Friday Nov 7

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At Tikwath Yehuda club

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Matt’s Notes

A lot of the Zionist clubs Papa has hung around at had names designed to evoke Jewish heroes and had agendas designed to challenge the popular image of Jews as weak and bookish: His chapter of the fraternal organization, B’nai Zion, was nicknamed “The Maccabean” after the Jewish warriors of old; the Bar Cochba Club took its name from an ancient rebel leader who orchestrated a revolt against the Romans; the Blue-White club was an athletic organization geared toward conditioning young Jews for the rigors of living in Palestine; and today he visits the “Tikwath Yehuda Club,” the name of which roughly translates as “the hope of Judah.” According to my wife, Stephanie, the Tribe of Judah was the strongest tribe of Israel, was a source of kings and prophets, and was accordingly symbolized by a lion.

The Tribe of Judah is also, apparently, the tribe from which most modern Jews are descended, so the name of the Tikwath Jehuda Zion Club (as it’s written in the 1917-1918 Jewish Communal Register of New York City) also refers more generally to the hopes Papa’s contemporaries had for the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. It looks like it was a chapter of the Zionist Organization of America, the group for whom Papa did most of his Zionist work, and met at 134 Rivington Street. Papa must have known this club well since he lived at 136 Rivington Street when he was in his early 20’s (I wonder if he first got involved with the Z.O.A. through Tikwath Jehuda) though now he just lived around the corner at 94 Attorney Street. I’ll add this spot to the map of Where Papa’s Been.

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References for this post:

Here’s a Google Books snip from the 1917-1918 Jewish Communal Register of New York City:

Text not available

Saturday Nov 8

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At Down Town Zionist
meeting at Jewish Centre
where Maurie Samuel and
Mr. Zeldin Spoke.

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We last heard from Maurice Samuel in January when Papa booked him to speak at a meeting of the Zionist Organization of America’s First District, one of its downtown chapters. The First District was having membership woes at the time, and Papa expected Samuel, a noted writer and activist, to be a draw.

Since then, Samuel’s stature had increased considerably with the September release of his book You Gentiles, a provocative examination of the differences between Jews and non-Jews, which Samuel considered irreconcilable. (As we’ve previously noted, some consider Samuel’s later work to be more important, though anti-Semites like to recirculate the more strident passages from You Gentiles as evidence of Jewish aggressiveness and implacability.) No latecomer to Samuel’s party, Papa is comfortable enough with him by now to call him “Maurie.” (Could Papa be showing off a little? That doesn’t seem like his style.)

I’m not sure how well Papa knew “Mr. Zeldin,” though I think I know who he was: Morris Zeldin, a Russian-born Zionist leader who would go on to help found the United Jewish Appeal of New York. According to Zeldin’s 1976 obituary in the New York Times, “he was a close associate of many national and international Jewish leaders, including Chaim Weizmann, who became the first President of Israel in 1948.” But wait: If his friends referred to him as “Maurie” as well, wouldn’t that have let to many mildly comic moments when he appeared at the same event as “Maurie” Samuel? Do you think Papa ever tried to get Samuel’s attention by calling out “Maurie,” only to find Zeldin turning around instead? And what if Zeldin didn’t like being called “Maurie?” Would he have gotten mad at Papa, and forever thought of him as “that guy who kept calling me ‘Maurie'”? Important questions.

Meanwhile, I’m still not sure what happened to the First District or whether it’s the same Z.O.A. chapter that Papa refers to in this, and other entries, as the “Down Town Zionist” district. The Jewish Centre he mentions here could be the same “Downtown Zionist Centre” on St. Marks Place that we discussed a few days ago; I’m going to take a gamble and say it is, so I’ll add it to the map of Where Papa’s Been.

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Note: I’m missing the scan of today’s diary page (and yesterday’s as well) so I’ve stuck a sketch of Papa that we found among my grandmother’s photos in its place. I’m not sure if this sketch is a self-portrait or not, but in any event I love it and think it would make a great tattoo.

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New York Times References for this post:

Sunday Nov 9

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Enjoyed game of Hakoah
won again Holland Belgium Club.

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Matt’s Notes

When I first transcribed this entry I figured Papa was pointing out, with the offhand satisfaction of a perennial champion, his supremacy at a parlor game called Hakoah — I pictured a cross between Mah-Jong and backgammon — played among old-country die-hards at a Lower East Side haunt called the Holland-Belgium Club, most likely a second-floor retreat from 20th Century Manhattan where Yiddish and dust motes mingled in the air and a mustachioed, fleshy-faced Galician squinted and frowned over the top of The Forward and made sure no one, not the bearded old ghetto refugees who never seemed to leave or the young interlopers like Papa who never seemed to lose, ever wagered anything more valuable than their own pride.

An amusing thought, but entirely inaccurate. Hakoah was, in fact, the Hebrew word for “the strength,” a term made famous by the all-Jewish, Austrian athletic club, Hakoah Vienna, that fielded, among other outstanding teams,1 the 1924-1925 Austrian national soccer champions. As we’ve previously mentioned, a movement was afoot among Zionists of Papa’s generation to replace the public impression of Jews as bookish, physically maladroit victims with the image of strong, competent “muscle Jews” who could defend themselves and control their own fate. (Recall how Papa insisted on nicknaming his chapter of the fraternal order B’nai Zion “The Maccabean” after the warrior heroes of the Hanukkah story, and how many of his friends gave their social clubs similar nicknames.) Papa undoubtedly followed Hakoah Vienna as avidly as he followed the Dodgers and Yankees and Giants, and I’d wager he went to see them when they played at the Polo Grounds during their 1926 American barnstorming tour.

Not surprisingly, “Hakoah” became a popular name for Jewish athletic clubs in the United States as well, and it looks like the Hakoah team Papa mentions above was part of the Empire State (soccer) League. The Empire State League held games in such places as the Steinway Oval in Astoria, Queens and the Oxford Oval in Hoboken, New Jersey, and fielded teams with names like the Young Workers Football Club, the Ezra Football Club, the Germania Football Club, and, of course, the Holland-Belgium Football Club.

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References:

  • Thanks to Ari Sclar, a sports historian and new friend of Papa’s Diary Project, for his help with this post, especially for unearthing a November 24, 1924 New York Times listing of local soccer results.
  • 1 – As we’ve previously mentioned, Hakoah Vienna’s women’s swim team, a sensation in the 1930’s until the Nazi ascendancy forced its dissolution, is the subject of a touching and very worthwhile documentary called Water Marks.

Monday Nov 10

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3 P.M.

Slow and no work today
and tomorrow, Received
picture of mother and Fule.

Sending home $5.00, I only
enter moneys sent home whenever
I remember about it.

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Matt’s Notes

I’m not sure why work slowed down for Papa around this time, but maybe his factory had met its annual or holiday production quotas. It wasn’t unusual for him to have a few days or even weeks off during slack periods, but he never enjoyed these times, not only because he didn’t get paid but because idleness left him contemplative and blue. Perhaps he wrote “3 PM” at the top of this entry because he was he was so conscious of the day’s slow passage, or maybe he just noted the time because he normally didn’t pick up his diary until the end of the day.

I suppose, on such a day, a trip to the post office to wire money home seemed worth recording, though Papa wants to make it clear that, just because he noted it today for lack of other news doesn’t mean he didn’t frequently send money home without recording it. I wonder, in turn, if he also received photos from the old country fairly often but only bothered to write it down when nothing else was going on.

We don’t have the photo of his mother and youngest sister, Fule, mentioned in this entry, though we do have pictures of them both from other times. The photo of his mother, below left, is probably from the early 1910’s (it’s taken from a portrait of her with Papa’s father who, as we know, died in 1924) and the photo of Fule is from a group portrait of Papa’s relatives in the old country taken before Fule left for Palestine in the 1930’s. As we’ve discussed before, Fule was the, third, and final, of Papa’s siblings to get out of Snyatin before the Nazi occupation; his sisters Gitel, Ettel and brother Isaac were not so fortunate.

Tuesday Nov 11

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Rabbi Cook Farewell
reception at Pennsylvania

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Papa’s handwriting has been spidery and blotchy for a while, but, exasperated at last by his deteriorating fountain pen, he has cast it off and switched to pencil. This is an important but lower-profile departure than the impending one Papa discusses in today’s entry: That of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook (not “Cook,” as Papa spells it) the first Chief Rabbi of the British Mandate for Palestine who was wrapping up a 7-month visit to the United States.

Papa had seen plenty of influential Zionists speak at various functions and events throughout the year, but Kook was in the top tier. A legendary Torah scholar even before he went to Palestine, he was known for his unusual inclusiveness and openness, his belief in the importance of Zionism to Judaism (this “religious Zionism” or “religious nationalism” put him at odds with the Orthodox Rabbinical establishment of his day), and his support for the combination of secular and religious education.

Kook’s March arrival in America had been important enough to warrant an announcement in Time Magazine, and his name appeared in the papers throughout his stay, especially in the last few days. In fact, the farewell reception Papa attended at the Hotel Pennsylvania was a lower-profile follow-up to the previous day’s farewell reception at the Hotel Astor1, in which Kook and several other Rabbis announced that they had raised $320,000 for Yeshivas in Palestine and Eastern Europe. The Pennsylvania event was a true send-off, though. Kook sailed on the Mauretania the next day.

(Thanks to our loyal reader and friend Aviva, who first pointed out what Papa meant by “Rabbi Cook” on our Cry for Help page.)
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References for this post:

  • 1 – Papa went to Zionist meetings at both the Hotels Pennsylvania and Astor, but the Astor seemed to be the venue of choice for the big-time shindigs. Among those Papa attended were: a banquet for Chaim Weizmann; a pivotal speech in which Rabbi Joseph Silverman, an influential leader of Reform Judaism, finally endorsed Zionism after years of ambivalence; and an appearance by David Yellin, one of the thinkers responsible for the creation of modern Hebrew.
  • “Somehow Colonel.” Time Magazine, March 31st, 1924. (The article’s headline refers to Rabbi Kook’s honorary title of “Colonel.” The anonymous author seemed quite amused by the “funny-looking little man with a beard” from Palestine. Subsequent reporting in Time focused on Kook’s role in what were neither the first nor the last Jewish-Muslim clashes over the use of Jerusalem’s holy sites. )
  • JEWS OPEN DRIVE TO HELP ORT FUND; Nathan Straus Gives $20,000 Toward New York’s Quota in Campaign for $1,000,000. The New York Times, November 10, 1924. (This archived record contains several articles, including an account of Kook’s farewell reception at the Hotel Astor.)
  • TOURISTS SAILING FOR EUROPE TODAY; Three Liners Will Depart With Good Lists for This Season of the Year. The New York Times, November 12, 1924.
  • DISTINGUISHED RABBIS GREETED AT CITY HALL; Dr. A.I. Kook of Palestine and Dr. A.D. Shapiro of Lithuania Come to Zionist Conference. The New York Times, March 20, 1924.
  • Rabbi Kook’s biography at Wikipedia
  • Religious Zionism at Wikipedia

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Image Sources:

  • “S.S. Mauretania.” Library of Congress # LC-D4-22638
  • “Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook.” From Wikipedia.

Wednesday Nov 12

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District

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Matt’s Notes

It’s taken a while, but I think I’ve finally figured out what Papa means by “District.”

Earlier on in Papa’s diary, “District” appeared as the official term for a neighborhood chapter of the Zionist Organization of America. Papa wrote accounts of his recruiting efforts for the flagging “First District” of the Z.O.A., he wrote separately about the Second and Third Districts, and in one case reported on a “rather stormy” meeting of the “3 down town districts at St. Marks Pl.”

As we’ve recently learned, the “St. Marks Pl.” meeting most likely took place at the Downtown Zionist Centre at 52 St. Marks Place, which Papa mentioned by name in his November 2nd entry. Now I’m starting to think that all of Papa’s “District” meetings took place there. In fact, I’d wager he identified the Centre so closely with District meetings that he just started to call it “the District” for short. So, at this point in the diary, I think any mention of “The District” or “District” refers to the offices, meeting hall, or whatever kind of space was there at 52 St. Marks.

Since Papa doesn’t describe a meeting or event in today’s entry, he probably just dropped by “the District” after work to say hello, plan his recruiting efforts, or see if anyone needed help with anything. What did it look like inside? Was it filled with boxes of files and membership lists? Did volunteers cluster in a corner around a mimeograph machine, cranking out fliers, stuffing envelopes, and sharing cigarettes? Did they all wear coats because they kept the heat turned down to save money? Did Papa linger there because it felt like home?

Thursday Nov 13

by


Maccabean Meeting

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Matt’s Notes

As my legions of readers already know, Papa belonged to a Zionist fraternal society called Order Sons of Zion (a.k.a. B’nai Zion) that, like many immigrant-oriented fraternal and mutual support organizations of the day, provided its members with essentials like life insurance, a credit union, and burial services. When his chapter formed back in January, Papa lobbied to nickname it “The Maccabean” after the Jewish warrior heroes of old. His fellow members initially objected, probably because such a nickname seemed too warlike, but Papa, who detested the popular image of Jews as weak and bookish and sought to counter it wherever he could, eventually prevailed.

Papa’s desire to promote the image of the “muscle Jew” was, of course, not his alone; an entire subset of the Zionist movement geared itself to the same purpose, and, not surprisingly, the Maccabees found their way into the nicknames of more than a few clubs and organizations. Here’s a 1925 image of an Eastern European Jewish soccer club called “The Maccabees,” courtesy of the Yivo Institute for Jewish Research:

And, just for laughs, here’s a 1918 photo (from the same source) of a scene from an Eastern European Yiddish production of the Longfellow play “Judah Maccabee”:

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