Tuesday June 17

by

Yesterday and today I
did not work so I went
again to a ball game at
the Polo Grounds.

I am so worried that Netties
baby son is ill, he
is coughing so.

May the Allmighty speed
his recovery.

He is named after beloved
father, May he grow up and
be as good as his Grand-
father, for he and Ruchale
are the only bright spots in
the life of their parents.

—————–

Matt’s Notes

Papa saw the Dodgers (a.k.a. Robins) take another game from the Cincinnati Reds on this day, a 5-4 decision in which Tiny Osborne pitching a complete game for Brooklyn.

Wednesday June 18

by

Nothing important

I am listening in to
sad melodies on the radio
no other music will appeal
to me during my mourning

These classic melodies by
great masters are matched
to my thoughts, something
like lost paradise, the
loss of my father, and my other
many disappointments, –

I am not yet old, and oh God
what I have been trough. (sic)

Vanished dreams, etc.
Does the future hold a little happiness
in store for me?

—————–

Matt’s Notes

I don’t know if the words “lost paradise” are a direct reference to “Paradise Lost,” but I think it’s appropriate here. Despite all he has been through to this point, including his emigration from Eastern Europe at 18 and the struggles he went through to establish a life in New York, Papa sustained himself in part by believing he would one day return to “Paradise” — that is, he would reunite with his family and recapture some of the carefree sense of belonging he once enjoyed. The death of his father put an end to that illusion.

Still, when he asks if the future holds a little happiness for him, I can answer with this picture of his own “Heaven on Earth,” or Paradise found:

And Papa, this is you:

My own version of Paradise lost.

Thursday June 19

by


Just received a distressing
letter from Sister Gitel, she is
actually starving with her family,
I will help her.

At the same time she states,
that the funeral of my late father
was the biggest ever held in
Sniatyn all ! old and young
alike went to pay the last honors
to my beloved father. I am
the saddest orphan alive
and I was deprived by fate of
the privilege to say Kadish
at his grave.

I feel now that his memory
is inspiring me to uphold
the dignity that was my his
fathers.

Shalom Le-nafsho

——————–

Matt’s Notes

I’m not sure why, but Papa’s description of his father’s funeral seems almost like something out of a fairy tale: the hillside of a European hamlet, covered with milling families, all gathered together to pay tribute to one of their leading citizens. This is consistent with Papa’s previous diary entry in which he described his adult melancholy as a feeling of “lost paradise,” as if the existence he knew in Sniatyn before coming to New York was somehow enchanted or blessed. Why, then, wouldn’t we expect him to romanticize his father’s funeral and the lost world it represented?

At the same time, Papa knows Sniatyn is anything but Paradise.* It’s a place where Jews — even Jews like his sister Gitel, the daughter of a beloved Talmud Torah teacher whose funeral was the largest the town ever saw — could go starving with their families. Papa had a couple of moments over the last few weeks when he felt overwhelmed by the responsibilities of supporting his family in Europe and even expressed some resentment over his siblings’ frequent requests for money, but thoughts of his father’s example have clearly relieved him of those feelings for the moment.

Papa concludes this passage with a Hebrew phrase similar to the one he used a few days ago in reference to a departed family friend. In that case, Papa seemed to write Shalom Le-efro, or “Goodbye to His Ashes.” Today’s phrase appears to be slightly different: Shalom Le-nafsho, or “Goodbye to His Soul.” Maybe he wrote the same thing in both entries, but they certainly look different:


Shalom Le-efro?


Shalom Le-nafsho?

Feel free to write or comment if you read these phrases any differently.

—————

* Sniatyn would become the very opposite of Paradise during the Nazi occupation. This article from the Guardian, pointed out by our friend Aviva, shows a photo that seems to depict the murder of several Jews in the Sniatyner woods during the massacre of 1942. The article goes on to question whether the photo is actually from Sniatyn, but it’s an interesting and touching read.

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:

Saturday June 21

by


Oh how I’m out of luck
I failed in a certain
undertaking again, which
means no more that under-
taking.

I went to the Ball game
at the Yankee Stadium
this afternoon.

Met Shapiro Zichlinsky
& Friedman in the evening
who spent the remainder
of the eve, at my home.

—————–

Matt’s Notes

Papa really seems out of sorts in this entry — his handwriting looks messy and hurried, he mistakenly wrote his friend Shapiro’s name when he meant to write his friend Zichlinsky’s, and he fails to mention that the Yankees played a double-header at the Stadium, the second game of which ended in a rare tie on account of rain.

I can only assume that Papa’s agitation was due to the “certain undertaking” he failed in that day, though I’m afraid to imagine what he was talking about. Did he place a bet on the second Yankee game, only to see it get rained out? Did he try to pick up a woman? Get turned away while scoring some prohibition hooch? His evasive and embarrassed language makes me think he must have tried something sexual, something sinful, Something That Dare Not Speak Its Name. Of course, someone of Papa’s moral character would have been ashamed to admit to jaywalking, so maybe he was just up to Something That Preferred To Speak Its Name in a Quiet Voice.

Did he talk about whatever he had tried when he had his friends over that night? Or did he save his semi-confession for his diary, preferring to discuss safer subjects like Zionism, the upcoming Democratic Convention, or the home run he saw Babe Ruth hit against the Red Sox earlier in the afternoon?

——————

The Red Sox, by the way, were not much of a draw in 1924. They were on their way to a seventh-place finish (an improvement over 1923, when they finished eight and last as they would in 1925). The Yankees were much stronger, though they would end the season in second place behind the Washington Senators, who would go on to beat the New York Giants in the World Series (the Giants and Yankees had met in the previous three Series, by the way).

Here are how the Red Sox and Yankees lineups looked that day:

Game 1

Yankees

Johnson, 2b
Witt, cf
Ruth, rf
Hendrick, lf
Pipp, 1b
Schang, c
Dugan, 3b
Scott, ss
Shawkey, p

Red Sox

Flagstead, cf
Wambsganss, 2b
Veach, lf
Todt, 1b
Boone, rf
Clark, 3b
O’Neill, c
Lee, ss
Quinn, p
Collins
Ross, p
Heving

Game 2

Yankees

Johnson, 2b
Witt, cf
Ruth, rf
Hendrick, lf
Pipp, 1b
Hofmann, c
Dugan, 3b
Scott, ss
Pennock, p

Red Sox

Flagstead, cf
Wambsganss, 2b
Veach, lf
Collins, 1b
Boone, rf
Ezzell, 3b
O’Neill, c
Lee, ss
Ferguson, p
————-

References

Image Source: “Babe Ruth crossing the plate after making his first home run of the season today,” April 21, 1924. Library of Congress # LC-USZ62-97945. No known restrictions on publication.

Sunday Jun 22

by

The heat chased me out
to Coney Island, where I
took the first dive in the
cool ocean. Lonely I spent
there several hours and
in the evening I certainly
was refreshed by the cool
ocean breezes on the boat
ride back to town.

I could have stayed on the
island later, but I escaped
the gay throngs on the boardwalk
there was no place for a lone
sad man, to get that boat, but
on the boat again were gay couples
which in my loneliness tended to
make me sadder.

————————–

Matt’s Notes

Papa’s description of his lonely trip to Coney Island reminds me of his New Year’s Eve entry, when he used similar words to describe the sense of isolation and longing he felt among the “gay throngs.” It’s a cinematic, melodramatic scenario in which the fine weather and ocean vista remain nearly unseen as we maintain tight focus on a single, sad man; in which happy couples materialize and whirl toward him from every angle like leering funhouse ogres; in which his only moment of respite comes when he makes his way to the bow of the Coney Island ferry, turns away from his fellow passengers and their contentment, faces lower Manhattan, and closes his eyes against the “cool ocean breezes.”

Of course, to cut from Papa, lonely in Times Square on New Year’s Eve to Papa, lonely in Coney Island on the cusp of summer, is to mislead the audience. A casual viewer might see only a montage of a man boxed in by melancholy, a man who wanders, unmoved, from throng to throng without allowing anything to intrude upon his detachment. Yet the pages of his diary attest to six months of unrelenting personal change: a new job, a new apartment, two new nephews, a new title in a new Zionist organization. And, more importantly, a new world: a world without his father; a world without the illusion of an untouched, unchanged childhood home; a world without the prospect, long-treasured, of returning to what he once knew.

Six months earlier, he pushed through the crush of Times Square and wondered why he felt so melancholy. He need not wonder anymore. Instead, the question brewing on his boat ride to Manhattan is how he will find something new now that his old life, an ocean away and eleven years gone, is finally, truly lost.

————————-

Image Source: View of the Boardwalk and Beach from Steeplechase Pier, 1923. Courtesy of Brooklynpix.com.

Monday June 23

by


This is an idle day so I
went to the Yankee Stadium
but I regret going there because
the Yanks lost the doubleheader

My appointment with the
unknown girl I had to postpone
I was not in the mood to get
aquainted with a girl for mat-
rimonial purposes, so I called
up, and asked to be excused.

In evening Julius dropped
in and together we went to
5th ave, which presented a
magnificent view with its
brilliant illuminations and
buntings in honor of the
Democratic Convention.

———————–

Matt’s Notes

Papa has never been too enthusiastic about meeting women expressly for “matrimonial purposes.” He’s avoided such introductions before and has shown a marked indifference toward the exertions of his local shadchan, or matchmaker, who probably set up the date Papa canceled today. Perhaps the Yankees’ lackluster effort against the Washington Senators left him too uninspired to socialize; according to the New York Times, they “played with all the enthusiasm and bubbling spirits of a man being led to the electric chair. The title holders have lost all their sunshine and ginger, and their heads are down.” (The contrastingly “snappy” Senators, who climbed over the Yankees and into first place with their double victory, would go on to win the American League Pennant and the World Series in a few more months.)

It’s also hard to imagine Papa mustering the energy for small talk after his dramatically solitary excursion to Coney Island the day before. New York is terribly indifferent, and can even seem deliberately scornful, to the lost and lonely, and Papa’s encounter with the “gay throngs” and sea of happy couples on the Boardwalk made him feel as alien as when he first arrived in America. The loss of his father weighed heavily on him still, and he felt, keenly, his inability to understand the language of happiness, to participate in the culture of contentment. He felt uncared-for and unwelcome.

Perhaps that’s why he so enjoyed the spectacle of New York’s preparations for the 1924 Democratic Convention, as they were deliberately designed to make the City seem a little more hospitable and safe to strangers. This seemed, in fact, to have been the chief concern of the Convention’s organizers, as evidenced by the rather defensive essay about “The Wonder City” in the “1924 Democratic Convention Official Program”:

New York is at once the most magical and the most misunderstood city in the world. It is probably more worshiped, feared, praised, slandered, loved and hated than any other city of all time.

The trouble is that although New York welcomes visitors, tries to make them feel at home, and offers them every possible facility for enjoyment and profit, it has not yet found a way to let all the people of the country know these things.

An Undeserved Reputation

Needless to say New York is one of the world’s greatest playgrounds, providing every imaginable form of recreation and amusement of the visitor. In this respect it has gained a certain sort of reputation that is entirely undeserved. Despite all that has been said and written to the contrary, New York is morally one of the cleanest cities in the world, and the great majority of its theatres, cabarets, dance halls and other places of amusement are above reproach in this respect.

It consists of five boroughs: Manhattan, Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Richmond.

Alas, New York’s “cabarets and dance halls” no longer play much of a part in New York life (there are dozens of “Chinese Restaurant and Cabaret” ads in the 1924 Convention Program along with many thinly-veiled ads for the very sorts of amoral diversions that surely would have horrified Convention delegates) and Presidential political conventions are no longer intriguing or meaningful. It’s hard to imagine today, but as the convention neared, Papa had no idea who the Democratic nominee would be (former Wilson Cabinet member William McAdoo was looking strong) whether the Democratic platform would condemn the Ku Klux Klan, call for a change in Prohibition laws, or embrace the League of Nations.

Fortunately, there would be a new way for Papa to monitor the goings-on in 1924, as a Brandes radio ad in the Convention program enthusiastically pointed out:

Radio Reception more perfect this summer

Tremendous improvement in sending and receiving combine with better programs to provide the best of radio fun!

This is indeed a radio summer! The vital interest of the Presidential campaign — waged right in your own home. The glorious and inspiring church services. The important sporting events, market reports, home hints, intensely interesting talks, gay music — all these diversion are brought directly to you.

Why sending is better.

Last summer many high power broadcasting stations operated on a single wave length. This summer they are spread over a wave band. You may choose at your will. Sending stations have greatly increased their power and are spreading their programs over many more miles. Broadcasting from interconnected stations includes many people who would formerly have been deprived of the unlimited pleasures of radio.

Stay tuned.

————

Image Source: “Interior of Madison Square Garden, New York City, prepared for the Democratic National Convention with bunting and chairs.” Library of Congress #LC-USZ62-113345

—————–

Update 6/24

A couple of New York Times articles (“New York Becomes Best ‘Small Town'” and “City in Best Dress as Company Comes”) describe New York’s incongruously hospitable atmosphere on the eve of the Democratic Convention, and also devote lots of space to the Fifth Avenue (apparently nicknamed “Avenue of the States” for the occasion) decorations that Papa and his friend Julius checked out in the evening. Looks like there had been a parade on Fifth earlier in the day, and the streets “brilliant illuminations and buntings” drew quite a crowd:

Fifth Avenue, from Madison Square up to the Plaza and Fifty-ninth Street where is the court of honor, was glowing last night with the orange, white and blue lights that form a continuous string for the whole distance. In clusters on the pylons that hold the strings of lights are flags of the nations and of New York and the seal of the State honored in each block.

Many visitors inqure the meaning of the orange, white and blue combination. Any New Yorker can answer them that these are the colors of his city. It was remarked yesterday that, if the Hylan Administration’s fondness for parades and pageants has done nothing else, it had at least let in all the sundry citizens on the secret of the civic colors.

And:

New Yorkers are traditionally curious about trifles and negligent of major spectacles. A few compressed-air drills and a couple of steam shovels digging a hole in the rock foundation of our city can draw a crowd of three or four hundreds at any time and anywhere, but when there is a big show New York passes by on the other side.

New York didn’t do that yesterday, however. When residents of this city stand on the curb for two hours waiting to see the beginning of a parade, or sit for three hours perched precariously in windows along Fifth Avenue waiting for a parade to go by, it is a sign of changing times and changing habits. New Yorkers, most of whom came originally from small towns, are reverting to type, ad least for the period of this convention.

Papa was, of course, from a small town himself, but I hadn’t considered that as a source of his fascination with the Convention spectacle until I read this article. I tend to see such events, when they come to town, as little more than necessary annoyances (or, in the case of the 2004 Republican Convention, grotesque, surreal invasions) but maybe I’m just a grouch.

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