Since the day my meals began to grow less, I sit less in the Beit Midrash. Whether I buy my fruit from the market or buy it from the Gentile, I am busy shopping for it and cannot spend much time in study.
So long as a man sits in the Beit Midrash he has nothing but the Torah and Israel and the Holy One, blessed be He. But as soon as he goes out, there is no Torah and the people of Israel are crushed and hard pressed, and even the Almighty Himself has, as it were, contracted Himself, and His Name is not noticed in His world.
I will leave alone all the Gentiles in my town, whether they were born in Szibucz or whether the Almighty brought them there from somewhere else, and mention only Anton Jacobowitz, alias Pan Jacobowitz, alias Antos Agopowitz, who in his youth was a pork-butcher and now in his old age is a respectable citizen, rich and with much property. His oldest son is a priest and teaches the catechism; his second is a lieutenant; and his daughters are married, one to a Polish judge and one to a noble, well-bred officer, who wears a cavalry coat. When I left Szibucz and went up to the Land of Israel, Anton was already well known in the town and popular among the people; he talked Yiddish and spiced his conversation with the Holy Tongue, and scoffed at the ignorant among us, who had neither Torah nor worldly wisdom. They told many jokes about Anton, and here is one. Once he saw a Jew, an ignoramus, on the morning of the Tish’a B’Av fast with his prayer shawl and tefillin satchel under his arm. “Goy!” said Anton, “Don’t you know that you don’t put on the tefillin at the Morning Service on Tish’a B’Av?”
When the war came and the Russians occupied Szibucz, and all the leading citizens fled, Antos was able to make friends with the officers and became the right hand of the commander, Colonel Gavrilo Vassilevitch Strachilo. They laid their hands on the property of the Jews who had fled from the fury of the oppressor and transferred the furniture and the goods to Russia. There were no Jews in the town who could challenge what he was doing, and as for the Polish and Austrian officials, who remained without food or shelter, Antos used to feed them in secret, so that if the Austrians should return they would protect him. So they took heed of his gifts and ignored his deeds. He would supply food to the army and travel to Astrakhan to bring back dried fish for the fast days.
The children of the rich Jews, whose leftovers Antos used to lick, were no longer prominent in the town — not as in the days gone by, when most of the town was populated with Jews. Sebastian Montag, our leading citizen, died in Warsaw, on foreign soil, and his relatives could not afford to bring his coffin to Szibucz to bury him among the graves of his fathers. True, they paid him great honor in his death, for they mentioned the great deeds he had done for Poland, by virtue of which he had been elected to the Sejm, but he had not managed to go to most of the sessions: sometimes because his shoes were torn, and sometimes because he could not find a bite to eat in the morning. In Sebastian Montag’s place sits a Gentile, an evil man and an enemy of Israel. His deputy is like him, and so are all the other officials. All that is left to the Jews in Szibucz is to swallow their spittle and pay taxes.
There are some people in Szibucz who envy their brethren who have gone to other places. What have their brethren found that is to be envied? They have certainly not found a golden kid carrying almonds and raisins — or even a dry crust of bread. So why should they be envied? But a man who finds things hard in his own place thinks other places are paradise, and even those who have left Szibucz write about Szibucz as if it were a paradise. Perhaps, indeed, Szibucz is really a paradise — and if not for the Jews, then for the Gentiles.
Every time Pan Jacobowitz meets me, he buttonholes me and starts a conversation. “With you, my friend,” says Pan Jacobowitz, “one can talk a word or two of Yiddish, for all those Jews have caught the ways of Vienna and talk half-German.” And since one can talk a word of Yiddish with me, he goes on talking. He sighs for the honor of the town, which has declined, and for the young Jews who do not know their Maker. They and their fathers, says Antos, are prepared to sell their God for a copper, but then their fathers’ God was worth a copper, while to the sons He is not worth even that much.
Antos speaks Yiddish in the way they used to speak it in Szibucz before the people were exiled and took on the ways of Vienna. And he tells me of the honor of his wealth and the glory of his sons. “My eldest,” says Antos, “is a rabbi and presides in the yeshiva, and one son-in-law is a dayan, and scholars crowd around his door. A frequent visitor in my house is Professor Lukaciewicz. He always comes to me,” says Antos, “on our Sabbath for the Closing Meal of the Holy Day, to eat pigs-feet with cabbage, and blood sausages, and liverwurst with us. This obstinate old man,” says Antos, “is a great glutton, heaven help us, and as he eats — blast him — so he drinks. He drinks, blast him, heaven help us, a whole vatful of Christian wine without getting drunk.”
Besides this Lukaciewicz, another frequent visitor in Antos’ house was the Russian Colonel Strachilo, who was in command in Szibucz during the occupation. After going half around the world and crossing Siberia and America he came to Szibucz. He was an old man with a bristling, erect mustache, tall, upright, and thin, and he dragged himself along leaning on his stick. Times have changed since Antos used to stand before him like a servant before his master. Now Antos is a respectable citizen, with much wealth and property, and Colonel Strachilo gets a pension from him. It is not enough to live on or to die on either, but Strachilo can’t be too fussy, for whoever has the power is entitled to do as he likes. Twice a month Pan Jacobowitz’s second son comes to Szibucz, to pay his respects to his father and eat whatever is cooking in his mother’s pots. Whenever he comes, Colonel Strachilo and Professor Lukaciewicz and two or three other gentlemen come to show him honor, and they sit together eating and drinking and reveling, and planning how to harm the Jews. However, all credit to Antos for not taking part in their plots. “Leave the Jews alone, poor creatures,” says he. “They’re more dead than alive; they haven’t the strength to kill a flea.”
Pan Jacobowitz is perfectly right: the Jews in Szibucz are more dead than alive, and they have no strength at all. First came the war and uprooted them, and they did not take root anywhere else. Then their chattels were taken from them. Then their money was taken. Then their children were taken. Then their homes were taken. Then their livelihoods were taken. And then they were given taxes and levies, and where should the Jews get strength?
Daniel Bach hobbles along with his stick and drags along his artificial leg. For several months no one has come in to buy wood, and no woman in labor has called for his wife. And there is another trouble in his house: trouble with his daughter. True, Erela is earning enough to keep herself and help her parents, but she is a grown girl and there are no bridegrooms to be seen. We thought at first that Yeruham Freeman would marry Erela, but he went and married Rachel.
Then that shopkeeper who went bankrupt (and we had thought there was going to be a new rich man in Szibucz!) had all his trouble for nothing. Riegel the agent’s lawyer, who had already helped Riegel to get rid of his wife, laid hands on the shopkeeper and got the merchandise out of the possession of the shopkeeper’s wife, and I’m afraid she may go to prison.
Their shop is closed; no one enters, no one leaves. After they had taken out their merchandise in secret, the authorities came and put a clay seal on the lock, so that no one should imagine that they had closed their shop because of some celebration. Their shop is closed — though all the other shops, which are open, have no customers either. Since there are no customers, they do not bring new merchandise, and since they bring no merchandise, Yehuda has nothing to do either — this is the Yehuda who used to bring merchandise for the shopkeepers from Lvov.