,
East Side K.H. meeting,
which awakened my interest
to be more active in the cause
that is so dear to me.

I visted friend W. at store
All my credit to him for his
success in business, which is
such a thriving one due to
his ability. If I had
enough money now I’d accomplish
something I sincerely believe.

——————–

Matt’s Notes

Like so many New Yorkers before and after him, Papa worked a day job, attended to his more heartfelt pursuits in the evening, and counted a good night’s sleep among his lower priorities. Since this is so typical, and also because Papa rarely mentions work in his diary, it hasn’t yet occurred to me to ask what his working hours were actually were.

I think the eight-hour work day was established for garment factory workers by 1924, so Papa may well have knocked off at four or five o’clock. (I’ll have to look into this more, but even if the eight-hour day wasn’t official, I’m sure Papa’s factory, which still recognized May Day as a worker’s holiday, hewed to progressive union rules.) This would have given him a decent amount of time to attend to his evening responsibilities, though it still would have been a bit of a scramble.

The “headquarters” he visited were likely the Zionist Organization of America offices at 114 Fifth Avenue (at 16th Street) and the “publicity” he attended to was probably some kind of writeup about his chapter of the Zionist fraternal organization B’nai Zion (an announcement about the initiation ceremony he presided over the day before?) for Dos Yiddishe Folk, the Z.O.A.’s weekly publication. It’s possible that “headquarters” also meant B’nai Zion’s main office at 44 East 23rd Street, but in any event they likely ran all their publicity through the Z.O.A. since they were originally a Z.O.A. spinoff.

So, you might ask, in light of all his running around and hard work, how could he attend a meeting of Keren Hayesod (a Zionist fundraising group) and come away thinking he wasn’t doing enough for his cause? It’s hard for me to answer objectively since I never think I do enough of whatever I do and pretty much motivate myself entirely be being dissatisfied with what I have; I can only assume Papa had the same feelings as a young man and, perhaps, passed the trait down to me. In fact, I need to wrap up this post right now because I have to be somewhere, and I’m entirely sure this post is abysmally incomplete. (Watch for me, stomping down the street in a shitty mood, in about five minutes).

Here are the questions I still wish I’d written about:

  • Why did Papa refer to his friend “W.” only by his first initial? Did he not want to bring the evil eye on his successful business?
  • What does Papa think he’d accomplish with more money? Help the Zionist cause? Run for office? Give more to charity?
  • When did Papa learn to judge his life on what he had rather than on some abstract sense that he was supposed to be doing something else, something more, something different? And when will I, for God’s sake?