Friday Sept 5

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When Papa says nothing it is because he thinks his day was worth nothing. He goes to work, he comes home to his radio, he thinks about his father, he feels no closer to whatever should happen next than he did ten years before. He is flooded by the past, he can barely stay afloat, he is so tired from the effort he cannot lift his eyes and make for what’s ahead. He becomes a ghost in his own body, a guest so courteous he remains unseen, too polite to even mark a page. Some days I wish I understood him better; some days I wish I didn’t understand him so well.

Yet:

 

Saturday Sept 6

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Zionist meeting at 3rd dist

Sent to Mother $5.00

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Matt’s Notes

The “3rd dist” is likely the the same Third District, or local chapter, of the Zionist Organization of America that threw a dance at the Parkway Restaurant back on February 21st.

This leads me to wonder once again what’s become of the Z.O.A’s troubled First District. Papa worked hard earlier in the year to resuscitate it, but he hasn’t mentioned it since he gave a membership pitch to a Zionist youth organization on February 10th. He did go to a meeting of the “three downtown districts” a little over a week ago, and he characterized the discussion as “stormy.” Had the Z.O.A. debated at that meeting whether to fold its other downtown districts into the Third?

Meanwhile, this is the first time in a while Papa has mentioned sending money to his mother. This could be because he just hasn’t written about it, but it might be because he’s been in debt for a while (he recently paid back $25 his cousin loaned him) and has only just found some spare cash to send home.

Sunday Sept 7

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Empty

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Matt’s Notes

Papa feels his lowest when he’s alone or unoccupied. I suppose he sat home on this strangely cool Sunday evening and surrounded himself with dreamy images of a life not his own: a wife near at hand, a child standing by his chair, asking him questions and trusting his answers, the room bright and warm and filled with the trappings of a life well-lived, ever changing, evolving, surprising. In this daydream he is very much like his departed father, a gentle, steady presence who has survived his days of loneliness and boredom and doubt and now wonders: Did that really happen? I cannot be so happy now when once, not long ago, I sat alone with my radio headphones and newspapers and plate and cup, surrounded by ghosts of what might never be, ghosts who seemed more alive than I, bragging ghosts who flaunted what I did not have, noisy, distracting, so brilliant in their spite I was unable to mark my diary with anything but a single word: Empty.

It really happened, but still, Papa, this was you:

Monday Sept 8

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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

Tuesday Sept 9

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Visited Nat. Eisenberg at
Kessler Club

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Matt’s Notes

The “Kessler Club” has appeared in Papa’s diary before as the Kessler Zion Club. It seems to have been a fraternal organization or mutual support society like B’nai Zion, the group Papa belonged to. Papa’s last visit to the Kessler club coincided with visits to several friends in Brooklyn, so I assume it was located in Brooklyn as well.

Of course, it wasn’t a big deal for Papa to pop over to Brooklyn since, as a Lower East Side resident, he had easy access to Brooklyn via the BMT, so just because he went to the Kessler Club on the same day as Brooklyn visit doesn’t really mean anything. Still, I’ll stick with my theory until I can find out more. (My usual sources of information for such things, especially the Jewish Communal Register and American Jewish Yearbook, don’t have anything on the Kessler club; as ever, if you know anything more, please write or drop a comment).

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Subway image source: nycsubway.org

Wednesday Sept 10

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Attend Benjamin Kleidmans
Wedding.

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Matt’s Notes

Benjamin Kleidman is a new character in Papa’s Diary, and while we don’t know much about him I wonder how his wedding made Papa feel.

Papa was, I think, too caring and romantic to feel envious or begrudge anyone else his happiness, but in recent weeks his own bachelorhood, his own sense of emotional stasis, his own longing for family life had dogged him to increasingly depressing effect. As he wrote in early August, people like Benjamin “have realized their sought happiness and have other ideas now which matrimonial evolution brings along” while other friends were “long married and [are] fathers or mothers…I am still weaving my dreams.”

Perhaps Papa’s one-line account of Benjamin’s wedding, without even a detail about where it was or who he saw there, indicates what his mood was like when he got home. Did he plan to write more about it but find himself unable to concentrate, distracted by thoughts of his own solitude and the testimony of his spare, unchanging rooms? Was his next thought, never written, a question about when he, too, might learn what Benjamin, like so many of his other friends, now knew?

Thursday Sept 11

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Visited Julius Zichlinsky

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Julius Zichlinsky was the brother of Brooklyn’s own Jack Zichlinsky, and both were, I am told, members of Papa’s Zionist fraternal organization, Order Sons of Zion (a.k.a. B’nai Zion).

As we’ve discussed before, such groups provided essential services to immigrants like Papa; B’nai Zion sold affordable life insurance, guaranteed its members a proper Jewish burial, and ran a credit union that Papa and Jack helped organize. I’m not sure if fraternal orders guaranteed friendship among its members as well, but Julius and Jack were two of Papa’s closest companions in 1924 and, in fact, remained so for the rest of their lives.

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