shadchan

Thursday May 8

by

Again a marriage broker
tried to induce me to get
hitched up. He gave me
the phone numbers to some
fair maidens. I shall try.

————–

Matt’s Notes

Since my wife Stephanie sings the entire soundtrack to Fiddler on the Roof at least once during any long car ride (and we take a long car ride at least once a week) it’s hard for me to read about Papa’s marriage broker and not have the song “Matchmaker, Matchmaker” running through my head.

As you’ll recall, Fiddler‘s Yente faced a challenge as a new generation of young people who preferred to choose their own mates threatened the importance of her profession. Papa’s matchmaker (that’s shatkhn in Yiddish, so if you know someone named Shatkin, chances are their Anglicized name reflects a matchmaking heritage in Eastern Europe) must have struggled with an even more difficult cultural moment, since young Jews in America — even those right from the old country like Papa — were learning to date, eat in restaurants, congregate, go out in public and dress like any other Americans.

Papa certainly displayed some old-school attitudes toward dating, as his formal letter of affection to the “20th Century Girl” proved, so I’m sure he wouldn’t have dismissed the efforts of the shatkhn. Still, we’ve seen him balk a bit at blind dates because (I think) his poetic heart demanded a romance with more dramatic, sincere origins, so he most likely pored through the shatkhn’s catalog with some reluctance. I think, too, his skeptical attitude comes through in his use of the term “hitched up” and the phrase “He gave me the phone numbers to some fair maidens,” making this just about the only entry to date in which Papa employed American vernacular or irony.

All in all I think we see, in this account of Papa’s grudging interaction with the shatkhn, a well-preserved example of how Lower East Side Jews of the 1920’s started to shift, in their attitudes and behavior, away from the old country and into the new.

Monday June 9

by

Shebuoth

Many things have happened
during the course of the last 2 weeks
which could not be entered on
account of being upset,

have induced me to see
some girls whom I did see but they
did not appeal to me in spite of
their money which I could use,

Don’t think that I can depend
on . It is becoming to me
an ambition to marry and have
a child son which should carry
the beloved name of my Father (olam haba)
Joseph Scheurman.

I called up Mrs. Resnick and
made an appointment to visit
her and her husband this Thursday
I will be glad to see old friends

——————-

Matt’s Notes

I haven’t looked at this post since I originally transcribed it last December, but perhaps I unknowingly had it in mind while thinking about Papa’s diary silence for the last week (I figured he fell into an uncommunicative funk for a number of reasons after he wired money home to pay for his father’s tombstone). Papa’s mood seems to be on a slight upswing, though. He started writing again yesterday, he’s called up old friends on his brand-new telephone, and he’s restated his “ambition” to marry and pass on his father’s legacy. (I wonder if his unsuccessful blind dates over the past couple of weeks were helpful in their way because they got him thinking about marriage and heirs.) This is far from the end of his struggle with sadness, of course, but at least the forces of resolve and productivity are making some headway against passivity and depression.

——————-

Additional notes

Papa twice uses the Yiddish word “shadchanim” (the plural of “shadchan“) in this passage to refer to the marriage brokers who aren’t doing him any good. My wife, Stephanie, thinks there’s a chance he’s written “shadchanit,” which would be the feminine form of “shadchan.” His handwriting is a little hard to decipher, but you be the judge:

This isn’t the first time Papa has written about marriage brokers rather dismissively. Maybe Jews from the old country generally regarded them with good-natured derision (see Yente in Fiddler on the Roof) but Papa, who believed in romance, probably found the whole matchmaking process to be distasteful. His attitude may also give us a glimpse of an old country tradition in transition; like midwifery or (to Papa’s dismay) elaborate Purim celebrations, the shadchanim’s business couldn’t compete with the opportunities and services New York inherently afforded in spades.

Friday June 20

by


That shadchan again bothers me
he called up, and I had
to promise him that I would
make appointments with girls

——–

Matt’s Notes

This is Papa’s third mention of a “shadchan,” or marriage broker, and it’s also the third time he’s been rather dismissive toward the matchmaking profession. I’m not sure why Papa felt he “had to promise him to make appointments with girls” (I wonder if Papa had a stack of photos and phone numbers in his apartment from the shadchan’s previous visits). Was the shadchan an old family friend? Did Papa’s attachment to old world traditions make it hard for him to reject his solicitations outright?

In any event, Papa’s thoroughly modern belief that romantic, self-made love was superior to arranged marriage demonstrates the sort of evolution in thinking that many Jews of his background and generation experienced in America. I suppose his very insistence on writing in English when he was probably more comfortable in Yiddish similarly reflects the tendency of Diaspora Jews to adapt to their surroundings, though he did write certain words in Yiddish when nothing else would do. To wit, here’s how he wrote shadchan in this entry:

Sunday June 29

by


Another day in Coney Island
with the boys, another dip
in the ocean.

We took a locker for the
season at Hahns at 31 st. sr
and went back to city with
running board of Rothblum’s
auto.

—————-

Matt’s Notes

I thought Papa wrote “we took a locker for the season at Hahus at 3rd. st.” when I initially transcribed this entry, and I figured it might refer to a street intersection or a public park or something like that. But, thanks to the good people who aided my inquiry into the matter at the coneyisland.com message boards, we now know that Papa was talking about Hahn’s Baths at West 31st Street. This map from The Coney Island History Project shows that Hahn’s was right on the Boardwalk and adjacent to the much larger Roosevelt baths (a housing development now stands in their place).

Interestingly, the Coney Island History Project also features several studio shots of people sitting in prop cars, so I wonder if the photo of Papa below was taken in a Coney Island photo studio:

The real car he rode in was, as we discussed during the first appearance of “Rothblum’s auto” back in March, was probably a Model T sedan like the one below:


I asked my friend Sixto, who earns a fat salary as the Director of Automotive Research for Papa’s Diary Project and is no stranger to New York City history, what it would have been like for Papa to ride the running board of a car all the way from Coney Island to the Lower East Side. Wouldn’t the roads have been less congested and faster-moving than they are today, even with slower cars? Was Papa some kind of crazed daredevil to attempt such a trip? No, says Sixto:

Many cars had running boards (and they were very
sturdy, I’ve stood on several although not while
moving)…

By the mid 20’s the city could be quite congested with
traffic at times so it could have taken a long time. I
wouldn’t be surprised if they sat in a traffic jam or
two leaving the very popular Coney Island area. June
29th was a Sunday, there could have been half a
million people there easily and probably more, and
while most took the subway, I’m sure there were also a
lot of autos on the street.

Good to know. Meanwhile, a world away in midtown Manhattan, the Democratic Convention took a Sunday break from its contentious proceedings. This allowed pundits time to speculate on how damaging the fight over anti-Klan language in the Democratic platform would be (as Will Rogers noted in a New York Times article, “It is a Sunday…so they can’t do anything. If you can keep a Democrat from doing anything, you can save him from making a mistake. “)

I’m sure Papa was distressed, as were many other Democrats, over the convention’s ongoing troubles. By now it was clear to most realistic observers that neither William McAdoo nor Al Smith, the frontrunners who stood on opposite sides of the Klan debate, would be able to muster enough votes to secure the nomination in an early ballot, if at all (as a Herald Tribune editorial pointed out, the whole debate was “portentous of disintegration.”) By contrast, the Zionist Organization of America had just held its twenty-seventh annual convention in Pittsburgh and, without much ado, reelected Louis Lipsky as its chairman. Perhaps, as Papa sat at home that night glowing with sunburn and reading the evening papers, he was happy to know that at least one of the organizations he cared about had managed to behave itself.

————–

Update:

Here are a bunch of cars in the real world (this is a detail from a 1923 photo of Coney Island’s Dreamland parking lot). Check out the groovy motorcycle at left, too:

References:

Wednesday July 2

by


I saw the girl that the
marriage broker wanted
me to meet and to
my dissappointment she was
really good looking and
to my impression is very
refined and naive.

I enjoyed being there
for some time, and I will
try to meet her again,

She has the qualifications
that I desire, but will
a man of my nature appeal
to her? I would make an
end to my bachelor days
for the sake of relieving
my loneliness, and may God
help me to succeed.

She is worthy of love.

————–

Matt’s Notes

I first asked my mother if I could borrow Papa’s diary back in Thanksgiving of 2006, and when she brought it to the table my sister picked it up, opened it, and read this passage out loud. It was my first look at the diary in about 20 years, and it certainly dispelled any question of whether Papa’s writing was as compelling or poignant as I remember.

The real surprise of this entry is the unexpected sharp turn it takes in the first paragraph: “To my disappointment” followed by “she was really good looking” and an array of other compliments. It’s an incongruous, surprising phrase. Why would he be disappointed to meet such a desirable woman through his marriage broker? The sentiment becomes clear a few lines later when we realize Papa feared he was not in her league. It’s reminiscent of his early doubts about the 20th Century Girl, when he wrote “But have I the right as a wage earner to propose to a girl like her?” and “has a poor dog [like me] a chance? Is a girl even of her type ripe enough to see my qualities, and truly love me despite my poor standing?”

Could Papa’s previously established distaste for the marriage broker (a.k.a. “shadchan“) have its roots less in his rejection of such a mercenary approach to romance (as I have posited) and more in his reluctance to see himself through the eyes of a prospective wife and find himself wanting? Does he fear his own tendency to idealize “naive” and “refined” women with the “qualifications” he desires, to see them as unattainable, towering presences, to embark, with each crush, on a Cyclonic roller coaster ride of infatuation and doubt and disappointment?

Whatever the reason, the confused and urgent pattern of this entry hints at some inner turmoil. She is attractive and well-qualified; he is not worthy; he would like to put an end to his loneliness; he prays to find someone who might help him. He seems to lose track of the woman he’s met as he goes through these ideas, as if he’s thinking more of what she represents, what she says about his need to marry, to raise a family, than who she really is.

But finally, he tells us, “she is worthy of love.” This assertion, and the way he delivers it, could not be more sad or perfect. It embodies everything he’s going through at once: all his doubt, all his need, all his bewilderment, all his abstraction, all his desire, all his hope. It is absolute; it is tentative. It is the declaration of a man who knows where his path leads but wonders, desperately, if someone will ever help him find where it starts.

Thursday July 3

by


I started to clean up
my nest and will try
to make it more attractive
even if it is for me alone.

Now I’ve been told that I made
not hit with yesterdays girl
however she wishes to go out
with me just so. Strange

—————-

Matt’s Notes

Papa met a woman through a marriage broker yesterday, examined himself through her eyes, and found himself wanting. He questioned whether he was a worthy suitor, whether a laborer of his lot had a chance with a lovely, “naive” woman like her. I wonder if, when he got home, he maintained her point of view and made a similarly unforgiving survey of his bachelor pad: the piles of newspapers he while he idled through his factory’s slack season; stacks of Zionist flyers he hadn’t yet distributed; a cup and a plate unwashed on his table; his monstrous radio, all knobs and bolts and snaking wires, on a makeshift stand, its headphones resting on the seat of his chair.

It was the apartment of a man on his own, a man underemployed, a man who had, since his father’s death two month ago, been too sad and distracted and lost in the whirl of profound grief to pay much attention to his surroundings. Perhaps he felt the need to clean house because the sadness was fading and the need to rebuild his life, rethink his relationship to the world, had taken hold a bit more. Perhaps the approaching Fourth of July milestone made him take stock, or the messiness of the Democratic Convention, now past its fiftieth ballot and still deadlocked, made him feel the need to straighten up what he could.

Then again, maybe he just liked the woman he’d met and thought he might one day have her up for coffee. The marriage broker’s mixed report on her feelings about Papa — she wasn’t that impressed, but would deign to see him again — may have been a familiar part of the matchmaking game, a bit of a ruse to keep him on his toes. So when he says he wants to make his “nest…more attractive even if it is for me alone,” is there a touch of a wish, a hint of a hope, that it might not be that way for long?

—————–

References:

  • HOW DELEGATES TOOK BRYAN’S SPEECH; Turmoil and Disorder Prevails as He Attempts to Push McAdoo. NEW YORK GROUP IS QUIET But Interrupters Were Plenty in the Other State Delegations. (From the July 3rd New York Times)
  • M’ADOO DRIVE FALTERING; Vote Drops Steadily in Second Day of Continuous Balloting. (From the July 3rd New York Times)
  • UNCEASING BALLOTS BENUMB GALLERIES; Din Headquarters Become Dormitories After Fiftieth Polling. (From the July 4th New York Times)