The Glatstein Chronicles (60 page)

p. 139
   The novels of French writer Joseph Marie Eugène Sue (1804–1857), particularly
Mystères de Paris
(Mysteries of Paris), were hugely popular, including among Jewish readers.

p. 140
   Both Guy de Maupassant (1850–1893) and Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) used Paris as the location for much of their fiction.

p. 140
   The Café Dome in Montparnasse was a favored meeting place of American expatriate writers, artists, and intellectuals.

p. 140
   The poet Haim Nahman Bialik (1873–1934) was one of the leading figures of the modern Hebrew renaissance. He died on July 4, 1934.

p. 141
   Yehuda (Judah) Halevi (c. 1075–c. 1141) was a Spanish Jewish philosopher and poet. He is best known as a poet for his “Songs of Zion,” about which one of his translators, T. Carmi, wrote, “No Hebrew poet since the Psalmists had sung the praises of the Holy Land with such passion.”

p. 143
   There were several conflicts about language in Palestine of the 1920s and 1930s, including over the role of Hebrew as the national language of the Jewish homeland, and the adoption of the Sephardic, or “eastern” pronunciation as opposed to the Ashkenazic or European.

p. 167
   This image of emptying the pockets evokes the New Year ritual of
tashlikh,
in which Jews empty their pockets into a naturally flowing body of water, symbolically casting their sins into the sea.

p. 167
   Echoes Psalm 137, in which the poet vows never to forget Jerusalem.

p. 167
   A makeshift dwelling that Jews build for the harvest festival of Sukkoth, the sukkah is often used as metaphor for material insubstantiality.

p. 185
   Buchlerner in Yiddish means something like “he who studies books.”

p. 186
   The Biblical Esau, twin brother of Jacob, here represents a generic Gentile alternative to Judaism. The “man in the skullcap” insists that drinking must be sanctified, serve a higher purpose.

p. 187
   Havdalah, the ceremony at the end of the Sabbath that marks its separation from the rest of the week, includes a blessing over wine.

p. 192
   
L’Arlésienne
is a suite by Georges Bizet to accompany a play of the same name by Alphonse Daudet.

p. 193
   Fountain of Love: the Yiddish uses the Polish phrase
źród
ł
o mi
ł
o
ś
ci
.

p. 194
   Israel Ben Eliezer (1698–1760), known as the Ba’al Shem Tov or Master of the Good Name, is the founder of Hasidic Judaism, a movement that changed the primary emphasis from study to direct apprehension of God and joyful celebration of His universe.

p. 196
   Observant Jewish women did not show their own hair after marriage.

p. 197
   The Cossack tribes of what are now Ukraine and Belarus were famous for their skills as horsemen and soldiers.

p. 197
   The Torah is said to contain 613 mitzvot, or commandments, which consist of prescriptions and interdictions.

p. 200
   The wife of Lot in Genesis 19 is turned to salt when she looks back at the City of Sodom that they are leaving.

p. 200
   Prince Jósef Poniatowski (1763–1813), brother of the last king of Poland, Stanisław. August Poniatowski distinguished himself in one of the battles of the Polish-Russian war of 1792.

p. 202
   The patriarch Abraham negotiates with the sons of Heth, or Hittites, to secure a burial place for his wife Sarah in Genesis 23. Ephron is their chief negotiator.

p. 203
   After the passage in Genesis 23:1, “These were the years of the life of Sarah.”

p. 204
   Colloquial for the Russians. Glatstein’s father had been called up for temporary service in the tsar’s army at a time when Lublin was under Russian rule.

p. 206
   Meyer London (1871–1926), Socialist Party representative elected to the United States House of Representatives from his Lower East Side district in 1914.

p. 208
   Opening line of famous Yiddish lullaby written by Abraham Goldfaden for his play
Shulamis.

p. 209
   Passover is spring festival, Sukkot, or Tabernacles, is autumn harvest festival.

p. 210
   Apparent reference to ladder of Genesis 28:12, where Jacob sees angels ascending and descending.

p. 214
   The war between Russia and Japan from February 1904 to September 1905 was fought mostly in Manchuria, and was sometimes called the Manchurian War.

p. 215
   Richard Corey, eponymous hero of poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869–1935), is thought to be a successful young man until his suicide forces a reappraisal.

p. 217
   Balaam, Numbers 22–24, is sent to curse Israel but after God’s repeated intervention ends by pronouncing this blessing, which is traditionally recited by Jews upon entering the synagogue.

p. 218
   Menahem David ben Isaac, who bore the honorific title “Maharam” Tiktin, was a Polish rabbi of the sixteenth century. Abraham Abele Gombiner (c. 1633–c. 1683), known by the title of his commentary, Magen Abraham, was a Polish rabbi and Talmudic scholar.

p. 219
   Lulav is the palm branch used ceremoniously on Sukkot.

p. 222
   The Saxon Garden was a public park founded in Lublin in 1837.

p. 223
   Cholent is a stew baked overnight in a slow oven, usually served on the Sabbath when fire cannot be turned either on or off.

p. 224
   The feldsher, or barber-surgeon, usually had basic medical knowledge but no formal training.

p. 226
   From
treyf,
which means not kosher, comes
trefniak,
one who doesn’t keep kosher.

p. 226
   A pogrom was perpetrated against the Jews of Kalisz by local residents in 1919.

p. 227
   A symbolic representation of a fence to mark out the area within which objects may be carried on a Sabbath without a breach of Jewish law.

p. 227
   Baba Bathra is the third tractate of the Talmud, which deals with the laws of damages.

p. 227
   The gomel blessing, “Blessed are You, Lord, our God, King of the Universe, who bestows good things on the unworthy, and has bestowed on me every goodness,” is recited in recognition of salvation from illness or danger.

p. 227
   Bzhezin and łódź are cities in central Poland.

p. 227
   Rabbi Israel Hildesheimer (1820–1899), university-trained scholar and rabbi who became the leader of Orthodox Jewry in Germany.

p. 228
   Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev (see Book One, note for page 110) addressed God in the familiar second person singular, as
du.

p. 229
   All the cited books are modern historical renditions of ancient biblical and rabbinic texts and legends, some in scholarly and others in fictional form.
The Sages of Israel
(
Toldot gedoley yisroel
), by Solomon Judah Leib Rapoport, applied New Critical methods to the representation of rabbinic figures.
Sins of the Samaritans
(
Ashmot shomron
),
The Hypocrite
(
Ayit tsavua
), and
The Love of Zion
(
Ahavat tsion
) are novels by the Hebrew writer Abraham Mapu (1808–1867) that were very popular in their time.

p. 230
   Heinrich Graetz (1817–1891) wrote a comprehensive history of the Jews and taught history at the Jewish Theological Seminary in Breslau.

p. 230
   
Lump
and
Schacherjude,
German derogatory terms for a boor, a person of low status, and a Jewish haggler.

p. 230
   
Kiddush
is the blessing recited over wine at the start of the Sabbath meal.

p. 230
   Sir Moses Haim Montefiore (1784–1885), renowned Jewish financier and philanthropist.

p. 231
   
Nathan the Wise,
by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–1781), is a drama about an enlightened Jew, apparently based on the figure of the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, calling for religious tolerance and mutual respect.

p. 231
   Steinman is describing the ritual of kapparot, in which the sins of a person are symbolically transferred to a fowl that is swung around the head three times and designated the atonement sacrifice—which is then given to the poor for food.

p. 232
   Dating from biblical times, the firstborn son is redeemed from a member of the priesthood. This is now done by symbolic payment. That Steinman performed this ceremony would mean that he was a Kohen or descendant of the priesthood. Hoshana Raba is the seventh day of Sukkot, marked by a special synagogue service.

p. 232
   The ram’s horn, or shofar, is blown on the Days of Awe, on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Steinman is describing a community that has lost the meaning of the ceremonies that it observes.

p. 235
   Xanthippe, wife of Socrates, was reputed to be argumentative. Her name is used as a synonym for shrewishness.

p. 236
   Sabbatai Zvi (1626–1676), Jewish mystic and rabbi, who proclaimed himself the Messiah and attracted many followers in his native Turkey and across Europe. The movement collapsed after his conversion to Islam in 1666.

p. 236
   See Book One, note for page 96. Before immigrating to America where he became a playwright, Gordin founded the Biblical Brotherhood, as described here.

p. 237
   Jacob Priluki, Yelisov, Portugalev, and Rabinovich were leaders of several branches of the Brotherhood.

p. 238
   The Khazars were a Turkic seminomadic people living in central Asia. In the seventh century they founded a polity on the Caspian Sea which later adopted Judaism as its religion.

p. 238
   Eldad Hadani was a Jewish traveler of the ninth century who professed to have lived among the Lost Tribes of Israel. Hasdai Ibn Shaprut (c. 915–c. 990?), physician and minister at the Spanish Muslim court, exchanged letters with the head of the Khazar kingdom.

p. 239
   Theodor Herzl (1860–1904) was the Austro-Hungarian Jewish journalist and political leader who founded the modern Zionist movement in 1897.

p. 239
   Leon Pinsker (1821–1891) made out the case for Jewish “autoemancipation” in an 1882 pamphlet by that name. He founded the Hovevey Zion (Lovers of Zion) movement, which encouraged the building of settlements in the Land of Israel.

p. 241
   Swiss city that served as site of the first Zionist Congress, 1897.

p. 250
   In Genesis 39 Joseph is rescued from his Ishmaelite captors by Potiphar, who sets him in charge of his household. Joseph resists the advances of Potiphar’s wife.

p. 256
   
Di Shvue
(The vow, 1900) is a play by Jacob Gordin. Esther Rachel Kaminska (1870–1925) was one of the leading actresses and directors of the Yiddish stage.

p. 257
   
Di kishefmakherin
(The witch) is a much-performed operetta by Abraham Goldfaden.
Shulamith,
a play about star-crossed lovers, Shulamith and Absalom, contains what became the best known Yiddish lullaby, “Raisins and Almonds,” with the opening line “In a corner room of the Holy Temple … ”

p. 259
   Jews referred to Jesus by other names, Yoshke Pandre or Yosl Panderik, for example.

p. 260
   “Woman of Valor,” concluding section of Book of Proverbs, traditionally recited on Sabbath eve.

p. 263
   Alexander Moissi (1879–1935), famous European actor who championed modern dramas of Strindberg, Chekhov, and others.

p. 263
   Babbes—old women, or midwives.

p. 264
   The familiar hymn “Ya ribon olam v’olmaya, Ant hu malke melech malchaya … ” (O God, who created all things, King of Kings, Thy praises shall I recount morning and night).

p. 266
   The midnight service, Tikkun chatzot, a Jewish recital of lamentation commemorating the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.

p. 271
   The etrog, a kind of citrus fruit, was one of the four species that represent the Temple offerings on the holiday of Sukkot, or Tabernacles. It was preserved in a special box to keep it from being damaged.

p. 283
   The Polish Socialist Party was a major left-wing party created in 1892 that drew Jews into its platform of workers’ rights. The General Jewish Labor Union of Lithuania, Poland, and Russia—known as the Jewish Labor Bund, founded in 1897—maintained that the Jewish working class had to begin by organizing its own ranks.

p. 290
   See note for page 236.

p. 290
   Jacob Frank (1726–1791), a Polish Jewish merchant who claimed to be the messiah. He preached a form of religion that resembled Christianity and finally urged his followers to convert to Catholicism.

p. 291
   See Book One, note for page 9.

p. 292
   The mezuzah is a parchment with quotations from the Bible. Enclosed in a box, it is placed on the right doorpost of Jewish homes.

p. 297
   Count Leopardi (1798–1837), Italian poet and thinker.

p. 297
   Henri Bergson (1859–1941), French philosopher. Paul Verlaine (1844–1896), French symbolist poet. Juliusz Słowacki (1809–1849), Polish romantic poet.

p. 298
   A Jewish male would have been expected to keep his head covered at all times. As a courtesy, nontraditional Jews often cover their heads when they are in an observant home.

p. 298
   At the Passover seder, the festive meal commemorating the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt, a cup of wine and sometimes a ceremonial chair are set aside for the Prophet Elijah, whom folk belief expects to visit all Jewish homes that night.

p. 302
   Nahum Sokolow (1859–1936), Zionist leader and prolific Hebrew writer, editor, journalist, translator.

p. 303
   Cheder was the Jewish elementary school, which usually met in the teacher’s home.