Wednesday Oct 22

by


By mistake I wrote
for several days, at one
time on the wrong pages

I neglected my diary

Just the fact that Mrs.
Surdut introduced me
to a girl with $10.000, and
her family, must be entered.
But the girl does not appeal
to me.

The day I’d promise to marry
her, I’d be on easy street
because of her wealth,
but my heart says no

—————–

Matt’s Notes

I tend to discuss Papa’s chronic bachelorhood as just another symptom of his self-imposed limbo, a sign of his powerful emotional attachment to the old country, an illustration of his inability to see America as the place to marry and make a home. I’m fascinated with this angle because I know he would one day become an exemplary, self-sacrificing family man who was delighted with his life and exuded a sense of contentment.

Still, while I think it’s interesting to examine Papa’s diary in this way, I don’t want to generalize every moment he reports as if there aren’t other, less hidden forces at work. For example, we know Papa was an incurable romantic, a poetic soul who longed, no doubt, for an overwhelming, all-revealing love. This desire to wait for his heart, rather than his community or someone like Mrs. Surdut to choose his mate was not just sentimental, though; it was a distinctly American and modern innovation embraced, more boldly each year, by Papa’s contemporaries. (As we’ve discussed before, this was especially troubling to the old-style Jewish matchmakers who found it increasingly difficult to make a living on this side of the Atlantic.)

It’s hard to tell whether the wealthy woman mentioned above approved of Papa and would have consented to marry him, but the tone of this entry suggests she was Papa’s for the asking. I expect he chatted with her for a few hours, had cake and coffee with her parents in their well-appointed living room, and then went about his business while they decided if he was worthy of their $10,000. A few days later, there it was: a one-way ticket to easy street (I love this entry because Papa uses the expression “easy street” as if it were part of the popular vernacular, which of course it was) delivered to his door by a flushed, breathless, soon-to-be-disappointed Mrs. Surdut.

Papa may have been at odds with his place in the world and may have struggled with difficult internal battles, but he also just wanted to know what it was like to fall in love. I think I’ll just believe him when he writes “my heart says no,” let him gently break the news to Mrs. Surdut, and leave him to wonder, on his own, when the answer might be different.

Thursday Oct 23

by


Attended a beautiful
reception meeting for
David Yellin from Palestine
at the Astor, where I met
countless friends.

—————

Matt’s Notes

The parade of Zionist all-stars at the Hotel Astor continues. Papa was there when the influential Rabbi Joseph Silverman announced his long-withheld support of the Zionist cause, and he also was on hand when Chaim Weizmann was the honoree at a Keren Hayesod banquet. David Yellin was a leader of a different sort, a Jerusalem-born educator who was instrumental in the modern revival of Hebrew. According to the Jewish Agency for Israel Web site, “his legacy includes a number of textbooks on Hebrew grammar and language, as well as translations from Arabic and from European languages, including translating Dickens into Hebrew.”

Lots of native Hebrew speakers who visit this site say Papa’s Hebrew and English penmanship are equally impressive, and while I know Papa would have learned to write Hebrew as part of his traditional religious education (and in his childhood home life, too, since his father was a Talmud Torah teacher) I wonder if he owned or admired any of Yellin’s books. Perhaps Papa felt about Yellin like my wife, herself an educator, feels about someone like Jaime Escalante. Then again, Papa’s need to say that Yellin was “from Palestine” might mean he wasn’t such a well-known figure in the U.S., even if he was, in 1924, a visiting faculty member at the Jewish Institute of Religion on Sixty-eighth Street and Central Park West.

Papa doesn’t say whether the reception meeting he went to was associated with B’nai Zion, the fraternal order to which he belonged, but the modern incarnation of B’nai Zion has a strong relationship with the David Yellin College of Education in Jerusalem. This may just be incidental, of course, though Stephen Wise, then the acting president of the Jewish Institute of Religion, was also involved in B’nai Zion’s parent organization, The Zionist Organization of America. Papa was active in both B’nai Zion and the Z.O.A., so maybe that’s why he saw “countless friends” and, judging by the tone of this entry, enjoyed himself so much at the Astor that night.

hotel astor

————-

References for this post:

  • David Yellin biography at the Jewish Agency for Israel Web site
  • LEGISLATORS ENTER ON THEIR LAST LAP; Assembly Rules Committee Takes Charge of Pending Measures Tonight. (The New York Times, March 31 1924; this archived record also contains a small piece on David Yellin and the Jewish Institute of Religion)

————

Image sources:

Friday Oct 24

by


A camp Ex. meeting at
Jack Z’s house

——————

A “camp Ex. meeting” likely means an executive meeting of Papa’s chapter, or camp, of B’nai Zion (a.k.a. Order Sons of Zion) the Zionist fraternal order to which he belonged. His camp had formed just nine months earlier and went by the nickname “The Maccabean,” a reference to the Jewish warrior heroes of the Hanukkah story. Papa had fought for the nickname, believing it conveyed an image of strength and competence, in the same eventful meeting in which he was elected Master of Ceremonies.

Papa’s B’nai Zion brothers were also some of his best friends; “Jack Z.” is, as our regular readers know, none other than the legendary Jack Zichlinsky, whose home on Brooklyn’s Hart Street saw many a visit from Papa. I expect Papa had just hung out with a lot of his camp brothers on the previous day, too, when he attended a reception for the Zionist leader David Yellis at the Hotel Astor.

Saturday Oct 25

by


Partook in initiation
ceremony at the Pride
of Israel Camp.
Brownsville

I certainly knew my part
well.

——————

The “Pride of Israel” camp most likely refers to a chapter of B’nai Zion (a.k.a. Order Sons of Zion) the fraternal order and mutual support society to which Papa belonged. (Along with its Zionist activities, B’nai Zion provided its members such essentials as affordable life insurance, burial services, and a credit union, all of which would have been hard to come by for immigrants of Papa’s means.)

As we discussed yesterday, Papa’s own camp had only been around since January and went by the nickname “The Maccabean.” The Pride of Israel camp must have been relatively new as well, or at least less than four years old since it doesn’t appear in the 1917-1918 Jewish Communal Register. (I can’t find the 1924-1925 volume of this book anywhere, so please drop me a note if you’ve seen one in the wild). Perhaps Pride of Israel was so new, and had so few members, that they needed Papa, who oversaw initiations as the Maccabean’s Master of Ceremonies, to round out their ceremonial quorum.

Sunday Oct 26

by


Just strolling about
visiting the Zionist
district and several
Zionist Clubs.

Just paid back the last
payment of the $100 that
I borrowed from the Heb.
Free Loan Soc.

It is a wonderful institution
and I shall not forget their
favor in my time of need.

—————

Matt’s Notes

The New York Hebrew Free loan society was founded in 1892 and, like many similar institutions that grew throughout the U.S. during the late nineteenth century’s wave of Eastern European Jewish immigration, saw interest-free lending as “an act of kindness considered superior to giving alms because a loan fosters self-sufficiency while preserving dignity.”1 This lending philosophy had biblical and spiritual roots (the Old Testament and the Talmud recommend it) and practical purposes (it was a sensible way to distribute small sums to large numbers of people who needed to get on their feet, negotiate crises, and start businesses). The borrower needed several endorsers to guarantee the loan, but the system worked so well that Hebrew free loan societies typically experienced a default rate of less than 1 percent.2

The reasons immigrants sought loans from the Hebrew Free Loan Society were as numerous and varied as the immigrants themselves (especially since the New York HFLS loaned money to all immigrant groups, not just Jews). In Papa’s case, the $100 loan he secured back in May went to help his family in the old country with funeral and living expenses in the wake of his father’s death. This was an unusually large sum for a non-business loan and obviously wasn’t easy for him to pay off, but I think the gratitude he expresses toward the Free Loan Society in today’s entry — in contrast to his straight-up relief he expressed when he paid recently back the $25 he borrowed from his cousin, Herman Breindel — is a testament to the institution’s efforts to preserve borrowers’ pride.

That’s not to say Herman wasn’t happy to lend Papa money, of course. Remember that, when Papa first came to America, Herman met him at Ellis Island, put him up, and helped him get on his feet. I wouldn’t be surprised if Herman sponsored Papa’s loan at the HFLS, either. But I think there might be something more in this entry than just Papa’s financial status. His mention of the support he received, coupled with his description his casual visits to all the Zionist clubs he associated with, reads like the account of a man who feels safe and at ease. Papa, who often felt so displaced, isolated and homesick, who has remained dreamily attached to his past at the expense of his present, seems at this moment to feel at ease among his adopted country, his neighbors, the extended family he’s created through his political activities and social life. He seems, in short, at home, at least for the day.

————-

References for this post:

1 – From the Hebrew Free Loan Society Web site

2 – “Culture and Context: The Emergence of Hebrew Free Loan Societies in the United
States” by Shelly Tenenbaum. From Social Science History, Vol. 13, No. 3. (Autumn, 1989).

Monday Oct 27

by


At home.

Ruchale was operated
on tonsils last week and
is still so weak and
Yosale is still ill. Oh
Allmighty speed their recovery.

Those constant pre election
speeches almost get my
goat, and all the
candidates seem to flock
to my block every night
and disturb my rest.

—————————

Matt’s Notes

I don’t think Papa has ever mentioned Ruchale, his sister Nettie’s daughter, without referring to some kind of illness. Sadly, her newborn brother Yosele (who was born right after Papa’s father died and was named for him) took after her and started coughing incessantly when he barely a month old. This wouldn’t have been too unusual; childhood illnesses like whooping cough, measles and diptheria were on the wane in the 1920’s, but they still haunted the halls of New York’s tenements. I wonder, too, if something was particularly wrong with the ventilation, gas jets or other environmental conditions in Nettie’s home.

Then again, with Nettie’s husband Phil also recovering from a recent, debilitating injury to his hands, I’m tempted to say, as Halloween approaches, that Nettie’s life was just cursed. As we’ve discussed before, Ruchale would not survive a later bout of meningitis and Nettie would one day die by her own hand. (This made her only the second of four wives Phil would eventually see die under tragic circumstances, earning him the nickname “The Serial Killer” among certain members of my family.) I don’t really believe in curses, but I certainly do detect an absence of blessings here.

The thought of Ruchale’s surgery immediately conjures images of unsanitary Victorian operating theaters, but the 1920’s were pointedly post-Victorian and, in fact, the period was witness to a bit of a tonsillectomy/adenoidectomy renaissance. According to an abstract for an article called “The rise and decline of tonsillectomy in twentieth-century America” in The Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, tonsillectomy/adenoidectomy was the most frequently-performed operation in the United States between 1915 and the 1960’s. If you don’t believe that, the Web site for the American Academy of Otolaryngology−Head and Neck Surgery says this type of procedure accounted for 33% of all U.S. surgeries performed between 1920 and 1960. Quoth:

Tonsillectomies were typically performed in response to hypertrophy, recurrent tonsillitis, and enlarged cervical lymphatic glands. Ether vapor was often used as anesthesia. If local anesthesia was preferred, cocaine, novocaine, or bisulphate of quinine was usually used. A mouth gag held open the mouth and retracted and elevated the tongue. A gauze pack was placed in the nasopharynx to block the entry of blood, saliva, and/or vomit into the tonsil area. The tonsils themselves were normally removed by sharp dissection – no snares or tonsillotomes. Black silk was used to suture the area.

This still strikes me as worrisome, and I’m sure Papa would have lost sleep over it even if he wasn’t kept awake by politicians hawking their candidacies until all hours. It looks like the campaign onslaught was particularly intense in New York City, with Democratic Presidential nominee John W. Davis, Republican Vice Presidential nominee Charles Dawes, incumbent New York State Governor Al Smith and his challenger, Colonel Theodore Roosevelt (the eldest son of the former President of the same name) all in town for a final push before the November 4th elections.

Radio was just emerging as a campaign tool for the first time in 1924, but old-fashioned, street-clogging hawkers, brass bands and loudspeaker-equipped autos were still the preferred broadcast media of the day. By the last week in October, the city was so full of campaign-related traffic that a marching band hired by a Republican group accidentally found itself leading a Democratic torchlight parade. I can only imagine what the Lower East Side, which had more than its fair share share of flyer-waving union reps, Socialists, Democrats and Zionists running about and shouting, must have been like.

Yet note how Papa says such activity “almost,” but not completely, gets his goat. He was an inherently tolerant soul, but he was also no stranger to expressing his own political passions. With that in mind, he probably thought it best to remember his own days of street campaigning, contemplate the joys of democracy, and fold a pillow over his ears.

————–

Update:

My cousin Ken, the dentist (who I only just met after he read about Papa’s Diary Project in the New York Times and found his grandfather’s name in it) says:

Tonsillectomies were very common up until probably the late 1960’s. I had mine removed, so did my sister and probably most people my age. I didn’t realize they were so common in the early 20th century. When kids got numerous colds and sore throats, doctors thought a tonsillectomy would help because the tonsils would enlarge and become very swollen and they thought their removal would decrease the number and severity of their infections. We now know that tonsils play an important role in fighting infections in the throat and their removal doesn’t affect the number of colds a person gets. When they swell up they are just doing their job of fighting the infection.

Today they would be removed only if they became chronically so enlarged they caused problems with breathing or sleep apnea. I had my tonsils removed as outpatient surgery. The person you are writing about probably was given ether or another anesthetic gas and the tonsils(and usually the adenoids at the same time) would be cut out(the tonsils are on each side of the throat at the base of the tongue). I don’t know if they cauterized the area to stop the bleeding back then, as they do now.

I guess it was a more serious procedure when she had them because they did not have many antibiotics(maybe sulfa?) and one could die from an infection. The tonsillectomy probably made her breathe better when she had a cough or cold but did not lessen the number or severity of illnesses she developed. Doctors today realize that tonsillectomies are one of those common procedures that were overdone and didn’t really help most patients.

——————

References from the New York Times archive:

Tuesday Oct 28

by


A membership comitte
meeting at Down Town dist.

———–

Matt’s Notes

Much of Papa’s activist energy went toward the Zionist Organization of America, a large group that, as we’ve discussed before, had its headquarters at 114 Fifth Avenue (near 16th Street) but also had numerous chapters, or districts, scattered around the city. The First District, located in downtown Manhattan, had suffered from low membership all year despite Papa’s recruiting efforts, and I assume the meeting of the membership committee he refers to in this post had the revival of the First on its agenda.

It can always be surprising to examine the history of a project or pursuit and realize how long it can really take to get things done, to see how many worries arise, how many plans unfold, how many trails go cold along the way. Individual participants in a large-scale movement, examined day-to-day, can appear to have little effect even as numerous participants’ collective efforts lead to impressive, noticeable progress.

This isn’t a news flash, of course; it’s the whole point of grassroots politics and political activism, but it feels like a fresh thought to me as Papa again brings up this stubborn little Z.O.A. subplot. In the history of the Zionist cause, the fate of the First District of the Z.O.A. probably didn’t matter much, and Papa’s efforts to support it were, I’d wager, less productive than much of his other work. He had, in fact, started writing about the First District’s troubles back in January, and as far as I can tell its situation didn’t improve at all, and maybe it never did.

I find this touching, at this moment, for some reason. Why? Perhaps I’m flooded with a sentimental appreciation for the power of individuals to propel common causes. Or maybe it’s because it’s late October and I know this entry may be Papa’s last about the First District, and though it’s so unremarkable and offhand it becomes, by being last, something bigger, a poignant reminder of how few entries are left, and how scarce and precious Papa’s remaining words really are. Or maybe it’s because Papa, who played such a small part in the Z.O.A., is somehow the same man who plays such a large part in my understanding of happiness, my definition of a life worth living. Perhaps its because the very qualities that allowed him to keep working and believing and dreaming regardless of how small his accomplishments might have been are the very qualities that made him seem so wise and true and patient, so capable of turning a small moment with me, barely worthy of notice, into something so real and memorable and perfect, into something that would survive whatever happened next, into something very much like a victory.

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