Moshe Berson the Smith
Moshe was a well liked Jew. Everyone was fond of him. Perhaps because everyone knew that his wife Libe lived with him like an empress.
And when there is a good father and mother, the children are also good. [Heb: Because when a man is a good husband to his wife and the father guides his children, those who come after are also good.] And so it was indeed. The children were sweet and joyful, Alter, Rivke, Zalman, Zelda, and Hanich.
I do not know when Moshe set up his smithy by my father's house. Perhaps I was not yet born. I recall the smithy, also the little house behind the smithy where they lived. Later on, when Moshe built a house by the smithy, the foreman Chaim Rafael joined them in the house. Chaim himself would carry passengers from and to the railway. Very often he would be sick and would keep to his bed. When the wife asked if they should call Yisrael Levin the surgeon, Chaim said: no need.. The best medicine for him is raspberry juice with tea. That did indeed help.
Moshe was not satisfied with the small room. For his Libe he wanted to erect a wall which would be much larger than the smithy. He also wanted, although he went on Shabbat to shul, not to lose any money. And the only way to realize his ambition was to work hard, and harder. And so he did. Above all in winter, when the days were short there in Disna, Moshe would go to sleep quite early in the evening and get up at 2 or 3 A.M. I can still hear today how he and his worker Itshke would bang on the forge: tick tock tick tock, one two, one two as if they were following the count of a chronometer.
Itshke was the son of Yisrael Miushhke, who drove the coach to and from Borkovich. He worked with Moshe Eisen (the grandfather of our president Mintz). Yisrael Miushke had had four sons and one daughter, a very pretty one. [Heb.: After Itshke went to America, his brother Alter came to work at the forge and after him Hanich.] The eldest son was Leib Beilin (I have already described him earlier). The second was Itshe, who worked under Philip Zameter, when there was a shefah brachah (abundance). Disna was a district capital; the villagers would come there for a patent (deed?). Staying with Hilie Zameter, the patents were received at the Kaznachestve (Treasury), and that was of course close by Hilie's place. And if there was a question, Hilie knew how to resolve it. Villagers would come from Luzhsk, Germanovich, Sharkayshchina, Pohost, and even from Druya. My father's father, Aba from Firobrod, would come each year. He stayed with us. But Hilie had to get the patent.
Yisrael Miushke had a fifth son, who lived in Kharbin. All three brothers and the sister went off to America, but the fourth brother Datshke stayed in Disna. Owned a couple of horses and took passengers to the railway.
When Itshke went off to America, his son Alter helped [at the forge]. And later on, also Hanich.
The part of the wall that went around the smithy stood on posts. For us boys aged 7-8 it opened a new world. We played at khopinkes around the posts and quite often cracked our
p. 74
skulls. That might have bothered some people, children heal up quickly.
At the time Moshe finished his building, Abraham Itshe the miller married off his eldest daughter Henke. And so the dedication of the house was celebrated along with the wedding [in Moshe's house]. As he had not finished the interior walls between the rooms, there was a huge dance hall. This was a great wedding.
Avraham Itshe was a successful contractor. He put on a wedding with a royal hand. He gave his eldest daughter a trousseau fit for the richest housewife in the city. A fur pelerine and a rotonde. The trousseau was purchased from Sarah Dvorah and Zlate Moshe Eis. (Later on they separated and had separate stores. Dovkin and Mints.) So it was already the "custom" with Moshe Eis that one bought a trousseau for one's children, he provided a horse with carriage to be driven by the groom without charge. He even gave for the children a special pair of horses wtih a "lineage". And the children travelled together with the leading married couple from Zadvina to Kichilave. The groom came from Spisa.
The children who were driven by the bridegroom were: Zalman Ber Shenkman, the brother of the bride, Yechiel Grunhaus, Itshke Kozliner, my brother Shlomo, and I. What does it mean? We children felt like our own sister was getting married. Kitkes (twisted bread), cakes, lekach (honey-nut cookies) ... were brought in, enough for a month. Every time we came to Zalman Ber, there was no shortage of teiglach (doughballs), cake, and lekach. Zalman Bers mother had a spirit of gold. She made us feel like her own children.
Lag b'omer, beforehand we children went off to the field, or to Doroshkevitch. On Lag b'omer one did not go to the cheder, and the weather was indeed the finest of the year. The bright Disna sun shone. The sky was luminescent, blue with silver clouds. The trees were in blossom. The pleasant smell of purple lilac with which the branches of the trees abounded. How frolicsome, healthy, and, and happy we children were. Even when we were running around barefott on warm sand.
It was Riva Chanah's office on Lag b'Omer to bake for us children some holiday latkes, and Avraham Itshe would make us feel that we were at home.
Bright shall be his memory!
When Moshe the smith and Mendl the haymaker were fighting the Russo-Japanese War at Abraham Ishe's dinner table, the writer Pesach took no part. He sat day-dreaming, head thrown back, and dreamt of higher spheres. Suddenly he dropped down from the skies back to earth, took hold of himself and with a coloratura-chazan's voice let loose with: Shma kolenu and Al tashlichenu l'eys ziknoh. And "farbisn" with "L'el orech din". The house had fallen silent--what Jewish heart doesn't tremble, when one hears the prayers?
All came together with a feeling like Rosh-Hashanah, when you leave shul. Pesach had reached into the Jewish heart and soul.
Avraham Itshe the Miller's House
The house was open to all. Abraham Itshe and his dear golden wife Riva Chana had three sons and three daughters: Meir, Shmuel Yankl, and Zalman Ber; Henke, Etke, and Feige. The boys' and girls' friends all came to Abraham
p. 75
Itshe's. And on top of that neighbors would come, good friends, and such friends, that knew that at Avraham Itshe's place one would see people. That was the "review stand" for the neighborhood.On Shabbat eve there was really no place to stand. The boys would stuff themselves in a room, the girls in another room. And the others, those who came earlier picked out a place to sit. All the others would stand. Summer time along with all the guests there came the to the miller's Itshe Gotlieb, Shalom Leib, and the subordinates (who had worked for years under Avraham Itshe) were able to find out where on the morrow, Sunday, they would go to work. In Borkovich to Glazken or in Filipove.
The room in which gathered was quite large. It was the living room and dining room. Next to the window, which looked out on the Dvina, there was a large sofa, a large dining room table another sofa.
Along the wall of the room in Yisrael Moshe's time. Pesach the writer sits on the sofa under the wall clock. That was always his reserved spot.
Avraham Itshe always sits on the other sofa by the window, looking out on the Dvina. Next to him, as by right, are seated: Mendl the haymaker, who had his hay and oats business office in a wooden barn in Avraham Itshe's yard. Next to Mendl the haymaker comes Moshe the smith who was a neighbor of Abraham Itshe. Everyone knew that those are their places and nobody would take them earlier.
The others who generally come: Kalman the tailor, Hirshl Itshe, Yehuda Moshe the carpenter, Yehuda Katliner and many others had no predetermined place. One stood and sat where one wished.
The samovar stood on the table and Jews drank tea (chai).
Mendl the hayman and Moshe the smith smoked lulkas. The lulkas were rather long, curved under with a big belly, and on top where the tobacco is placed, they had a tin cover. The two lulkas looked like twins. Both like to talk, and both at the same time take a puff on the lulkas and let out a cloud of smoke, like a chimney.
When the Russo-Japanese war began, the two neighbors Mendl the hayman and Moshe the smith, were not entirely in agreement about the result of the war. One held that Russia was great, and strong. Japan will never defeat Russia. This opinion was to be encountered particularly among the Russian officials in Disna and other cities. "Shapkami zabrosim" (we'll throw them off with our caps) and the other was of the opinion that the course of the war, one defeat after another, showed explicitly that Nikolaika was going to lose the war. And both camped on their positions. Between the habitual guests "factions" had formed--some held, this one is right, while the others thought, the other one is right. This encouraged the military opinions. They had finished drinking tea (since 4 or 5 glasses of tea had already been drunk) and they had started to sketch with their fingers on the table the "corner" in Manchuria, where the Russian troops stood, and the Japanese. When Mendl had depicted the strategy of the Russian army, Moshe pushed away his finger. And when Moshe drew his strategy, Mendl would push away his finger, so that no conclusion could be reached. This went on until Russia had won. Then with a stab of a finger
p. 76
Russia lost. And the same happened to the other faction. And what is more, they got excited, all the more thay puffed on their lulkas, and when they spoke out, it was not like a chimney, but from a proper steam bath.
And the samovar looked on as the two neighbors, good friends, pull each other around ... it cooked like a brigand...
I have also sent a photostat of a letter, that my niece Anat Zimerman's father wrote in 1905, as a soldier in Manchuria. He wrote: Fonya (the Russians) only knows how to drink Jewish blood, but here they take cover very "skoro". Take care of themselves and leave the soldiers to fend for themselves. Under this leadership, it is no wonder that a fly like Japan defeated the great Russian bear. And when it became known that Fonya had lost Port Arthur, then l'yehudim haytah orah v'simchah v'sason vi'akar
In all businesses, in all workshops from the men tailors, around all tables of the tailors' wives, Rivah Bruch's table (the mother of Chana Kozliner) and Elke Prade's table, and my father's business. In summer the windows were open. On the boulevard, on the spot where the youth gathered, we heard people singing with merry hearts.
"Drink bird, the tavern beckons
Port Arthur's time is reckoned
Port Arthur has been taken
They drove you out, forsaken
Oy vey, Nicky the Second!"
Blind Yisrael
When and how he became blind, I do not know. He stayed with his brother Itshe the mlamed, who lived with my father in the crypt. My father's house had two stories. The first story was built of tile. And the second was made of logs. We called it the vault because it was two staircases down from the street level. There were six such houses like my father's in all of Disna: (1) my father's, (2) Avraham Itshe the miller's, (3) Yisrael Moshe Greiniman's, which was wall to wall against Avraham Itshe's house, and yard to yard with Zalman the shochet's house, just a tall fence(?) separated the two yards from each other. When my mother would give me the caprut erev yom kippur to take over to Zalman the shochet, I would look in to see how Zalman the shochet had made a cut over the chicken's throat with his chalaf, the chicken would run off as if from fire, would run up to the fence and fall down; (4)Gite Motshe's house next to Chaim Dod the klezmer's house, (5) the Baron's house and (6) Chaim Mote the miller's house, next to Chatshe the furrier's. Avraham Chaim, Shmuel Late's the tailor by the market, also put up a house like that, but in his the first floor was even with the street level.
When Yisrael the blind appeared in the street, the young boys attacked him, pulling the one coat tail, then the other.
Yisrael war a long caftan, like most of the Jews in Disna, and also carried a long pole, pokes around with it on all sides crying "Egyptians, get away!" There are also young girls in the street. Chana Kozliner, Chashke Bruch the smith's, Sarahke Moshe the kettle-maker's (whom everybody was afraid of), Chana Mendl the haymaker's, my sister Chanke and Sarahke Yashe Rachmiel the cobbler's. Girls are more dignified than boys. The boys were Yechiel, Hilie Zameter's grandson who is a medical doctor in America, I saw him 35 years ago); Zalman Ber, Avraham Itshe the miller's; Itshe Kozliner,
p. 77
Chane Kozliner's brother, who lives in Odessa; my brother Shlomo, and I. But my brother Shlomo was two and a half years younger than I, and he didn't participate in our games. But to creep under Yisrael's stick and get in a knock, that was his own cruelty.
But it happened that Yisrael would appear in the street when the children were still asleep, Yisrael would cry out "Egyptians, where are you?" When the children heard that Yisrael was there, in a flash they came out of the houses from the four corners of the earth, not wearing shoes in the summer, in a second they had shaken him by the coat tail and he had cried "Egyptians, get thee hence!". Yisrael said that the children wanted his world to be darker.
Simchat Torah in Disne
Half of Disna was unpaved. So at the time of Simchat Torah there was enough mud, one shouldn't dance in mud.
That was in the last years of the last century. With the arrival of the present century, the situation changed completely. Merriment and sason v'simchah b'simchat torah was wholly different.
The frequent pogroms in different cities and towns, the defeat, mafalah, of the Russian troops on the front, the rise of the revolutionary movement, had a strong effect on Jewish customs. Jews had joy in simchat torah, also made kiddush, and nothing more than kiddush. All of it at home. There was never any dancing in the streets and in the mud.
In such a short time, just a few years, we grew older. And we had started to act like old dignified Jews.
At the end of the 19th century I was a boy aged 12, born June 5, 1888. But the merriest Simchat Torah's were the ones when I was 8 or 9 years old.
My father, like others of the chaverah g'mara, had also joined the chaverah mishniut. On Shmini Atzeret and Simchat Torah they went for a brachah at both societies. Indeed they made so many brachot that nobody could tell arur Haman from blessed Mordechai.
The two days were too short to go make a bracha at everybody's. Each one wanted the others to come to him at least once a year. One certainly had to go to the gemara-niks society, since after all they belonged to both societies. And they had been there so many years. They sat three hours in one house, then afterward off to another society's house. Moshke Chaim Iser the shopkeeper's, Mosheke Leib Arke's who was an apple dealer, Shimeon Itshke and Berke Marinov Benyamin the wine merchants, and I (my brother Shlomo was too little) would go with my father wherever they went. The children did not sit at the table, but every boy stood behind to his father. On the table there were many good things: cakes, teiglach, tsimmes, liqueurs, as by a royal hand. The fathers sang, drank, said "l'chaim". Most of all tfilot were sung by various chazans. Particularly the Rabbi's Melody. We children with our ringing little voices help out a great deal and ornamented the choir.
From time to time our fathers, back on earth, gave the children a piece of cake, a piece of lekach etc.
Meir Mendl hat once davened in Getsl's shul, next to Pesach's shul. I was one of his assistants. Meir Mendl told my father, that I would some day be a good chazan. His prophecy was not
p. 78
fulfilled, nor my father's ambition that I should be a rabbi.
When they came to my father's, they didn't get away so quickly. His comrades liked my father very much. They came to his house more than to all the other comrades. At his place, when the comrades had come, they rejoiced and said "l'chaim, Yisrael". He got all the more l'chaim's, and my mother was the same. The more they said "l'chaim", the more kuglach and blintzes they got.
All were now full of simchah In the middle of it all Frume Freide the fishmonger came in to our kitchen, took the broom for cleaning the hearth, and riding on the broom she rode around the room to the chasids. With one hand she held the broom, with the other drove the horse cryig "Neigh, neigh". The chasids laughed and howled and began to pound on the table. It looked like the dishes were dancing with the forks. Frume Freide made everyone laugh. My father, said something to her, she answered: go on, Yisrael, "You're just a putz!" The chasids started stamping their feet. They said, she is Miriam the Prophet of Disna.
When my father came home on Simchat Torah at night, he was so hoarse from singing for two days, that it took him a few days before he could speak.
At Avraham Itshke's on Simchat Torah it was also merry. Avraham Itshe also liked to have people come to hm. They put strong drink on the table with an open hand. And Riva Chana also provided kugel and all expensive foods. Hirshl Itshes left Avraham Itshes house barely able to stand on his own two feet.
The waterboy drove up with the two-wheeled dvukolka He took a bucket of water into the house. Hirshl gets up on the dvukolka and sits on the water barrel. The horse knows, that when the water boy sits on the barrel, they can move on. After a couple of steps Hirshl fell down. They all came running, lifted him up and were worried about what had happened. But as soon as he was back up on his feet, he went off wobbling from side to side, singing: Hayom Tamtani, like nothing at all had happened.
Simchat Toral was always cloudy with rain. With the arrival of the 20th century--our hearts were like the weather.
Avraham'l Leishzka
He had his inn on Groyser Gas (Broad Street) opposite the gentile pharmacy. The other pharmacies were Jewish, belonging to Fradke Shulman, Itshe Neustadt the deaf one and one more pharmacy by the kerosene dealer, opposite Moshe Kopel's ironware shop.
Avfraham'l, like all fine Disna Jews, liked to say a brachah for everything. But more than other brachahs, he liked the brachah "She ha-col". But a Jew is not a drunk--how does one drink alone? He would go to his mirror, say the brachah, and say "l'chaim Reb Avraham", and so they say, he would return to it a few times a day.
His son Zalman brought a lot of furniture from Riga for the inn and turned it into a hotel. He did not stay long in Disna.
The Karaite Inspector
The Karaites say that they are the true Jews. They keep torat masah pashuto ci'mshmao. But we
p. 79
Jews have considered them true gentiles. Under the Tsarist power they have not had a tachum hamoshav, like us Jews. No pogroms were made against them. They were not subjected to decrees, persecution, and the expulsion from the villages. This all proves, that they are good gentiles.
Why should it not be, the inspector was friendly to the Jews and even like Jewish food. He was quite a fat man. It appears he didn't get fat by accident.
He was very friendly toward the Jewish horse dealers. They would bring him chalah on Friday, gefilte fish; on Purim--hamentaschen; Pesach--matzoh, wine, kremslech (potato pancakes) fried in honey, and all the Passover food.
On a market day they would bring a lot of horses to the market. Once a gentile started to yell, "Moi kon, moi kon" (my horse!). That a couple of nights ago they had stolen his horse. There was a tumult. People, farmers, ran in from all sides. What's the fuss? The gentile sticks by the horse. "Moi kon".
A city policeman came and took away the horse, the Jew and the gentil to the Inspector. The Inspector's office was not far from the market, across from the old Tchaina. The Inspector ordered the horse into the stall and the Jew with the gentile were told to come back in the morning at 10 AM.
In the Inspector's stable there were always a lot of horses. Because there was a lot of dealing in stolen horses.
In the morning at 10 AM the Jew came back with the gentile. The Inspector says: "come into the stable". He asks the gentile: "which is your horse?" The gentile looks for his horse among the horses, but his horse is not there. The gentile -- seems to have lost his tongue.
The Inspector, with a stern voice: "which horse is yours?". The gentile made a salaam and can't get a word out. Aha! says the Inspector, drank liquor at night, got drunk. Made a mistake on an honest man. You, better drag yourself off from there, before I lock you up.
The gentile, what a shame, drags himself off. Makes a bow and looks-- back, to see that nobody's running after him. Mumbles something. "It's true, I drank a little liquor for my sorrows. But I can swear, the horse was mine."
That such a fellow was in the Russian administration.
Anshel the Vintner
He was called Anshel the Vintner, even though he didn't make any wine, but in his younger days he had made a bit of wine. Now he kept the name "Vintner", just because he furnished the wine to the 5 bet midrash in our town for kiddush and havdalah. Also to a few nicely comfortable householders, who can permit themselves to make a kiddush over wine.
Anshel borrows the wine from Benyamin the vintner. Benyamin the vintner was an erudite Jew. But what is God's is God's--and what is man's is man's. He had his own house, also a nice tailor shop in a row of shops for rent. Every year Benyamin travelled to the Nishni-Novgorod fair to buy grapes and around Chanukah there w already were a couple of Jews standing in the large cellar and chopping up the grapes in large wooden vats. And pressed out the wine and poured it into large barrels. Then at Pesach there was already wine with the flavor of the garden of Eden and what sheich kashrut (?) was nothing but the best of the best.
Anshel had seen in later years
p. 80
that all the grief and running around to earn some money, is vanity of vanities, because he saw that the world is just an entryway and one should prepare "provisions for the road" only by study and davening with great attention. But one may eat something. He got himself the provision of wine to the shuls. First, it is a mitzvah because over the wine he brings, they make the borei pri hagofen. Secondly, he did not need to spend too much time over it. On Friday just a few hours and he had something to make Shabbat.
Anshel himself was a small thin man with a pointy beard and long peot. The robe he wore was long and broad on him. It would go up one skirt over the other and with his left hand he held it so that it wouldn't open. He walked steadily, rapidly, and a bit bent over, so that his head was forward and the body followed it. And he went even faster when he was going to daven in the shul.
Anshel would not leave the shul before 1 or 2 PM. When everyone in the shul had davened, hurrying to their daily occupations, Anshel would go to the ark, the tallit over his head, rolled his right hand into a fist, and tapping on the metal of the ark as a tune for his davening:
-- Hodu lh' karau bshemo--
Hodiau be-amim aleilotav --
Shiru lo zamru lo --
-- Sichu bchol niflaotav --
So he sang the whole davening, and in shul Anshel forgot himself and the whole world. But when he was finished with the prayers, and the ass wants after all to go eat something: for Shabbat and Sunday that God sent a little wine from what he sold, but the other days of the week were not so good for him.
Anshel could go in to any householder at home and they would feed him with all honor.
But Anshel wouldn't do that. He would rather go to his friend Zalman the shochet, and borrow a little loaf of bread and go home to his own table to eat bread with salt and afterward make a blessing with great care: "v'achlat v'shabat v'brachat".
Anshel was a unusual man in anyone's house. Because they were chasidim of the Shiratiner Rabbi and also my father was from the same society, Friday night after kabalat shabat Zalman the shochet would chazar chasidut. And when there was a seder my father would go out with Anshel to get money for the Rabbi. Zalman's house was in the same neighborhood as ours and when I was still a small boy my father took me a few times to hear the chasidim. As I still recall Zalman spoke with great enthusiasm about the four elements: fire, water, wind, and dust-- how it all is an ex nihilo. Also about katigor and sanegor ("accusation and defense") from the family "shel ma'alah". After the chasidut all were very inspired that Zalman had laid out for them the foundations of the heavens, and Anshel went to my father and said: Yisraelke, who can encompass the size of creation? And when the night of Simchat Beit Hashoavah Anshle sat at the table with all the great chasidim and was in great joy. And when all the chasidim began to sing the Rabbi's Melody, Anshel threw back his head, eyes close, and with his fist beat on the table, so that the dishes and forks danced to the Rabbi's Nigun, so Anshl lived more in the spirit than in materiality.
The holidays were gone and where there is no borrowing and lending, one wants to eat, so one must go again to Zalman. Anshel goes in: "Zalmanke, I'm starving, I want to eat." Zalman calls his wife Sarah Batyah, and she brings out a little loaf of bread.
p. 81
Anshel stashed the bread under one fold, with the other raised, and as usual held down with the left hand so it will stay in place and the bread not fall out, and Anshel went on his way home in good spirits. A little time goes by, he wants to eat again, Anshel goes back to Zalman. Anshel comes in and says nothing. Zalman goes up to him. Nu, Anshel, what do you want to say? Anshel raises his hand high: "What shall I say Zalmenke? I am starving, I want to eat." Zalman smiles: "Goodness, Anshel! You starve and you starve, and you're still with us". "Listen, Zalmanke, to tell the truth, I would have starved long ago, but each time you give me a little loaf of bread, you save me nonetheless."
And that's how it went from one year to the next.
Disna Surnames
In Disna, as in all Jewish cities and town, there were men, women, with a name and a surname, So we had a king, a baron, and goats, male and female.
As our Kings were earthly, they got married and hat little kings. I don't think I can give an accounting for all of our kings. I well remember Moshe the kettleman, who worked with his brother Michal (if I am not mistaken). Moshe the kettleman lived between Moshe the smith and Baruch the smith. They were artists. Their utensils, which they made of copper, could have been put on display. Copper pots, pans, dishes, chalak's, washing cups with one or two handles. Who does not recall taking down the chalak on sabbath day, and how one would perk up with a little glass of tea after the cholent.
In Disna Zalman the baker came from Riga. He opened his bakery with Yisrael Moshe in the vault. His bread earned a name for itself. Once a Jewess was carrying a small loaf of bread and whe was asked where she bought the bread, and she said: at Zalman's the rier's. His sitniks (fine Russian bread) were fit for an emperor. He did not stay long in Disna. Being used to life in Riga, he went back there.
Since Zalman had gone off, Moshe the kettleman's brother wanted to become a bread baker. He had a house on the corner between Torgov St. and the street leading to the well. His bread was also well known. When asked where she had bought her bread, a lady answered: At the king's. So that was his name.
A third brother Melech had a successful glass store on Broad St. (Groyser Gas). I have already written about the Baron.
There was also a goat (Zieg, she-goat), a good business woman. She hat a tailor's shop next to Benyamin the vintner. Once a woman had put on a new dress and she was asked "Where did you get the merchandise?" she answered: at the goat. Nobody knew her real name.
The "Goat" lived next to Baruch Yosel Feikin, by the Disienka.
Baruch Yosl Feikin, a Jewish trader, also had a large shop of general wares. Baruch Yosel was also a fervent chasid. When a shliach drabenu would come to Disna, he would often come on Friday night to preach to the chasids at Baruch Yosel's. My father often went there.
Baruch Yosel did a lot of business. The conncetion to the ferry on the Disienka was not far from his building.
The two largest shops in Disna were Baruch Yosel Feikin's and Keile Shterne Tovkin's. Keile Shterne's was
p. 82
near to Moshe Eis the coachman. Later on Nachum Kolmanovich the lawyer bought it, and the State Pedagogical Institute was there.
My older sister Simka served Keile Shterne for some years.
My sister Simka (the mother of Chanuch Vayspapier) was very pretty. Her cheeks and lips were naturally ruddy. She never needed to use makeup. She would bring various products to the officials and also to the rich people, who could afford to buy from Madame Tovkin.
My father worked for several offices and officials, from his own home.
The marshall of the Military Institute was Terebiniev, who had married but had no children. He proposed to my father to buy his daughter "Shima". Then she wouldn't have to serve at Tovkin's. My father told him, that since she was serving "what's the difference?" For Jews "serving" (dinen) meant being a house wife. My father came home laughing. The marshall bought a village girl and she lived with him in "Roskosh" (luxury).
In Disna we also had a male goat (Bock). The Bock had lived in Shvinsk St. (Swine St.), in the neighborhood where my sister Dina Shuchman lived. To tell the truth, I don't really recall the Bock, but I recall his son-in-law quite well. He went to school with me in the Shvinsk shul.
The Bock's son-in-law was a "Magid". In Disna as in other cities, where Jews could study, he had done no preaching. We would go off to far away places, where the Jewish Nikolaevski soldiers were. For them he was a good magid. So he would preach the tradition and be well paid for it.
Every Pesach he would come home to his wife and child and each time he came, he would give to the shul something, chomshim or sidurim or Ki>tehilim's. Between minchah l'maariv he would go around and get into discussions with people, and since he was a magid, he was talkative. He would relate news from far away places.
Az er hat geendikt un s'iz nor geven tsayt tsu maariv, felgt andere yidn dertseyln vunder masah's.
Jewish Thieves
The last section was translated in From a Ruined Garden, Kugelmass and Boyarin, p. 22. We give that version here:
A man was relating the marvel of the rebe. "A rich man, a merchant, became ill. He was an eminent chasid at the rebe's table. He complained that he would not be able to see the rebe. It was winter. They sent a non-Jew with a horse and sleigh to fetch the rebe. The rebe put on a large fur and settled into the sleigh. When they passed through a forest during the night, Jewish robbers emerged from the forest and demanded money. Discerning the danger, the rebe raised his eyes skyward and made a blessing. All the robbers fell in the snow."
"So", the other man asks, "so why did the rebe have a broken nose?"
The first Jew replies, "Because one of the robbers was deaf."
We Jews had nothing to apologize for compared to other nations. We had Jewish horse thieves and Jewish robbers. Real Jewish robbers. But the only difference between the Jewish robbers and, forgive the expression, the non-Jewish ones was that the Jewish robbers wanted only money, while the non-Jewish ones would take your money and your life.
All week the Jewish robbers would roam the woods. They would emerge from the woods to attack a sleigh. But when a widow was traveling to the rebe they would give her some money. However, when they spotted a merchant, it was "Hand it over!". And if you fought them they took your money and also broke your bones.
On Friday they would return home and give their wives money to prepare the Sabbath. They themselves would go to the bath house and on Friday night to services, just like all good pious Jews.
