Monday Feb 4

by


A verse by Heinrich Heine

Ein Jüngling liebt ein Mädchen,
Die hat einen andern erwahlt;
Der andre leibt eine andre
Und hat sich mit dieser vermählt.

Das Mädchen heiratet aus Ärger
Den ersten besten Mann,
Der ihr in den Web gelaufen;
Der Jüngling ist übel dran.

Es ist eine alte Geschichte,
Doch bleibt sie immer neu;
Und wem sie just passieret,
Dem bricth das Herz entzwei.

———————-

Matt’s Notes:

This is Heinrich Heine’s poem “Ein Jüngling liebt ein Mädchen (A Young Man Loves a Maiden).” Here’s one translation I found:

A young man loves a maiden
But another she prefers,
The other one loves another,
And ties the knot with her.

From spite, the maiden marries
The first who comes along,
And happens `cross her path;
The youth must rue it long.

It is an old, old story,
Yet still forever new;
And every time it happens,
It breaks the heart in two.

Though he’s been busy the last couple of days, Papa is still clearly affected by the events of January 31, when, after a wistful visit to an old flame, another woman he hadn’t seen for eight years approached him on the trolley and confessed her undying love for him even though she was engaged to be married. Is the poem Papa quotes here — a woman marries a man she doesn’t love because the one she loves doesn’t love her — a reference to his breakup with the old girlfriend, the encounter with the woman on the trolley, or a little of both?

Heinrich Heine lived in exile for many years and wrote passionately about heartache and loneliness, so I see why Papa, displaced and heartsick himself, might have reached for his Heine poems at this time. Did Papa, frustrated by the lack of privacy he wrote about the day before, pore over his poetry books in secret after everyone else in his apartment had gone to bed, hoping to find the words to express what he didn’t have time to write himself? Or maybe, since Heine was a Giant of German letters, Papa might have known Ein Jüngling liebt ein Mädchen by heart (especially since it was put to music in one of Schumann’s more famous song cycles, Dichterliebe) and he was going through it in his head before he sat down to write.

In any event, if you read through the Dicheterliebe verses and other Heine poems (I’ve listened to the Schumann songs, too, which strike me as oddly chipper considering their turgid lyrics) you can see why they appealed to Papa’s Romantic soul.

—————–

Additional notes:

One other thing I find interesting about this entry is the contrast between Papa’s English and German handwriting. Check out the difference at the top of his entry:

At first I thought his German penmanship, though quite nice, seemed less clear to me because I don’t speak German, but even my German-speaking friends have trouble with it. I think he probably wrote more deliberately in English because it wasn’t his native language, while his German writing flowed more quickly and therefore looks more slashing and spidery.

(Special thanks to the folks at Fleisher’s Grass Fed and Organic Meats in Kingston, N.Y. for helping me with the German in this post.)

———–

Update 4/9

See the April 9, 2007 post for another mention of “A Young Man Loves a Maiden”

——————-

Additional References:

Heinrich Heine’s biography at Wikipedia

Collected Heine poems at Henrich-Heine.net

Dichterliebe at Amazon.com

Tuesday Feb 5

by


Loves Secret

Poem by William Blake,

Never seek to tell they love,
Love that never told can be;
For the gentle wind dot move
Silently, invisibly.

I told my love, I told my love,
I told her all my heart;
Trembling cold, in ghastly fears; —
Ah! She did depart.

Soon after she was gone from me
A traveler came by,
Silently, invisibly:
He took her with a sigh

——————–

Matt’s Notes

For the second day in a row, Papa quotes famous poetry about women who remain out of reach or who turn away from declarations of love. The events of January 31 are still with him, affecting him with a quiet, helpless longing. I wonder if he seems distracted at work, when talking to friends and family, when walking down the street.

Wednesday Feb 6

by


Wilson laid to rest
May he rest in peace.

Attended meeting in evening
of S.N.Y. Zionist Central Comittee
Enjoyed speeches of Lipsky
& Dr. Thon

————–

The New York Times archive has an article from February 7th, 1924 about the unusual measures taken to broadcast Woodrow Wilson’s memorial services on the radio, which involved carrying the broadcast via land line from New York to Providence to ensure adequate East Coast coverage. In the cheerfully exploitative, gung-ho style peculiar to the period, it recounts “the heroic act” of an American Telephone and Telegraph Company lineman who stayed out in an ice storm to keep a tree from falling onto the line:

Williams was alone when he found the danger spot and he attached a rope to the tree, took several turns around a neighboring tree and swung on the rope with all his might. The damaged tree swayed wildly in the gale, despite the efforts of the lone lineman. Williams clung to the rope from 3:30 o’clock, when the company began broadcasting the services, until 5. When he knew that the broadcasting was over, Williams let go of the rope that held the tree. Robbed of its last support, the big tree fell across the line and snapped it. A rescue party then was sent out from Providence for the courageous lineman, who was benumbed by his long vigil.

I read this while trying to figure out how my grandfather stayed abreast of Wilson’s funeral (it was broadcast on WEAF, which I know Papa listened to, so he probably tuned in at some point) and it’s a good example of the odd little things I come across while working on this project. (By the way, did the rescue party really wait until after Williams let go of the tree to go out and find him? Why didn’t they join him earlier and help him hold the rope? Is the venerable Times playing loose with the facts for the sake of a good yarn?)

The “Lipsky” and “Dr. Thon” Papa mentions are Louis Lipsky and Dr. Jacob Thon, two major Zionist figures who Papa had seen speak three weeks earlier. That had been a bittersweet day for Papa; it was his Hebrew birthday and he felt particularly homesick because he’d received a wedding photo of his niece from the old country. I’ve speculated that Papa might have been especially attached to Wilson and upset by his death, so if this were a novel I would interpret Thon and Lipsky as some sort of ominous chorus who only show up when Papa feels saddened by events he can’t control. In reality, on a day when one of his heroes was laid to rest, it probably helped for him to see and hear two other men he admired, alive and well and in the flesh.

Thursday Feb 7

by


Another meeting of Maccabean
Camp. —

Slept in Sister Claras
new home.

————-

Clara and Papa roomed together for two years when she first came to America in 1920, and apparently they both recalled those days as some of the happiest of their lives. Papa supported Clara and she kept house until she got married in 1923, at which point I imagine Papa left his apartment and started “living in board.”

Papa was getting ready to give up his rented bed and move into his own place when he wrote today’s entry; perhaps he slept in Clara’s home that night because he had already given up his spot to another boarder. I wonder if he and Clara stayed up late chatting, or if, cheered in each other’s presence by the memory of their time together, they both slept a little better than usual.

Friday Feb 8

by


This is my first eve. at
home. (my own)

Visited friend Stenis house
Enjoyed evening there with company.

—————–

Matt’s Notes

As far as I know, this is the first time Papa has ever lived alone in New York. As lonely as he’s felt lately, moving into an apartment by himself might not be exactly what the doctor ordered (perhaps that’s why he spent the evening elsewhere).

Saturday Feb 9

by


Practically unimportant
Spent day & eve here and
there among friends
Slept late.

(My birthday according
the English date.)

—————–

I guess Papa wasn’t that excited about this birthday, since he characterized the day as “practically unimportant.” I think he meant it in the literal sense, too, as in “I derived no practical benefit from this day, and besides, I only pay attention to my Hebrew calendar birthday, not this one.”

I certainly know what it’s like to be less-than-thrilled about a birthday when I don’t think things are going my way, and in thinking about Papa’s last few weeks I can understand why the he’s in no mood to take stock of his life or gear up for a milestone. Let’s take a quick inventory:

  • On Papa’s Hebrew calendar birthday, he spent the day thinking about “blasted hopes” and “bitter disappointments” and at night cried with homesickness
  • He worked hard for weeks on a meeting to revive a lagging chapter of the Zionist Organization of America, but the meeting wasn’t what he’d hoped
  • He had a truly upsetting romantic episode that intensified his loneliness and had him quoting poetry for days
  • He was installed as an officer at B’Nai Zion, a positive development but perhaps enough celebrating to suit him for a while
  • For much of the previous few weeks, the entire country watched and waited while Woodrow Wilson, one of the most historic figures of Papa’s time and someone he admired greatly, took ill, clung to life, and finally died
  • He capped it all off with a move to a new apartment, which, I think, intensified his feelings of loneliness

With all this going on in the heart of cold New York winter, it’s no wonder he feels unwilling, perhaps even too tired, to face his birthday head-on.

At least that’s how this all feels to me, which brings up a personal point: I am far from objective when I interpret these entries, and in fact I don’t want to be since I’m pursuing this project for personal reasons, to understand and pursue the warmth and quiet I felt around Papa, a sense of ease I haven’t known for thirty-five years. When Papa doesn’t write much for the day, when I have fewer facts to research and details to write my own posts around, the only way I can continue the pursuit is to fill in the blanks with my own experience.

As I’ve noted before, I am comforted by Papa’s youthful ordeals because I know he weathered it all and ended his life happy, capable of inspiring others. But I wonder if this makes me too willing to find trouble in his light entries when my own worries are more pronounced. For example, I hate this time of year and can barely remember how to smile on some days; is that why I think Papa felt the same? Similarly, I feel convinced that the moments in Papa’s life I listed above really did make him ambivalent toward his birthday, but maybe I just have milestones on my mind because I just started a new job, a job I deliberately took to shake myself up. The type of work is unlike anything I’ve done, the culture is new, the business itself is highly specific with its own unfamiliar rules and language and style. It’s interesting; it’s a big change; it’s stressful. It’s hard to imagine that this change from my old familiar work life to something so new isn’t why I’m so focused on the effects of Papa’s milestones, his disorientation, his homesickness, his change to a new apartment, his installation as an officer in a new organization.

And that’s not all…

So who am I really talking about? What part of me is part of him? How will I know?

Sunday Feb 10

by

Same as yesterday
but in evening visited
Blue & White club, gave
them a talk about joining
the first district of the Zionist
Org.

————-

Matt’s Notes

The “Blue and White club” mentioned here is presumably related to the Blau-Weiss Jewish youth movement started in Germany in 1912. Blau-Weiss took its cues from the German Wanderklubs, or hiking organizations, that promoted physical fitness through outdoor activity and, not surprisingly, became inaccessible to Jews in the early 20th Century. (Here’s a 1924 photo of a Blau-Weiss outing.)

Blau-Weiss had a strong political agenda, focused specifically on the Zionist goal of physically preparing Jewish youth for the rigors of settling in Palestine. This relates to a broader movement among diaspora Jews to dispense with the image of the Jew as physically maladroit (perpetuated by anti-Semites and Jews alike) and replace it with a Jewish identity rooted in competence and toughness. These “muscle Jews,” reminiscent of the Maccabean warriors of centuries past, would hardily sow crops (and new Jews) in Palestine thanks to their discipline, tirelessness and virility.1

This thinking manifests itself in a number of organizations, including the Hakoa Vienna (hakoa means “The Strength”) an all-Jewish athletic organization that fielded Austria’s national championship soccer team in 1924 and sponsored a successful womens’ swim team in the 30’s. (I mention Hakoa Vienna because its swim team was the subject of a 2004 documentary called “Watermarks“, which is now on my Netflix queue). As I’ve mentioned before, Papa was peaceful and learned himself, but he must have been more than a little partial toward the image of the “muscle Jew” or he wouldn’t have fought to nickname his B’nai Zion chapter “The Maccabeans.”

So, now that I’ve gone on that tangent, I have to wonder if the Blue and White club Papa visited really was related to the Blau-Weiss movement. It’s certainly possible; even though Blau-Weiss’s goal was to get Jews from Germany to kibbutzes in Palestine, I’m sure some members found their way to the heavily German Lower East Side and formed a chapter there. Still, blue and white are the colors of the Israeli flag and were always associated with Zionist regalia, so maybe New York’s Blue and White club just named itself accordingly (if you’ know anything more about this, please drop a comment).

In any event, Papa visited them as part of his ongoing efforts to keep the Zionist Organization of America’s flagging first district (or chapter) afloat, which he’s already put a lot of effort into this year. I have to wonder again what it was like when he “gave a talk.” Was there a Blue and White clubhouse? Did they meet in a restaurant or coffee house? Maybe they met in a gymnasium if they were really an offshoot of Blau-Weiss. Did he lean on the edge of a desk, stand at a podium, or sit with everyone in a circle? And what did he speak? German? Yiddish ? English?

—————

References for this post

1- Pressner, Todd Samuel. “Clear Heads, Solid Stomachs, and Hard Muscles”: Max Nordau and the Aesthetics of Jewish Regeneration,” Modernism/Modernity, Vol. 10 No. 2, 2003.

Wikipeida’s entries on the Israeli flag and the role of the color blue in Judaism

⇐ Previous 7 Days|Next 7 Days ⇒