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

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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”:

Friday Nov 14

by


Home & Movies

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Matt’s Notes

Papa doesn’t say what movies he saw on this night, but some choices included:

  • The Fast Worker, a light comedy starring Reginald Denny
  • East of Broadway, the story of a young man who fails his entrance exam for the New York City police force because he thinks the Tropic of Capricorn is in the Bronx
  • The Lover of Camille, and adaptation of the play “Deburau” deemed by the New York Times to be a mere shadow of its stage production
  • The Greatest Love of All, an interesting-sounding experiment in which, it seems, the film stops in the middle and its actors appear live on stage to finish out the story. The Times liked the conceit but not the story: “This novelty is worth seeing because of the combination of actors in shadow form and in the flsh, but cuts should be made in both chapters.”
  • The Garden of Weeds, a disappointing effort, according to the Times, from James Cruz, director of the huge hit The Covered Wagon. (The Covered Wagon played for over a year in New York and was Photoplay Magazine‘s choice for best picture of 1923. I’ve never seen it, but the VHS version will soon be on its way.)
  • The Battling Orioles, a slapstick comedy written and directed by Hal Roach.
  • He Who Gets Slapped, a serious drama starring Lon Chaney and called “faultless” by the Times.
  • The Beloved Brute, a Western starring the ex-boxer Victor McLagien, who would go on to receive a best actor Academy Award for his role in 1935’s The Informer and a nomination for his supporting role in 1952’s The Quiet Man.

Other films in town included Hot Water with Harold Lloyd, Dante’s Inferno, The Ten Commandments and The Iron Horse.

Saturday Nov 15

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Initiation of O.S.Z. members
at “Yavne” Camp
Bensonhurst

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“O.S.Z.” stands for Order Sons of Zion (a.k.a. B’nai Zion) the oft-mentioned Zionist fraternal order to which Papa belonged, and the “‘Yavne’ Camp Bensonhurst” is one of its Brooklyn chapters.

As we’ve seen, B’nai Zion chapters often nicknamed themselves after legendary Jewish heroes and ancient landmarks in Palestine (like the Bar Cochba Camp and Kinereth Camp previously mentioned in Papa’s diary). The city of “Yavne” appears in the Bible and, it seems, also became a seat of rabbinical scholarship and a holy place after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 A.D. (Nowadays its a modern city in Israel.)

Papa was Master of Ceremonies of his own Judaically-nicknamed camp, “The Maccabean,” and in that capacity often participated in initiation ceremonies for other camps. I’m not yet sure where “Yavne” met, but I’ll add the Bensonhurst neighborhood to the map of Where Papa’s Been.

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References for this post:

Sunday Nov 16

by


at Rifke’s in E.N.Y.
at Pennsylvania Ave. Synagogue
& Kessler Club

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Matt’s Notes

Papa’s trips to East New York always included stops at the Kessler Zion Club and his friend Rifke’s (when last seen at her place, he was pitching a group of women on the gowns he’d just started selling on the side), though this is the first time he’s mentioned the Pennsylvania Avenue Synagogue.

My uncanny powers of deductive reasoning tell me this synagogue was located on Pennsylvania Avenue, a north-south artery on the western side of East New York, not far from the “new law” tenements that had cropped up in the neighborhood since the passing of the Tenement House Act of 1901. These tenements boasted at least one bathroom for every two families and relatively plentiful windows, so Jewish immigrants, drawn by these amenities and encouraged by new subway construction, had been flocking to the area from Manhattan’s Lower East Side for most of the early 1900’s.

Like his bretheren, Papa must have seen East New York as a sort of promised land. Perhaps, whenever he emerged from the Pennsylvania Avenue BMT stop and beheld the surrounding wide streets and airy skies, he grew starry-eyed and dreamy and thought to himself: One day, I too will live in Brooklyn.

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References for this post:

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Image sources:

BMT subway map sample from nycsubway.org.

Pennsylvania Ave. looking south, 1923. Courtesy of Brooklynpix.com. Just for laughs, here’s another shot of Pennsylvania Ave. from the same source:

Monday Nov 17

by


Movies & home

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Matt’s Notes

Papa went to the movies the other day, so the list of what he might have seen hasn’t grown that much. Still, here are a couple of newcomers listed in the New York Times:

  • Forbidden Paradise, a light drama about an imaginary Eastern European royal court starring the great Pola Negri and directed by the similarly great Ernst Lubitch. I hope Papa got to see this since the accompanying musical program at the Rivoli included “On Volga’s Shores” by Pawlowsky’s Ukranian Ensemble (Papa was from the area now known as Ukraine) and the overture from Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony (Tchaikovsky was Papa’s favorite).
  • The Siren of Seville, described by the Times as “the latest bullfighting film” to hit the screen; was there a whole bullfighting genre in the silent era?
  • The Fast Set, directed by William C. De Mille, a well-known director and older brother of the more well-known director Cecil B. DeMille, whose hit The Ten Commandments was still enjoying a long theatrical run
  • K – The Unknown, starring Virginia Vallie, directed by Harry Pollard, and summarily dismissed by Mordaunt Hall, the Times’ movie reviewer.

Other films in town included The Midnight Express, Married Flirts, The Iron Horse, and Madonna of the Streets.

Tuesday Nov 18

by


Interesting meeting of
Ball Comittee at Down
Town Zionist Dist.

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Matt’s Notes

Papa went to numerous Zionist balls and banquets throughout the year, so it makes sense for him to have been involved in a planning committee or two, as well. The meeting mentioned in this entry most likely took place at the Downtown Zionist Centre at 52 St. Marks Place, and probably had something to do with the Zionist Organization of America’s lower Manhattan districts. (As we recently discussed, Papa’s Z.O.A. district meetings probably took place at the Downtown Zionist Centre so frequently that he came to refer to Centre as the “District.”) If we look at the sort of work he’s previously done for the Z.O.A., I’d say he joined the ball committee to help with its publicity efforts or secure a prominent guest speaker.

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