rosh hashanah

Monday June 16

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After seeing the baseball game
at Ebbets Field, I went to
Harry Eisenkraft and sat
there until late in the night
conversing.

Ms. Eisenkraft was so kind
to give me a picture of Hymie
Eisencraft (Olam Haba) whom the whole
family has grown to love, because
of his love and kindness for
all, but the unavoidable death
robbed him from us at the
prime of his youth.

Five years after his death
I still find find myself under
the shock because of his early
death.

Blessed be his memory
Shalom [?]

Matt’s Notes

Not a bad day to be at Ebbet’s Field, where the Robins (a.k.a. Dodgers) beat the Cincinnati Reds, 5-2.

I’m not sure who the beloved Hymie Eisencraft was, but Papa must have really felt strongly for him to honor him with the term “Olama Haba” (“I’ll see him in the afterlife”) that he has previously used only in relation to his recently-departed father.

Papa also concludes the entry with another Hebrew tribute, though it’s a bit hard to read. My Hebrew-reading wife, Stephanie, can tell it starts with the word “Shalom,” but the second word is harder to make out. Any ideas?

Update: My friend Inbar, a native Hebrew speaker, thinks this is Shalom Lefro, literally “Goodbye to his ashes.”
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Update 10/17/07 – I now have a photo of Hymie Eisenkraft:

This photo comes to me through the grandson of the above-mentioned Harry Eisenkraft, who read about this blog in the October 14th New York Times City section. Papa’s father was likely the brother of Harry’s mother, Sara, who spelled her last name Seuerman (making Papa and Harry cousins). Though Hymie fought in World War I, his untimely death did not come in the trenches; he was killed by an auto in Brooklyn on June 26, 1919, an ironic fate too good for the front page editors of the Brooklyn Eagle to pass up.

The woman Hymie appears with in the photo above is his sister-in-law, Jennie. She was married to Harry and appears with him in the photo below.

Harry had one other brother, Issac Mendel, who Papa mentions in his May 15th entry.

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Update 1/11/08

Here’s another picture of Hymie Eisenkraft in the form of a custom-made Rosh Hashanah card:

I’ve written a bit more about this card in a separate post.

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References for this post:

ROBINS BEAT RIXEY AND THE REDS, 5-2; Brooklyn Batters Rout Western Invaders With Four-Run Rally in the Eighth. The New York Times, June 17, 1924.

Image Source: Outside Ebbet’s Field, 1920. Library of Congress # LC-B2- 5311-1 .

Tuesday Sept 30

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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.

Photo Update: Hymie Eisenkraft

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My cousin Ken just sent me this interesting picture of Papa’s cousin, Hymie Eisenkraft, whose untimely death Papa wrote about on June 16, 1924. (Ken first wrote to me in October of 2007 after he read about this site in the New York Times, checked it out, and spotted in one of Papa’s diary entries the name of his grandfather, Harry Eisenkraft, who was Hymie’s brother. Ken and I had never met or known about each other until then.)

As you’ll note, Hymie’s photo appears in the center of a custom Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) card festooned with Zionist images, Hebrew and Yiddish mottoes, and traditional wishes for a Happy New Year:

The pictures flanking Hymie are of Max Nordau (left) and Theodor Herzl, co-founders of the World Zionist Organization, and along the top of the card are illustrations of the American flag and what would later become the Israeli flag. Hymie, who survived World War I service but died in a car accident in Brooklyn on June 26, 1919, must have had this card made at some point in the 1910’s.