Saturday Jan 12

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Slept late, in the evening visited
the K.H. office, the 2nd and 3rd Zionist
Districts and the remainder of the time
about 3 1/2 hours (from 11:30pm to 3:00am) at
the Cafe Royal.

Goldstein introduced me to Dr. Murdoni
the famous dramatic critic, the Dr. M.
told me of a sad experience
while in Siberia on a mission of the
Russian Jewish Relief Comittee during
the war, He met ther 500 Galician
Jews in one place, very religious
old jews and jewesses and children
were forced to live among the
wild Tatars in the villages in
Siberia, where they were forced to go
for no reason whatever, and what
horrible experiences they had to go there.

Only one picture of the Golus

————–

Matt’s Notes

Yesterday Papa talked about escaping to the movies, but today he’s got more serious things on his mind. It’s interesting to be reminded that, as modern and American as his life seems, he could relate quite closely the dark, almost regressive-sounding world of the Jews in “Dr. M’s” story. His life might easily have gone that way and he knows it.

I had a bit of trouble reading a couple of words in this entry. I’m not sure if I got “Dr. Murdoni” right or the word “Golus”. Take a look below and see if you think I got them right. Any idea who or what he could be talking about?

——————-

Updates

1/13 – I didn’t have much time to poke around when I wrote this yesterday, but a quick Web search today reveals a bit about the term “Golus.” “The Golus,” as my grandfather uses it, roughly refers to the Diaspora and the plight of Jews in exile. So, when he refers to “Dr. M’s” story of Jews being shipped to Siberia as “one picture of the Golus,” he means it’s one example of Jewish suffering in the absence of a Jewish homeland. The more strident Zionists scorned and sought to eliminate the “golus mentality,” which they saw as a tendency for Jews to resign themselves to defeat and abuse.

Papa didn’t have a violent bone in his body (my mother tells a story of him reprimanding my cousin for swatting a bee because “even a bee has a right to live”) but he must have had a touch of distaste for the image of the “golus Jew,” else he wouldn’t have pushed to nickname his B’nai Zion lodge “The Maccabeans” after the Jewish warrior heroes of the Hannukah story.

2/4 – I just came across a February 26th article in the New York Times about the Yiddish theater that mentions Cafe Royal. Looks like it was on 2nd Avenue and 12th street and was, according to the article, a hangout for Yiddish actors. My mother adds that “it was a gathering place for ‘intelligentsia’ to meet, greet and harangue each other. It was very popular back in the day.”

4/7 – Ari, an Assistant Professor of American Studies at UC Davis, adds:

…Second Avenue was known as “the Yiddish Rialto” or Yiddish Broadway, as it housed most of the Yiddish theaters in NYC. The Royal was the hangout for artists and intellectuals, who would go there before and after the shows, to debate politics, communism, and whatever they wanted to.

And:

Dr. Murdoni is, in fact, Alexander Mukdoni, a prominent and prolific Yiddish theater critic. Most of his work is rendered in Yiddish, and not much of it is translated, but there should be a good bio out there somewhere. He was quite well-respected and very serious about his criticism, scholarship and journalism.

Sunday Jan 13

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Visited Freides children at
Claras house, and then
visited Herman at home to comfort them
Did not work today

————–

Matt’s Notes

I assume Papa is comforting Herman over the death of cousin Freida Kurtzberg, but I haven’t been able to learn yet who Herman or Freida were or what their relationship was.

The Clara referred to here is not Papa’s cousin Clara mentioned in a previous post, but Papa’s younger sister Clara, known to me (not surprisingly) as “Aunt Clara.”

I don’t remember Clara as much more than a wizened, friendly woman with a thick accent. My last memory of her is at my Bar Mitzvah in 1979, at which point she had shrunk to just about the size of a walnut and was confined to a wheelchair. Sensitive to her condition and respectful of her elder status, I thereafter referred to her as “Disco Clara.”

But as I write this now and react to the first mention of Clara in Papa’s diary, I’m flooded suddenly with a feeling I can’t name, flooded with a sense of the voluminous connection between two such lives, so many stories between them: of a younger brother taking his sister’s hand in the crush of her arrival at Ellis Island; of the room they shared while penniless; of the precious steadiness they nurtured together against the maddening whirl of tenement life; of the suspenseful illnesses; of the optimism glimpsed through her marriage, his work; of the aid he gave her when her luck turned; of the sheer volumes of words spoken, dinners attended, celebrations and vigils; of the gifts he bought her children; of his own long-awaited marriage, and, at last, the birth of his own child; of the times she stopped and wondered how she had such a brother, how he had so much charity left for so many others when what he did for her alone would have been enough; of his illness and death, an unimaginable loss dealt so many years before she would, frail and at the end of her own life, watch his grandson at the lectern.

My sister and I live around the corner from each other, just like Papa and Clara did in 1924.

—————-

Updates

1/14 – I made some slight modifications to the above passage to correct a few errant details since I published it yesterday.

And here’s Aunt Clara at my Bar Mitzvah:

Monday Jan 14

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6:30 am Slept last night with
checker, and now am writing at
Claras house for the morning services
at which a child of a friend will
be named after the departed cousin

10:30P.M.
I did not work today I
wandered around many
places, and I am dead tired. For the first time
I am going to retire early today

Received an annoying
letter from father, my mother
did not feel well.
Oh god keep my parents safe
and in good health.

————

Matt’s Notes

It’s a little incongruous to see Papa describe a worrisome letter from his father as “annoying,” considering how he follows it up with a sincere prayer for his parents’ health. Maybe “annoying” had a different connotation back then, or maybe, having just read a letter from home in what was probably Yiddish, German or Hungarian (or one of the other six or seven languages he grew up with) Papa is thinking in another language and has therefore slightly mistranslated an appropriate foreign word for “worrisome” into the less appropriate “annoying.”

The point is, kids, you should never call your parents annoying. I certainly never would.

This entry also has a word I can’t figure out in the second line — it looks like “checker” but I don’t know why he would say “slept last night with checker.” I assume Papa’s saying he slept outside of his home, maybe at his sister’s, but I’m not sure. Any ideas?

Tuesday Jan 15

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Reading all evening

Man . by Sir John Davis

I know my soul hath power to know all things,
Yet she is blind and ignorant in all:
I know I’m one of Nature’s little kings,
Yet to the least and vilest things am thrall.

I know my life’s a pain and but a span;
I know my sense is mock’d in everything;
And, to conclude, I know myself a Man –
Which is proud and yet a wretched thing.

Matt’s Note:

This poem is by John Davies. (I originally transcribed it as Davis, but on closer inspection it looks like Papa wrote it correctly.)

Wednesday Jan 16

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Living in board it is really
so hard to get an appointment to
make my entries, just when I
feel like doing it, I am somehow
prevented.

Received invitation to
attend a party at the
Kessler Zion Club Saturday.

—————-

The next time I want to complain about not having enough time to myself, I’ll have to remember to say something classy like “it is really so hard to get an appointment to watch my Netflix.”

Papa’s complaint is far less petty, of course. His living situation is more comfortable than when he first arrived in America and slept head-by-toe with his two sisters in a cousin’s bed, but he’s still boarding in a tenement apartment where privacy is precious. What prevents his “appointments” with his diary, other than tubercular neighbors wandering in for help? How many hours does he lose in line for the hallway bathroom, how many times must he hastily hide his diary when his hosts suddenly arrive home, how often do the lights fail? When he says he listens to his radio and reads by himself, is he really by himself, or does he just stick on his headphones and tune out the noise and activity around him?

I wonder, too if Papa is apologizing to future readers for the day’s short, furtive entry, as if he feels a responsibility to, say, his unborn grandchildren to keep a complete journal. (I feel a little guilty when I don’t get to spend as much time on this blog as a like. A family trait?) Then again, I’m doing this project in part because I wish I’d known him longer, spent more time in his presence, shared more words with him. Maybe I want to think he’s apologizing to me for his short entry because I just want him to talk to me in any way.

Hmmm. This post is, ironically, turning into a bigger subject than I have time to write about now. I’ll make an “appointment” to revisit it.

—

Updates

I guess some bigger questions about my grandfather are: Who did he feel most responsible to when he wrote this? His parents? His sisters? Zionism? Posterity, as I initially thought? What underlies his need to explain why he can’t write in his diary to his satisfaction? What standards has he set for himself? I know his father was a hero to him. Is that who he’s talking to, whose standards he wants to meet?

Thursday Jan 17

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Home & Radio as usual

Earlier in the evening I
was rather busy arranging
the Massmeeting for the
Z.O.A. for Mon. Jan 28. I have
secured Ab. Goldberg and Maurice
Samuel as the principal speakers
but I am not yet through
the worst part is yet to come

This is my last effort to
revive the first Zionist dist.
If I should fail here I give
up. I told it to Blitz and
my conscience will not bother
me as I have tried my best,
but I do hope the meeting
will turn out a success.

—————————-

Once again, Papa shows heavy involvement in the early development of what would become a prominent Zionist group. Though the Zionist Organization of America (Z.O.A.) was relatively more established than the Sons of Zion in 1924 (it had been around since 1897) Papa’s chapter was clearly in trouble. His choice of words (“If I should fail here I give up”) and the presence of a mysterious supervisor named “Blitz” remind me of a cold-war spy novel, though I assume Papa was meeting with Blitz in the open and not passing envelopes to him in a darkened alleyway or whispering to him from behind a copy of the Forward at a kosher lunch counter (he did, however, wear a fedora). Still, with the future of the Zionist movement in doubt and anti-Semitism growing in Europe by the moment, Papa must have felt like the stakes were urgently high for the Z.O.A’s success.

I’m not clear on what his frustrations with the progress of the first “district” were but he certainly secured a couple of good speakers for the January 28 mass meeting. Abraham Goldberg was the primary face of the Z.O.A. in 1924, and remained a key figure as it evolved. I won’t even think about tackling the enormous history of Zionist factions, feuds and alliances in the early 20th century, but Goldberg figures prominently throughout (he was so identified with Zionism that he was listed in the phone book at “Goldberg Abraham Zionist“1). Alas, the helpful people at the Z.O.A. don’t think many of their records from the 20’s have survived, so more details on Papa’s district may be a long time coming.

Maurice Samuel, the other speaker Papa booked, would make a splash later that year with the publication of his book You Gentiles, which characterized the social, emotional and cultural differences between Jews and Gentiles as fundamental, irreconcilable obstacles to mutual understanding. Admired in its day for its frankness and still admired by some for certain well-articulated sentiments, it has, perhaps not surprisingly, become a minor touchstone for anti-Semites of all stripes who like to quote its more resolute passages as proof of Jewish otherness and general nastiness. In any event, Samuel continued as a prominent writer, speaker and Yiddish literature scholar and would be noted for many other accomplishments; You Gentiles is absent from Irving Howe’s 1972 New York Times obituary of Samuel, which cites The World of Sholom Aleichem as his best work.

————–

References for this post

1 – Howe, Irving “Maurice Samuel, 1895-1972“, The New York Times, May 21, 1972

Adams, J. Donald, “Jew And Gentile“, The New York Times, September 7, 1924

“A. Goldberg Dead; Leader in Zionism“, The New York Times, June 6, 1942

Also, thanks to the Zionist Organization of America for their help.

Friday Jan 18

by


Same as yesterday
in my company were Sister
Clara & husband.

I.M.W.
again writes me to help him
I shall give the letter to Budiener

———-

Matt’s Notes

I can’t quite figure out what the second section of this entry says. I.M.W. (if I’m reading that right) might be a reference to Papa’s brother, Isaac, over in Europe (Papa has started to write something that looks like “Isaac” and crossed it out, though it’s mostly illegible). I’m also having trouble with the last word of the entry (Budinier? Badinez?) so I don’t know to whom or what Papa plans to give “I.M.W’s” letter.

My other theory is that this is a reference to the tubercular acquaintance “I. Marlanoff” from Papa’s January 2nd entry, and “Budiener” is a doctor or representative of a landsmanshaft, or mutual aid society. Supported by dues, such groups served as ready-made social networks for new arrivals, formed religious congregations, and provided medical care, loans and burial services to landsman (people from the same place).

Papa’s charitable fraternal order, B’nai Zion, probably qualifies as such an organization. Many of his old friends are buried in Sons of Zion cemetery plots and I know they ran a credit union and resold life insurance. But while many of the old landsmanshaftn were geared toward people from the same town, I don’t think B’nai Zion was. Such narrow regional focus might even have been on the wane by the 20’s as Jews stitched themselves into a broader community and as formal support became more available from government agencies and organizations like labor unions. This would be consistent with the overall evolution of fraternal organizations, which, as noted earlier, grew less chauvinistic as the path to Americanization grew clearer.

By the way, I learned a lot about the landsmanshaftn during a visit to the Lower East Side Tenement Museum yesterday (they have a link to some good information here) and I also got a much clearer idea of what Papa’s living situation must have been like in early 1924. I’ll add more about that later.

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