papa’s father’s death

Sunday June 1

by


Death (by Walter Savage Landor)

Death stands above me whispering low
I know not what into my ear;
Of his strange language all I know
Is, there is not a word of fear.

Remark

(Not thoughts of suicide prompt
me to write the above poems on death
I want to live and have no death plans,
But death claimed my father my
dearest friend and adviser,
so I copied the poems from my
book of lyrics.)

————-

Here Papa gives us another look at the deep and complicated process unfolding within him. Since his father died, feelings of despair and resolve, self-defeat and self-preservation, have sloshed back and forth in his head, combining to create something new, unfamiliar, and volatile. In the last few days, we’ve watched him slowly separate the mixture and attempt to put its more destructive components back where they belong, though in the process he is often surprised by their potency.

Papa’s need to deny any suicidal interpretation of his poetry choices is one by-product of his efforts. It never would have occurred to me to think he has “death plans,” yet he goes out of his way to assure us he doesn’t. Perhaps Papa doth protest too much? Did he, in transcribing poems that acknowledge the seductive temptations of eternal sleep, briefly think he’d prefer it to living with his own sadness? Was the notion so shocking and therefore so obvious to him that he thought it could not but occur to his readers as well?

Several days ago, Papa had a quick brush with pessimism and bemoaned his own bad luck and helplessness in the face of the world’s unfairness. Moments later, though, he recovered himself and vowed to keep his mother and family safe in his father’s absence, thus regaining a sense of command over his own life. I think the same kind of thing has happened over the past few days. He quoted Donne and Landor’s poems as rallying cries against death’s potential power to ruin our lives with fear and sadness, and in so doing forced himself to look at his own fear and sadness, to test himself against it.

The wording he uses toward the end of this entry — “I want to live and have no death plans, But death claimed my father my dearest friend and trusted adviser, so I copied the poems” — demonstrates a growing mastery over his grief. Not only does he literally say he wants to live on, it’s almost as if he says it as a counterpoint to his father’s death: “My father is dead, and though I loved him, I must remember I’m still alive.” It’s another demonstration of how he learned to steer himself through dark and unfamiliar waters by the light of his essential optimism and resolve.

Monday June 2

by


Sent home $40.
30 for a tombstone and
10 to live on, with asking
to select a good stone, and
if it should cost more I will
send it at once.

——————

Matt’s Notes

Papa has stated before his intention to get a loan of $100 in order to wire more money home, and though he hasn’t said so explicitly I think that’s what he’s done to pay for his father’s tombstone.

As I’ve previously noted, when the Nazis occupied Sniatyn in the 40’s they removed the headstones from the Jewish cemetery and laid them as paving stones in front of their local headquarters. According to people at the United Sniatyner Sick and Benevolent society (a descendant of the Sniatyn landsmanshaft from Papa’s day) the headstones have not been replaced and still line the street to this day. Could the tombstone Papa mentions above be among them? I’d like to go there one day and find out.

Tuesday June 10

by

May my fathers soul rest
in Paradise among all those
good and true, who have
sacrificed their lives and
helped humanity in their lives,

May the Allmighty give
me the strength to be as good
and true as my departed
father.

Father in Heaven give me
the wisdom that I may carry
out my future plans, now that
my father cannot give me his
wonderful advice.

To his children and family he
shall remain immortal.

——————

Matt’s Notes

This lovely, homemade prayer distills Papa’s efforts to mourn his father quite handily — it’s both a resolute vow to live his father’s example and an apprehensive admission that he might not know how. If we look at it in the context of the last few weeks, we can also see it as another round in his fight to resist the simplicity of overwhelming grief and take on the far more difficult responsibility of honoring his father through constructive action. This leads me to a similar thought: having discovered traces of Papa in myself, how do I move beyond mere admiration and start to express his influence in my day-to-day life? I suppose many people face variations of this question in their lives. It’s temptingly easy to become frozen in place by simple emotional reactions to life’s circumstances — awe, anger, depression, surprise, and on and on. It’s far more difficult, but far more satisfying, to learn when and how to get on with things.

——————–

As affected as I am by Papa’s diary entry for this day, I’m equally amazed that such a piece of writing was composed by someone who didn’t learn English until he was 18 years old. Simple mastery of English is not the real surprise, since Diaspora Jews have always been inclined to embrace the language of whatever place they find themselves in (Papa spoke at least six other languages besides Yiddish since his hometown of Sniatyn was at a European crossroads). I’m more impressed by the economy of his prose, the layers of feeling he conveys in so little space (I see it even more in his more ordinary diary entries than I do in the entry above, which is structured as a plea and therefore expresses its emotions a bit more directly.)

I’m not really sure I’ll ever be able to successfully describe the tone I’m talking about, but it’s there regardless of whether Papa discusses Zionism or personal tragedy or baseball. It’s some combination of wistfulness and wonder and resignation and irony, and it fills the spaces between his words like the low murmur of prayer from an unseen congregation.

Our friend Aviva recently pointed us to an article in The Threepenny Review in which the author, Leonard Michaels, examines what qualities his native Yiddish might bring to his English writing:

Yiddish is probably at work in my written English. This moment, writing in English, I wonder about the Yiddish undercurrent. If I listen, I can almost hear it: “This moment”—a stress followed by two neutral syllables—introduces a thought which hangs like a herring in the weary droop of “writing in English,” and then comes the announcement, “I wonder about the Yiddish undercurrent.” The sentence ends in a shrug. Maybe I hear the Yiddish undercurrent, maybe I don’t. The sentence could have been written by anyone who knows English, but it probably would not have been written by a well-bred Gentile. It has too much drama, and might even be disturbing, like music in a restaurant or an elevator. The sentence obliges you to abide in its staggered flow, as if what I mean were inextricable from my feelings and required a lyrical note. There is a kind of enforced intimacy with the reader. A Jewish kind, I suppose. In Sean O’Casey’s lovelier prose you hear an Irish kind.

Is that what I hear in Papa’s prose — a “shrug” and a “lyrical note” inherent to Yiddish-speaking Diaspora Jews? It would be interesting to see what a linguistics scholar would make of his influences and structure. But, maybe it’s better to stop analyzing it for now and just be content to sit here, frozen with admiration.

————–

References:

Thursday June 12

by


Visited Mr. & Mrs. Resnick at their home.

Mrs. Resnick is the ideal wife
helps her husband in business

They did not marry out of love
but with the understanding
for mutual respect,

In my impression they seem
very happy, she turned out
the way I expected, although
5 years married, and even
having no children, there is
happiness in the house. She
is the most inspiring life
partner anyone could wish for

Her naivety remains the same
as I’ve found it to be long ago
It’s good to have an example to
look at when I am in the campaign
of finding a wife.

——————-

Matt’s Notes

Until now, Papa’s tendency to idealize women and love itself has made it almost impossible for him to find, in the real world, a woman who does not disappoint him in some way. Yet we know he met his wife-to-be, my “Nana,” in 1925, a year after he wrote this diary, and those of us who knew her remember her as a bit of a hard case. Though attractive, it’s hard to imagine that she fit the description of the dream girl Papa pines for in his diary (in fact, she used to say herself that she didn’t know why he married her).

This means that, at some point during the course of 1924, something started to turn, to shift Papa away from his pursuit of a romantic ideal, to make him understand that, if he was going to spend his life with someone, she was going to be a real person whose imperfections he’d have to live with. This entry, in which he romanticizes the practical partnership of his friends the Resnicks rather than their poetic love story, may be a sign of this development. Papa turns his effusive admiration toward the very lack of love in the Resnick’s house, finds their “mutual respect” to be “inspiring” and admires their collaboration on business matters. He idealizes them, as is his wont, but not in sonnet form.

It’s as if he’s testing a different calculation in which finding someone to whom he can talk his heart out and with whom he can dance all night is not as important as finding someone he can live with. He even refers to his search for a wife as a “campaign,” a far more purposeful take on his romantic pursuits than he’s presented before (I also expect the word “campaign” crept into this entry because the country was now in the thick of the 1924 Presidential race).

Papa has, as we know, vowed to redouble his efforts to marry and carry on his family name since his father died. Is that promise behind his new line of thinking?

Friday June 13

by

And so life goes on,
Today was a quiet day.

Nothing of importance happened
quietly I am doing my
duty to my father by going
to the synagogue to say Kadish,

With my fathers passing
there is really no one in this world
who can give me advice,
My beloved mother (may God
spare her for me) cannot write
and the others of my blood
family do not care even to write
me, Is it because I do not
send them any money, They will
never realize how I am struggling
daily for my very existence, If
they ever did write it was with
a big gimme

—————-

Matt’s Notes

Yesterday Papa tested out a few new ideas about love and marriage, and today he again takes us into unfamiliar territory with the angriest, harshest entry he’s ever written. This isn’t the first time he’s described the financial pressure he gets from his family in the old country or wished they’d understand how little spare money he has, but it is the first time he’s admitted to such exasperation (he usually laments his own inability to help them more when faced with their requests).

It’s almost as if Papa has started squabbling with his siblings in the absence of his wise and stabilizing father, even if he can only do it through his diary. On the other hand, he also uses the same language to describe his own life — “struggling for my very existence” — that he has several times used to describe his father (and we know from previous entries that he thinks he should step into his father’s shoes and take care of his family). So, who is Papa today: A bereft child or struggling breadwinner? I think he’s a little of both, and the clash between those two ways of thinking is making him grouchy.

It’s also interesting to note that Papa tries to spare his mother from his anger in this entry — since she can’t write, she can’t write to ask him for money like everyone else does. I’m not sure why, but he went back later and crossed out the words “cannot write” in pencil; maybe he went back days or weeks or years later and did this because he didn’t want it to be known. In any event, it changes the sentence from “My beloved mother (may God spare her for me) cannot write and the others of my blood family do not care even to write me” to “My beloved mother (may God spare her for me) and the others of my blood family do not care even to write me.” In attempting to spare his mother’s reputation, he inadvertently becomes more critical of her. Does this accident mean anything, or am I just playing amateur psychologist?

Thursday June 19

by


Just received a distressing
letter from Sister Gitel, she is
actually starving with her family,
I will help her.

At the same time she states,
that the funeral of my late father
was the biggest ever held in
Sniatyn all ! old and young
alike went to pay the last honors
to my beloved father. I am
the saddest orphan alive
and I was deprived by fate of
the privilege to say Kadish
at his grave.

I feel now that his memory
is inspiring me to uphold
the dignity that was my his
fathers.

Shalom Le-nafsho

——————–

Matt’s Notes

I’m not sure why, but Papa’s description of his father’s funeral seems almost like something out of a fairy tale: the hillside of a European hamlet, covered with milling families, all gathered together to pay tribute to one of their leading citizens. This is consistent with Papa’s previous diary entry in which he described his adult melancholy as a feeling of “lost paradise,” as if the existence he knew in Sniatyn before coming to New York was somehow enchanted or blessed. Why, then, wouldn’t we expect him to romanticize his father’s funeral and the lost world it represented?

At the same time, Papa knows Sniatyn is anything but Paradise.* It’s a place where Jews — even Jews like his sister Gitel, the daughter of a beloved Talmud Torah teacher whose funeral was the largest the town ever saw — could go starving with their families. Papa had a couple of moments over the last few weeks when he felt overwhelmed by the responsibilities of supporting his family in Europe and even expressed some resentment over his siblings’ frequent requests for money, but thoughts of his father’s example have clearly relieved him of those feelings for the moment.

Papa concludes this passage with a Hebrew phrase similar to the one he used a few days ago in reference to a departed family friend. In that case, Papa seemed to write Shalom Le-efro, or “Goodbye to His Ashes.” Today’s phrase appears to be slightly different: Shalom Le-nafsho, or “Goodbye to His Soul.” Maybe he wrote the same thing in both entries, but they certainly look different:


Shalom Le-efro?


Shalom Le-nafsho?

Feel free to write or comment if you read these phrases any differently.

—————

* Sniatyn would become the very opposite of Paradise during the Nazi occupation. This article from the Guardian, pointed out by our friend Aviva, shows a photo that seems to depict the murder of several Jews in the Sniatyner woods during the massacre of 1942. The article goes on to question whether the photo is actually from Sniatyn, but it’s an interesting and touching read.

Saturday July 19

by


Another empty day

I dared not even enjoy
at The Country mens affair
when a Torah was presented
to the Sniatyner Synagogue

The thought of my beloved
father (olam haba) kept me away
I went there but soon
left as I could not stand
the merriment.

—————–

What a difference a death makes. The last time Papa went to a “Country mens” affair (by this he means an event for people from his home town of Sniatyn, a.k.a. his “countrymen,” or landsmen in Yiddish) he described it as a “dream,” and he stayed up and wrote about it until four in the morning to hold onto the heady, happy buzz it gave him. And that was merely an annual dance; the presentation of a new Torah to his congregation should have been an even more intoxicating convergence of spiritual joy and fortifying thoughts of the old country.

Sadly, in the same way that, on the previous day, the prospect of earning more money only made him more conscious of his debts, the celebration at the Sniatyner synagogue reminded him, in yet another new and cruel way, that his dreams of home, of one day reuniting with his family, of somehow recapturing the “lost paradise” of his youth, died with his father back in May.

His fellow congregants probably danced in the halls of the schul and poured out onto East Broadway, singing Hebrew songs and crowding together as they did on Simchas Torah, just like they did in the old country. But Papa suspected the ritual would unsettle him, and like many such prophesies his was self-fulfilling. The Torah, a symbol of renewal and progress and hope, symbolized for Papa only the loss of his father, who had been a Torah scholar and teacher. The cheerful crush of his thronging landsmen, who celebrated not just a new Torah but their own freedom to demonstrate their faith on the streets of their adopted country, made Papa feel like he was at the center of a storm, brought home only the isolation he felt in New York, the trouble his mother and brother and sisters were in back in Europe.

Would he have felt guilty to share in the deep satisfaction he should have felt on this day? Did he feel like he didn’t have the right to be happy if his father was dead? Is that why he said he “dared not even enjoy” the presentation of the Torah? And what did he do when he left the synagogue? Did he wander around through Chinatown or up through the Lower East Side? Did he head back to his apartment to listen to the radio and pore over his photos from home? Did he take grim satisfaction in his detachment or did it strike him, in some small way, that the past was past, that Sniatyn no longer belonged to him, that his only chance at happiness was to build, at last, a brand new life for himself?

—————–

References

1 – As previously noted, the Congregation Sniatyner Agudath Achim gathered at a multi-use facility called Broadway Manor at 209 East Broadway between Clinton and Jefferson Streets. It’s now the location of the Primitive Christian Church.

Image Source: Image source: “Portrait of a ‘siyum ha-toyre’ (completion of the writing of a Torah scroll).” Courtesy of the Yivo Institue for Jewish Research’s People of a Thousand Towns site.