more research needed

Thursday May 1

by


This is workers day, so
I am off resting.

In afternoon attended
game in Yankee Stadium
in Evening Zionist meeting
at Hotel Astor.

Sent home $5.00

Received letter from home
father still ill, but I am
at least relieved by getting
some news from home.

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Matt’s Notes

“Workers Day” refers to International Workers day or Labor Day, a holiday recognized around the world on May 1 and generally associated with the Haymarket Riot of 1886 and its tragic aftermath. (As you remember from your history lessons, the riot took place after Chicago union workers called a general strike in support of an eight-hour workday on May 1, 1886. Four days of mayhem followed. Several protesters died at the hands of the police, though events reached a tragic climax when a bomb exploded in Haymarket Square and killed at least seven police officers and four civilians. Several anarchists were falsely arrested, tried and executed for the bombing, sparking international outrage). Though the riot happened in Chicago, the United States never officially recognized May Day as a holiday, allegedly because its commemoration had quickly become associated with Socialist causes. Meanwhile, more conservative labor organizations had already prompted several states to declare the first Monday in September as Labor Day, and in 1887 Grover Cleveland decided to make it a national holiday.

Papa’s union and employer obviously still recognized May Day as a workers’ holiday in 1924; the New York Yankees, on the other hand, could only wish they had the day off, as they saw their long winning streak come to an end at the hands of the Washington Senators. Papa saw them strand runners on base all day in the course of the 3-2 loss at the Stadium, or, as the New York Times put it, “When a single or a fly meant a run or more, the Yankee hitsmiths struck out or popped out or rolled out in a manner agonizing.”

It looks like the U.S. Postal Service was open that day as well, since, my sources tell me, post offices often served as banks through which immigrants would send money overseas (I can’t be totally sure that Papa sent his $5.00 home through the post office since he had other options as well, but it’s a safe bet). Having received an update from the old country and sent some money to his family, I expect Papa was able to concentrate on his Zionist meeting at the Astor with something like a clear head.

hotel astor

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References:

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Image sources:

  • Yankee Stadium, 4/3/23. Library of Congress # LC-B2- 5958-11. No known restrictions on publication.
  • Hotel Astor. Library of Congress call number HABS NY,31-NEYO,72-.

Tuesday May 6

by


Movie at Academy of Music

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Matt’s Notes

As we’ve discussed before, the Academy of Music was a storied venue that had fallen on hard times by the time Papa went there to see movies.

Once the home of New York Opera, and therefore the very seat of Knickerbocker society, it’s primacy came to an end at the hands of William H. Vanderbilt. Some time around 1880 Vanderbilt, who was considered nouveau riche by the standards of Knickerbocker society, was so incensed by the unavailability of boxes at the Academy that he simply decided to build his own opera house. Other like-minded millionaires jumped on board, and by May of 1883 their project, the old Metropolitan Opera House on 39th and Broadway, was in business.1

The Academy, having remained on top for forty years since its 1849 opening, took another forty to expire from Vanderbilt’s vengeful blow. Its popularity (and box seats) were gone by the late 1800’s, and bit by bit it conceded to host lower-brow attractions like wrestling, musical theater, and, finally, movies. The wrecking ball ended its misery in 1926, when the Consolidated Gas Company knocked it down and built new corporate headquarters in its place (the Con Ed building still stands in the same spot at 14th and Irving).

Did Papa know the Academy had but two years of life remaining when he wrote the above entry? We can’t be sure, but we do know he most certainly didn’t see any of that week’s first-run movies like Men, with Pola Negri, or Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall, with Mary Pickford. The Academy wasn’t considered an important enough venue to make the New York Times listings, but it probably showed movies that had been hanging around town for a few weeks, like “The Thief of Bagdad,” “America,” “Three Weeks” or “Beau Brummel.” (While searching the Times archive I did come across a couple of enjoyable feature stories about the sorry state of subtitle writing and Hollywood’s lack of good scripts, complaints that persist today in movie journalism. Check them out if you’re a movie fan.)

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References

1 – As noted by Irving Kolodin in his History of the Metropolitan Opera 1883-1950:

Few of us today could imagine a society in which a mere whim could determine the existence of such a structure as the Metropolitan. Lilli Lehmann has recorded the circumstances in her memoirs, My Path through Life (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons; 1914): “As, on a particular evening, one of the millionairesses did not receive the box in which she intended to shine because another woman had anticipated her, the husband of the former [Vanderbilt] took prompt action and caused the Metropolitan Opera House to rise.”

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

Monday July 21

by


I went this Eve. with a
struggling artist to help him
sell some pictures, I took
bought two myself, that
are now adorning my walls.

This is the first day when
I started to work again,
and I am happy about
it, I shall [be able to] pay out my
debts now.

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Who was the anonymous “struggling artist” Papa assisted on this cool summer evening? A neighbor? An acquaintance from Zionist meetings? Papa had been visiting Coney Island a lot lately, so maybe he struck up a conversation with an artist who regularly showed on the Boardwalk, learned he lived on the Lower East Side, and promised to give him a hand some time. Or, more romantically, did Papa and his artist friend first meet at the Cafe Royale, gathering place for the Yiddish cognoscenti, and engage in a caffeinated conversation about the emerging “Hebrew” art movement in Palestine?

I’m also trying to imagine what kind of sales assistance Papa might have offered his friend. Did he help him lay out paintings on the sidewalk? Did Papa direct passers-by to his stand from down the block? Did he help guard his friend’s booth at some kind of annual street fair or art fair? And, I wonder, what sort of art would a struggling artist, presumably Jewish, have pursued in the 1920’s? What would Papa have purchased? A representation of the old country? Something more modern or experimental? Straight-up Judaica?

I don’t pretend to know much about art of the 1920’s, much less what was going on in the Jewish immigrant art community in New York, so I’ll need to look into it more. (Please drop a comment or write if you think you can help narrow down the infinite possibilities.) Still, it’s nice to see Papa treat himself to a couple of pictures now that he’s returned to work after a three-week, forced vacation. More burdensome that the debts he ran up to support his family in the wake of his father’s death has been his feeling that he doesn’t truly belong anywhere — he’s an unnaturalized guest in America and, with his father gone, he can no longer think of Sniatyn as his home. Maybe his urge to decorate his apartment a little signals some small waning in his sense of dislocation.

Monday Sept 8

by


Keren Haysod meeting
and Banquet for Eisig Roth

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Matt’s Notes

For those of you just joining us, Keren Hayesod is a Zionist fundraising organization well known to Jews in just about every part of the world except the United States. Though only about four years old in 1924, but it was already quite successful; Papa has written before of the tens of thousands of dollars it raised and the high-profile receptions it threw to publicize its efforts.

Interestingly, Papa often follows up his Keren Hayesod meetings with some sort of interesting social encounters, parties or banquets. Back in January, he followed a committee meeting with a “banquet at Garfeins in honor of Mr. Angrist,” a prominent Zionist; a few days later he met an admired Rabbi named Davidel Horowitz after visiting the Keren Hayesod offices; and after another office visit he met the Yiddish drama critic Alexander Mukdoni.

Alas, I haven’t found any information on Eisig Roth, the honoree at the banquet Papa refers to in this entry, but I expect he, Papa, and everyone else who attended consumed inadvisable quantities of schmaltz and maybe even bootleg slivovitz during the festivities. I suppose, as part of my research into what Papa’s life was like in 1924, I owe it to myself to eat a load of herring and chopped liver and skirt steak and chase it down with a shot of slivovitz, but I think I need to clear my calendar for a few days first.

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Additional Notes

While I’ve posted the photos below previously, I think they’re worth looking at again. All are labeled Keren Hayesod in the Library of Congress’ image collection, and all depict the kinds of settlements in Palestine that Papa and his fellow Zionists worked to support in the 1920’s. It’s worth reminding ourselves how inspiring images like this would have been to Papa. Like many immigrant Jews of his era, he was chased out of his own country by anti-Semitism and experienced painful personal and emotional challenges as a result. The establishment of a Jewish homeland was a matter of survival to him, and he approached his participation in Zionist activities with a deeply spiritual, almost visceral urgency.

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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

Thursday Sept 18

by


A reception to Leibel
Tcubes a legendarie
figure of the old country

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Matt’s Notes

Papa’s schedule of banquets and Zionist meetings slowed down over the summer, but it looks like a new social season is starting to kick in. While the previous Spring did not, as he wished, “renew hopes” for better days — in fact, it ushered in one of the most difficult periods of his life thus far — perhaps a busy, purposeful Fall will help him to be happier.

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Meanwhile, this entry contains the name of the honoree at the reception Papa attended, but I absolutely can’t read it. His first name is clearly Leibel, but what’s his last? It’s obviously Eastern European and I assume Papa has either spelled it correctly or transcribed it phonetically. It looks like “Tceiebes” or “Keubes,” but I really can’t tell. Any ideas?

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Update 10/18/07

Looks like Shiri at the Museum of Jewish Heritage has nailed it:

..here is my best guess for the “legendary figure”…Could the last name be Taubisz, possibly spelled without the z? I found a listing for a Leibel Taubisz who ran a newspaper that, among other things, printed the first songs of Nachum Sternheim, who later became pretty famous…

The name of the paper was the “Wachenblatt”. More research is pending, but I think we have our man.

Tuesday Sept 30

by


2nd day
Visited Mr. Surduts home
this evening, and then
went to a meeting of the
C.I. Talmud Torah

Interesting but it tired
me out so.

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Matt’s Notes

“2nd day” refers to the second day of Rosh Hashanah, a.k.a. the Jewish New Year, one of several major milestones clustered on the Jewish calendar in early fall. As I’ve noted over the past few days, Papa would have taken this holiday’s focus on repentance, renewal and self-evaluation quite seriously, and today he demonstrates his religious state of mind by riding all the way out to Sea Breeze Avenue in Coney Island for Torah study.1 (I expect he developed his connection to the Coney Island Talmud Torah during the summer, when he would frequently visit Coney Island with friends but take leave in the evenings to say Kaddish for his father in the Coney Island Synagogue.)

As we’ve also noted, these were the first High Holy Days Papa would observe since his father died back in May. His diary entries over the past few weeks have been either non-existent or cursory, indicating, I think, how emotionally overwhelmed he now feels, all his homesickness and unhappiness amplified, mixed together, adding up to a feeling too exhausting to put in words. Remember, too, that Papa’s father was a Talmud Torah teacher himself, so Papa’s presence in a Talmud Torah would have brought forth an additional torrent of memories and emotions, probably surprising in their intensity and timing. (I can’t help but allow my personal experience to fuel this speculation; even eleven years after my own father’s death I find myself ambushed by, flooded with, unexpected feelings at inopportune times). No wonder his trip to Coney Island tired him out.

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This entry contains the name of a person whose home Papa visited, but I can’t quite read it. It looks like “Mr Surdut,” but that doesn’t seem right. Any thoughts?

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References:

1 – The 1919-1920 American Jewish Yearbook lists a Coney Island Talmud Torah on Sea Breeze Avenue. Subsequent editions of the Yearbook, including those covering 1924, cut their listings of local educational organizations way down, so I haven’t yet confirmed that the Coney Island Talmud Torah still existed at that location in 1924. Still, it seems like safe bet. The Ocean Parkway stop on the Brighton Beach BMT line (which seems to have evolved into today’s Q) was just a couple of blocks away.