August 6, 1928 - New York City

--------


N.Y. Aug 6. 1928. 12 P.M.

Mon cherie amie Jeanie:¹

I worked very late today and then had
to go to a meeting,² and now is my only chance
to write you a few lines, I expected to find a letter
from you today, but evidently the mail carrier must
have saved it to deliver it to me in person tomorrow
morning³. Everybody [at] home is O.K. the card is the
only means of writing to you as I have no stamps in
the house. Tomorrow I will write a letter.

Regards to the Wise girls and good night Dear.

P.S. It's nice and cool here now.⁴

Your

Harry

--------------

1 - Papa’s given this card a French accent, addressing it to “Mmle. Jean de Pollack” and adding the salutation “Mon cherie amie Jeanie”. If such levity seems out of place on this site, it’s because Papa’s diary and letters focus so much on his melancholy, his most difficult personal changes, and the narrative of his romantic frustration. Every so often, though, it’s good to be reminded that he was not some kind of brooding wretch, but was actually quite energetic, optimistic and even capable of a little schtick.

2 - Papa was a labor activist, a dedicated member of the Zionist Organization of America (he had been a delegate to its conventions in 1926 and 1927) and a co-founder of "The Maccabean" chapter of Order Sons of Zion (a.k.a. B’nai Zion) a Zionist fraternal order and mutual support society, so he frequently found himself at organizational meetings and other sorts of events after work. He found these activities to be deeply fulfilling and stimulating; perhaps the satisfying work he did earlier in the day accounts for the relaxed and cheerful tone of this card.

3 - Papa punctuates almost every piece of correspondence to my grandmother with some plea for her to write more often. I suppose this little joke about the mail carrier holding her letters is another sign of his chipper mood, but he truly felt disturbed by her indifference toward communicating with him.

This joke tells us a little bit about life in 1920’s New York, too, by reminding us that mail came twice a day back then and that there would have been some kind of inherent familiarity between people like Papa and their mail carriers. By contrast, I rarely find myself hoping for any mail delivery except, say, the next installment of “The Wire” from Netflix, and I almost never see my mail carrier.

4 - In his last letter, Papa described a “strange spectacle at midnight” on the beach at Coney Island, with “thousands bathing in the tall waves of the ocean while tens of thousands were sleeping on the sands” during a dangerous heat wave. Temperatures finally broke on August 6th, as Papa notes above, and dropped from the 90's to the 70's.

---------------

References:

• Sharp Drop in Temperature Brings Relief to the City - The New York Times, August 7th 1928.

June 29, 1927 - New York City

--------


New York June 29, 1927

My dear Jean:

Your card in the mail
box was was the first to greet me at
my homecoming, it was like a tonic
after a strenuous trip home from the resort.¹

The first thing I thought of was
to find out how your folks were that
I may write you about them, so I called up
Mother, the situation at home
is this:

Everybody is well and happy,
Rob is leaving tonight for the country,
Mother may not be able to answer your
card or letter today owing to the fact
that Sally is very busy at Rosie's helping
her pack things. Rosie will leave next
week instead of this, and pop may
remain at his old place of business.

As you see dear, I am trying to
inform you of everything that may be of
interest to you.

./.

2

I was glad indeed to hear that
you like the place, you will undoubtedly
enjoy it.

Judging from the view on the
card the place looks to be a very nice one.

From your request for stamps I can
draw the conclusions that you consider
me (if not the most beloved) the most
trustworthy friend, and if you do you
certainly made no mistake because for
I do not conceive any greater friendship
than mine for you, which is enhanced with
a spirit of love and self-sacrifice.²

I am enclosing here one stamp
booklet, should you need more just write.

My experience in Atlantic City will
be long remembered not only by me bu
by all those who witnessed and
participated in that historical gathering
of the Zionist Convention.

After I mailed you the last letter

./.

from A.C. my group won many
more points. I took the floor and
spoke for 15 minutes, and that was
the only time I spoke. I may have
made any number of slips in the course
of my talk, but I succeeded in creating
the impression I intended to.³

And now my dear I am determined
to do all I can to help the Zionist
Org. during the year, I did very little
for them in the last few years, I was
rather apathetically inclined but it is going
to be different now.⁴

I am resting today, and the last
two days of the week I will work.

I may have written my dear
things in which you are little interested, but
you know that Zionism is a problem
in which I am gravely interested, I even
had hoped, and still am hoping that
some day you may become a leader

./.

in the most venerable organization
of women, the organization working
for an ideal which is the most romantic
of the ages, the org. which upholds the
honor and dignity of our eternal people
I mean as you will readily guess the
Hadassah.

And now dear forget the other younger
handsomer boys for awhile and write
a nice big letter to your Soul Friend (as I named
you the day I met you)⁵, and I on my part
will write you of all the doings at home.

And in closing a little blessing:
My your short vacation be a most enjoy-
able one, May the Almighty watch over you
and keep you from harm.

My He open your eyes and make you
see the truth (in regard to your choice of an
eternal friend).

So here I am closing again with
the usual regards and kisses

Your lonely

Harry.

---------------

Matt's Notes

One quick note for the antique stationery lovers out there: Papa wrote this letter on two wide sheets of paper, folded tabloid-style, that have rough-cut, silvery edges. Here's a closer look:



And here's an even closer look at the edging:



I suppose I find this interesting because there has to be some story behind his switch to this paper. Was it left over from the Z.O.A. convention? Did he borrow it from a neighbor? Was it expensive, and if so did he reserve it for letters to my grandmother? What would the answer reveal?

1 - Papa had just stayed at the Ritz-Carlton in Atlantic City while attending the 1927 Zionist Organization of America conference. The return train ride from Atlantic City to New York City took about three hours via the Pennsylvania Railroad with stops in Hammanton, Burlington and Trenton (according to Fred, the Managing Director of Transportation Research for Papa’s Diary Project) and was perhaps “strenuous” due to summer crowds and the hectic procedures associated with the Z.O.A. convention’s conclusion.

Then again, Papa may have exaggerated his trip’s strenuousness a bit in order to emphasize the “tonic” effect of my grandmother’s card; he was always trying to find ways to get her to write him more, as he does in this very letter.



2 - Though it’s a bit sad to see Papa grasping at straws for signs of my grandmother’s affection, his interpretation of her request for stamps is not all spin. As we’ve discussed before, one of his most memorable qualities was his capacity to see the good in the world and find delight in the actions, no matter how mundane, of those he loved. Thus, when my grandmother asked for a book of stamps it became an endorsement of his trustworthiness as opposed to an indication of her willingness to exploit his attentiveness.

Also in evidence is Papa's fundamental unselfishness when he says “I do not conceive any greater friendship than mine for you, which is enhanced with a spirit of love and self-sacrifice.” Papa was one of those rare people who took true satisfaction in selflessness, who would not be happy unless he was working toward the happiness of others. The loneliness he wrote of in his 1924 diary was rooted in his inability to adequately express this instinct, the frustration of an artist denied his canvass. In early 1925, he thought he found his canvass in my grandmother, but after two-and-a-half years of her indifference, he feared he was mistaken. If it seems a bit overwrought for him to answer her request for stamps by describing his spirit of love and self-sacrifice, it’s in keeping with the direction of his 1927 letters, many of which show how desperate he’d become to express his generosity through her.

3 - Papa had been part of an opposition group at the Z.O.A. convention that tried to oust from office Lewis Lipsky, the organization’s longtime president. Though the opposition failed and Lipsky was reelected, the convention delegates, according to the New York Times, “ran head-on into a hurricane” on the last day of the convention “over the selection of an administrative committee...for the coming year.” Most of the controversy focused on the whether or not Z.O.A. fixture Abraham Goldberg should have lost his seat on the committee to Anna Moskowitz Kross, a Hadassah leader. The Times went on to describe the scene:

To the Goldberg supporters Mrs. Kross was a comparative newcomer whose reputation had been made outside the Zionist movement. Those opposing Mr. Goldberg considered him a symbol of the past....

The storm broke on the floor of the convention this afternoon, with shouting, interruptions and objections such as even this convention had not yet produced. Time and again the voices of speakers were drowned out by shouts of excited delegates...

Papa’s own 15-minute speech must have been part of the drama described above, and as a member of the anti-Lipsky group he would have spoken out against Goldberg who, according to the Times, “had often criticized Hadassah and the power it wielded in the Zionist Organization.” As my legions of readers will certainly remember, Papa wrote in his 1924 diary of his admiration for Goldberg (he booked Goldberg to speak at an event and hung out with him afterward) and showed a certain distaste for Hadassah, so his attitudes about both had clearly changed by 1927.

In the end, Lipsky backed Kross “for the sake of harmony” and Goldberg lost his seat.

4 - Papa’s 1924 diary and letters from subsequent years are full of references to the Zionist meetings he arranged, events he attended, and donations he made, so it’s curious to see him characterize himself as "apathetically inclined". Perhaps, because his need to help others was insatiable and his Zionist work was a manifestation of that need, he was simply incapable of feeling like he was ever doing all he could.

5 - Indeed, Papa uses the expression “Soul Friend” in the first of his letters to my grandmother.

-----

References:

• LIPSKY RE-ELECTED; ZIONISTS ADJOURN; Delegates Return President to Office Unanimously and Sing Hymn as Tribute.

June 28, 1927 - Atlantic City

--------


Dear Jeanie:

Very little time to write
here,¹ this is just a
reminder of my regard
for you²

Harry

-------------------

1 - For those of you just joining us, Papa mailed this card from the 1927 Zionist Organization of America convention in Atlantic City. It's postmarked 1:00 PM, so he must have dashed it off between morning meetings or while daydreaming during a long speech. I think he had "very little time to write" because there was intrigue afoot -- a movement had taken shape to unseat the longtime leadership of the Z.O.A. and Papa was, as we shall soon see, an active part of it.

2 - This is hardly the sentiment of a man who had given up on winning my grandmother's affection, as Papa said he had in the letter he wrote two days earlier. ("What's the use," he wrote about his chances with her, conceding that "there is one consolation and that is that I have won your friendship...and this friendship is going to be everlasting".) He must have regretted sending that letter the moment it disappeared into the mail slot, because the above is the second follow-up postcard he wrote (here's the first) in which he restated his interest in my grandmother. Perhaps, throughout the convention, he'd occasionally stop in the the midst of his duties, shut his eyes tight and think "I shouldn't have written that stupid thing about everlasting friendship" though it would appear to those around him that he'd been overwhelmed by passion for Zionist debate.

June 26, 1927 - Atlantic City

--------


June 26, 1927

2 A.M.

This is the 2nd message, Early this
evening I wrote you a letter.¹

You will be receiving letters from other boy
friends, and what worries me is that
mine should not be overlooked.²

Well its great to be here, at the present
moment I am at a reception & dance given
by the local comittee for the benefit of the
Young delegates, and the delegates of the
Intercollegiate Zionists, and the Junior Hadassah
which are having their annual conventions
simultaneously with that of the Zionist org-³

Well au revoir until
tomorrow when you will hear from me
again

Your Harry Scheuermann

-------------------

1 - Indeed, this is the second piece of correspondence Papa sent to my grandmother from the 1927 Zionist Organization of America conference in Atlantic City. He wrote the first on stationery from the Ritz-Carlton hotel, where he was staying (or "stopping," as he put it, which I think means the same thing) and dashed this one off on a postcard featuring a photo of the Traymore Hotel.

The Traymore was famous enough to be an Atlantic City emblem (and for footage of its 1972 implosion to find emblematic and symbolic immortality in Louis Malle's film Atlantic City) so Papa could have found this postcard at any souvenir stand. Still, I assume he was actually at the Traymore for the party described above; he probably grabbed this card from the reception desk or some conveniently-placed stack when he felt the urge to write.

2 - In the letter he wrote earlier in the evening, Papa sadly admitted defeat in his pursuit of my grandmother's hand; her mere friendship, he said, would have to suffice. Obviously he had second thoughts about this concession while at the Traymore party, and sent this card to keep himself in the race with her "other boyfriends" (who, apparently, kept her inundated with more letters than Santa Claus in December). Papa was all the more anxious, I'm sure, because she was on vacation at a "borscht belt" resort teeming with eligible young men. (This year she was at the Roseland Hotel in Fallsburg, NY, near the town of Monticello. She had spent her previous summer fending off marriage proposals at the Lakeside Inn in Ferndale, NY.)

3 - I wonder if Papa mentioned his immediate proximity to Junior Hadassah members, who of course were young women, to make my grandmother a little jealous. I'm not sure if he did it intentionally, but it certainly would have gotten her attention if she felt at all possessive of him despite her professed indifference.

June 25, 1927

--------


June 25, 1927

My dear Jeanie:

Well I'm here at my old pastime
ready to begin my labors of the great Zionist
convention for the restoration of the Land of Israel
to the people of Israel.¹

Great problems are confronting us
which we will have to cope with.²

It is still Shabos the day of rest
for our people, so the actual business will
commence with the shades of the night, which
are now rapidly approaching.

The trip here was very enjoyable
due to the company I had on the train,
the intimate chats with them helped a lot
to chase away the blues that have accumu-
lated last night and this morning, and
although I am stopping at the Ritz I don't feel
ritzy yet.³

You know dear this place would be
heaven for me if you had been here with me
at this beautiful sea shore.

But what's the use. I know that
this would not change your attitude, which
I failed [to do] personally in two and one half
years.⁴

./.


There is no use repeating what I have
said personally, but there is one consolation
and that is that I have won your friendship
whether you show it or not and this friendship
is going to be everlasting.⁵

And now dear how was your trip
and how are you enjoying the country.

You know [how] anxious I am to hear from you
if you should need something I'll be
back Wednesday and take care of
whatever you desire immediately.

I will write more tomorrow and
also Monday and Tuesday from here.

It is pretty dark now and I'll have to
stop soon.

I see about me many familiar faces
of delegates whom I have met before
at previous such gatherings, and things
are getting quiet interesting.

Well dear here I must close
this letter now as Mr. Surdut is calling⁶
me. So don't forget Bright Eyes
when I get home I expect to find your
precious letter.

Your loving friend

Harry Scheuermann

This was a rather hasty letter
so forgive my errors

-----

1 - Papa was in Atlantic City for the thirtieth annual convention of the Zionist Organization of America. I assume he attended this one, as he had the previous year's Z.O.A. convention in Buffalo, as a delegate from Order Sons of Zion (a.k.a. B'nai Zion), the Z.O.A-affiliated Zionist fraternal order to which he belonged.

2 - It's hard to say what "great problems" were on Papa's mind when he wrote this letter, because the Zionist cause certainly had its share. One of Zionism's big questions of the day was how to handle Britain's waning interest in the administration of Palestine, but I'd bet the hallway gossip at the Z.O.A. convention probably focused on the reelection prospects of the longtime Z.O.A. chairman, Louis Lipsky, who had been criticized in recent months for mismanaging the organization's funds.

3 - Like the Statler Hotel in Buffalo, where Papa stayed at the previous year's Z.O.A. convention, the Ritz-Carlton was relatively new, though it was certainly swankier and, located as it was right on the boardwalk, must have teemed with summer vacationers enjoying Atlantic City's heyday. The building, designed by Whitney Warren (of the famed architecture firm Warren and Wetmore, designers of Grand Central Terminal) still stands, but it has long since been converted to condos.

Luckily, Papa wrote this letter on Ritz-Carlton stationery, so I can finally satisfy all those Papa's Diary Project readers who have been clamoring for an artifact of the telegraph age. Check out the contact information on the letterhead:



It looks like, as late as 1927, the Ritz preferred to advertise the telegraphic address "rizcarlton" instead of a telephone number. (Since this is my first brush with a telegraphic address, you'll forgive me for pointing out its obvious similarities to modern e-mail or instant messenger addresses.) Commercial telephone technology was fairly well established by then (the dress shop Papa worked for listed two phone numbers on its letterhead) but perhaps long-distance calling was not yet widespread or reliable enough for the travel industry to count on.

4 - I'm always trying to piece together answers about Papa's life, so I'm glad this passage confirms a previously unsupported assumption that he met my grandmother back in early 1925. (That's how the math works out if he'd known her for "two and one half years" in mid 1927.) As someone who so admired and loved him, though, and hoped the lovelorn, mournful version of himself we met in his 1924 diary might know a little less sadness a little sooner, this letter isn't much comfort.

5 - Papa's previous batch of letters to my grandmother, written in the the summer of 1926, showed how frustrated he had become with her romantic indifference to him, but it looks like this frustration had turned to resignation by June of 1927. I suppose he wouldn't have written her so extensively without some hope of resuscitating whatever affection she once showed for him (he did, after all, wind up marrying her) but he certainly had to work hard at hoping if, as this letter indicates, she didn't even show much enthusiasm for his platonic friendship.

As I've mentioned before, I think Papa's compulsion to commit himself to my grandmother so completely, even in the face of her her lukewarm response, sprang from a strong combination of emotional needs and external circumstances. Still, understanding why someone does something seemingly irrational doesn't always make it easy to watch, and even though I might know the answer I still find myself asking how, really, could he have clung to her for so long?

6 - "Mr. Surdut" is a character we've known for a while because he owned the dress shop and factory where Papa worked, though he and Papa had more than a casual employer-employee relationship. I sometimes think Papa, who had spent Jewish holidays at the Surduts' house and had been set up on dates by Mrs. Surdut, was even Mr. Surdut's protege or heir apparent. I may never be able to confirm that, but it is interesting to see that Papa and Surdut were part of the same posse at the Z.O.A. convention.

Still, when Papa writes "here I must close this letter now as Mr. Surdut is calling me," does it imply that Surdut retained some measure of authority over Papa outside of work, even if it was that of a surrogate father over a surrogate son? Or did Papa, who had been known to keep his friends waiting while writing to my grandmother, just happen to get interrupted by Surdut in this instance?

-------

References:

• American Jewish Year Book Vol. 30 (1928-1929). A discussion of the Z.O.A. convention Papa attended appears on page 14 of the 1927 year in review.
• ZIONISTS AT ATLANTIC CITY.; 800 Delegates Expected for Opening of Convention Tomorrow. The New York Times, June 25, 1927.
• WRANGLING MARKS ZIONIST MEETING; President Lipsky's Opponents Fight His Rulings at First Convention Session. The New York Times, June 27, 1927.

Tuesday Nov 18

Interesting meeting of
Ball Comittee at Down
Town Zionist Dist.

--------------

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.

Wednesday Nov 12

District

-------------

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?

Saturday Nov 8

At Down Town Zionist
meeting at Jewish Centre
where Maurie Samuel and
Mr. Zeldin Spoke.

----------

We last heard from Maurice Samuel in January when Papa booked him to speak at a meeting of the Zionist Organization of America's First District, one of its downtown chapters. The First District was having membership woes at the time, and Papa expected Samuel, a noted writer and activist, to be a draw.

Since then, Samuel's stature had increased considerably with the September release of his book You Gentiles, a provocative examination of the differences between Jews and non-Jews, which Samuel considered irreconcilable. (As we've previously noted, some consider Samuel's later work to be more important, though anti-Semites like to recirculate the more strident passages from You Gentiles as evidence of Jewish aggressiveness and implacability.) No latecomer to Samuel's party, Papa is comfortable enough with him by now to call him "Maurie." (Could Papa be showing off a little? That doesn't seem like his style.)

I'm not sure how well Papa knew "Mr. Zeldin," though I think I know who he was: Morris Zeldin, a Russian-born Zionist leader who would go on to help found the United Jewish Appeal of New York. According to Zeldin's 1976 obituary in the New York Times, "he was a close associate of many national and international Jewish leaders, including Chaim Weizmann, who became the first President of Israel in 1948." But wait: If his friends referred to him as "Maurie" as well, wouldn't that have let to many mildly comic moments when he appeared at the same event as "Maurie" Samuel? Do you think Papa ever tried to get Samuel's attention by calling out "Maurie," only to find Zeldin turning around instead? And what if Zeldin didn't like being called "Maurie?" Would he have gotten mad at Papa, and forever thought of him as "that guy who kept calling me 'Maurie'"? Important questions.

Meanwhile, I'm still not sure what happened to the First District or whether it's the same Z.O.A. chapter that Papa refers to in this, and other entries, as the "Down Town Zionist" district. The Jewish Centre he mentions here could be the same "Downtown Zionist Centre" on St. Marks Place that we discussed a few days ago; I'm going to take a gamble and say it is, so I'll add it to the map of Where Papa's Been.

--------------------

Note: I'm missing the scan of today's diary page (and yesterday's as well) so I've stuck a sketch of Papa that we found among my grandmother's photos in its place. I'm not sure if this sketch is a self-portrait or not, but in any event I love it and think it would make a great tattoo.

-------------------

New York Times References for this post:

• MORRIS ZELDIN, 86, DIES; AN EARLY ZIONIST LEADER (October 16, 1976)
  
• Jew and Gentile; A Review by J. DONALD ADAMS; YOU GENTILES. By Maurice Samuel. 221 pp. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co. (September 7, 1924)
  

Tuesday Oct 28

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.

Thursday Oct 23

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.



-------------

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:

• Hotel Astor: Library of Congress call number HABS NY,31-NEYO,72-.
• David Yellin: Appropriated from the Jewish Agency for Israel Web site.

Thursday Oct 16

Attended membership
meeting of the downtown Z.
district. It certainly did
not turn out, the way I wanted
it to.

I feel a little apathetic
toward the membership work

My pep in this direction of
former years is gone.

--------------

The "downtown Z. district" likely refers to "the First District," or Lower East Side chapter, of the Zionist Organization of America.¹ We learned back in January of the First District's attendance woes when Papa, under the supervision of a mysterious figure named "Blitz," spent several weeks organizing a membership meeting and pitching the Z.O.A. to various other groups and clubs around town. The results were disappointing, and we've heard so little about the First since then that I figured it had given up the ghost. Looks like it's still limping along, though, and Papa is still involved with its care and feeding.

Despite the First's discouraging difficulties, I find Papa's harsh assessment of his own dedication to Zionism to be rather incongruous. He has spent countless hours attending lectures, receptions, talks and dances and running fundraising drives and meetings, and he would in fact remain an enthusiastic activist for the rest of his life. How could he say his enthusiasm of former years "is gone" when only nine months he could be found on the street giving out membership flyers when the weather was too brutal for even his closest associates?

I think, perhaps, the overall sense of loss Papa has struggled with in the wake of his father's death -- attenuated, at this time of year, by the intense mourning associated with the Jewish holidays -- colors just about everything else in his life. It must be especially difficult when he deals with "dying" things like the Z.O.A.'s first district; why else would he speak with such exaggerated finality when, as we know, he was by nature such an optimistic dreamer?

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1 - The Z.O.A., formerly known as the Federation of American Zionist, had about 40,000 members at the time and counted among its affiliates Haddasah, the Jewish women's organization, Keren Hayesod, the Zionist fundraising group, and B'nai Zion, the fraternal order and mutual support society to which Papa belonged.

Sunday Oct 5

3rd dist & Cafe Royal

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I watched as Blitz engaged in a tremendous argument with Goldstein about Jabotinsky. Goldstein has grown impatient with Weizmann and upon learning of the Third District meeting commenced to insult our efforts. Blitz is passionate and slapped his palms on the table and my coffee danced and splashed in its saucer from one side to the other.

Just a small turn of my head and instead of the Blitz and Goldstein argument I could watch three actors from one of the theaters down the street, chairs pressed together on one side of their table, they leaned against each other and sang and smiled. They still had makeup on their faces and had the appearance of movie actors. One of them looked my way as he sang, his beard was black and his hand lay on a newspaper in front of him. He had small eyes, black and shiny, he did not seem to notice me but he sang the old song and knew every word and continued to sing even has his friends faltered and laughed and toasted with glasses of tea. I urgently wanted to join him at his table and also to get up and leave the restaurant, nervous now as if I'd just remembered something, or remembered I'd forgotten to do something like turn off the gas at home or bring Josele his medicine.

Blitz tugged on my arm and asked me to add my opinion to his discussion with Goldstein but I had forgotten what it was about and the man with the beard stopped singing and I knew if I tried to talk I would have choked on my words and wept. My coffee was half spilled now from Blitz's exertions but I drank it all the same and happily I was able to swallow.

Saturday Oct 4

3rd dist

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"3rd dist" refers to the Third District, or chapter, of the Zionist Organization of America, which at the time encompassed Haddassah (the famed Jewish womens' organization) and B'nai Zion (the fraternal order and mutual support society to which Papa belonged).

Papa worked hard for the Z.O.A., especially earlier in the year when he attempted to revive its moribund First District at the behest of a mysterious supervisor named "Blitz." I don't think these efforts were successful, though; in recent months he's attended a few Third District meetings and one Second District meeting, but he hasn't mentioned the First at all.

Meanwhile, Papa continues to write short, abbreviated passages in a spidery hand, as if some long struggle left him unable to do more than scratch out a few letters. I think this is because the anticipation of Yom Kippur, during which Papa will have to mourn his recently-departed father for the first time, weighs heavily on him. Whether he knows it or not, he is embroiled in a dramatic internal struggle to understand his place in a world without his father and all his father represented. It is probably too much for him to write or think clearly about, but it dwarfs his other concerns.

Saturday Sept 6

Zionist meeting at 3rd dist

Sent to Mother $5.00

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Matt's Notes

The "3rd dist" is likely the the same Third District, or local chapter, of the Zionist Organization of America that threw a dance at the Parkway Restaurant back on February 21st.

This leads me to wonder once again what's become of the Z.O.A's troubled First District. Papa worked hard earlier in the year to resuscitate it, but he hasn't mentioned it since he gave a membership pitch to a Zionist youth organization on February 10th. He did go to a meeting of the "three downtown districts" a little over a week ago, and he characterized the discussion as "stormy." Had the Z.O.A. debated at that meeting whether to fold its other downtown districts into the Third?

Meanwhile, this is the first time in a while Papa has mentioned sending money to his mother. This could be because he just hasn't written about it, but it might be because he's been in debt for a while (he recently paid back $25 his cousin loaned him) and has only just found some spare cash to send home.

Saturday Aug 23

Attended a rather stormy
meeting of the 3 down town
districts at St. Marks Pl.
I took part in the discussion.

---------------

The "down town districts" Papa mentions here are probably chapters of the Zionist Organization of America. The Z.O.A. was, at the time, a 40,000 member group closely affiliated with the womens' group Hadassah, the fundraising organization Keren Hayesod, and Order Sons of Zion (B'nai Zion) the Zionist fraternal order to which Papa belonged.

Back in January, Papa had put quite a bit of pressure on himself to help revive the 1st district of the Z.O.A., organizing and publicizing a meeting with A-list guest speakers including the prominent Zionist figures Abe Goldberg and Maurice Samuel. He hasn't mentioned the district since then, but I assume he represented it at the meeting mentioned above.

Where would this meeting have taken place? In a private home? A coffee house? Over dinner in a Jewish restaurant on the Lower East Side? Perhaps, since it was a Saturday, Papa and his comrades met in a synagogue after Shabbat services, or maybe, in the cool of this August evening, they strolled up to the the Z.O.A. offices on 5th Avenue and 12th Street. [Not sure what I was thinking when I wrote these last couple of sentences -- he mentions that the meeting was on St. Marks place.]

I wonder, too, what kind of "stormy" debate Papa participated in during this meeting. The possibilities are limitless: They may have had a heated political discussion over the advantages of the movement's left-wing socialist or right-wing militant philosophies; perhaps they needed to decide which of their less successful downtown districts to shut down; maybe they disagreed over how to best spread the word in lower Manhattan or about where the next fundraising event should take place.

Stridency was the order of the day in Papa's Zionist circles, so I imagine whatever room he and his friends smoked up must have been really alive with argument if Papa noted the meeting's contentiousness. (Even Papa, who we all remember as remarkably gentle and fair, could take the gloves off when he aired Zionist opinions -- witness his strident language in an article he wrote for the Z.O.A. publication Dos Yiddishe Folk criticizing a rival Zionist group.) When he says he "took part in the discussion," does he mean he jumped into the fray and shouted to be heard? Or, when faced with a room full of red-faced colleagues, did he try to restore civility and cool everyone down with quiet logic?

Saturday Mar 22

Attended the Hadassah
Ball at the 71st Reg. Armory

It looked more like a
fashion show, because
of the attendance
being of the most prominent
Jews, displaying their
best in evening dress.

However it did not impress
me very much I felt
rather lonesome throughout
the evening although I met
numerous friends.

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Matt's Notes

In 1924, Hadassah was well on its way to becoming the enormously successful Jewish womens' organization it is today, though it had technically become a subset of the Zionist Organization of America in 1918. Its growth outstripped ZOA's almost from the start, though, and it would only be a few more years until resulting organizational tensions effectively ended the relationship. Papa was an active, loyal member of the ZOA, so I'm sure he picked up on some of these tensions. This may be why he was so uncharacteristically quick to dismiss the guests at the Hadassah function as vain and self-important -- his ZOA compadres must have lit up the schvitzes with such talk.

I wonder, too, if his unforgiving reaction to the "prominent Jews" at the ball was related to the "20th Century Girl" (if you're just joining us, the "20th Century Girl" was the latest object of Papa's ardor). He pined for her constantly, but worried that her social aspirations -- her need to be "prominent" -- precluded a relationships with a lowly "wage earner" like him. As a result, he'd felt lousy and forlorn for days. Perhaps, deep down, he was angry at the 20th Century Girl, blamed her for his apprehension, and took it out a little on the highfalutin' Hadassah folk she aspired to be like.

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The Sienese-inspired 71st Street Armory was a mighty fine building, but it's been gone since the 70's. Here's what it looked like while it still stood on 33rd and Park:




Papa, of course, would have worn his tuxedo there that night:




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Additional notes:

For a better Hadassah history than on the Hadassah site itself, check out this excerpt from the American Jewish Desk Reference.

Image source: 71st Regiment Armory, Library of Congress call # LC-D4-19584

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Updates:

I've updated my March 19th post with early 20th Century Eastern European Purim images from the Yivo archive. Give them a look if you've got the time.

Thursday Mar 13

Attend Maccabean camp
meeting.

----------------------

Matt's Notes

Earlier in the year, Papa co-founded a new chapter of the fraternal Order Sons of Zion (B'nai Zion) and persuaded his fellow members to nickname it the "Maccabean" camp. As previously noted, the Maccabees were legendary Jewish warriors, so the nickname carried with it a certain combative edge, a deliberate challenge to the caricature of Jews as physically inept and resigned to bad luck.

Papa may have had another inspiration for his camp's nickname, too: "The Maccabean" was the flagship publication of B'nai Zion's parent organization, the Federation of American Zionists (FAZ). My research here is a little muddy, but it looks like the FAZ became the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) around 1917. In any event, the FAZ/ZOA spun off B'nai Zion in 1908, partly to provide health insurance to its members but also to "help the Zionist Congress in the work of obtaining for the Jewish people a legally secured, publicly assured national home in Palestine."¹

I'm sure Papa had a lot to report at his Maccabean meeting that day, because the night before he'd attended a major event at the Hotel Astor (pictured below) at which a prominent rabbi declared his support for Zionism after years of ambivalence. Papa had felt discouraged in the course of his activist work over the winter, but with the weather warming up and his beloved cause making strides, his spirits must have brightened considerably.

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Additional Notes

I didn't say much about the Hotel Astor yesterday, but here's what I know: It was a 500-bedroom, 300-bathroom beauty that rose ten stories above Broadway on the block between 44th Street and and 45th street.




The wall between its two ballrooms could be moved to accommodate large functions like the one Papa attended, though when it first opened in 1907 1904 the Times got most excited about its thermostats:

In each [room] there is a "temperature regulator." The ordinary method of turning the radiator valves is supplanted by an automatic device enabling the guest to set a pointer upon a clocklike figured scale at a degree of temperature desired.

The building came down, temperature regulators and all, in 1967 to make room for the office tower known as 1515 Broadway, where Viacom now resides. Nyc-architecture.com mourns its passing with a typical, and justified, howl of agony.

(Image source: Library of Congress call number HABS NY,31-NEYO,72-.)

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My mother adds:

Lots of people, including yours truly. would meet their dates at the Astor (under the clock). I think this is mentioned in Salinger or is it Fitzgerald---and I'm sure many other books. I'm amazed that Papa allowed his priceless
treasure to go "into the city" to meet rapacious young men, but I did nonetheless. Relationships were more proper in those days and my dates always took me home.

----------

1 - Quoted from B'nai Zion's 75th anniversary historic review pamphlet.

Thursday Feb 21

Enjoyed dance given by
3rd dist Z.O.A. at the Parkway Palace.

My brother in law received
a summons to court from
the Success School,

My sister came up and
called me to go with her to
the School,

Because I told the School man
twice before that my brother in law
and out of work, he agreed
to teach him English for the
whole term on payments
of $2.00 a week, on account
I gave him the 2nd 5 dollars
I am glad this is off my
head, I will gladly pay for
him every week as he at present
cannot afford it.

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Matt's Notes

I'm not sure where the Parkway Palace or the Third District of the Zionist Organization of America were located, though I'd say any establishment with the word "parkway" in its name was probably in the Bronx. Hopefully I can make it over to the New York Historical Society to look into it a little more...

Of more interest, though, is Papa's description of his brother-in-law Phil's problems with the Success School, which was obviously a vocational or language school catering to immigrants. If it had existed in modern times, it probably would have advertised itself on the subway.

I wonder what the atmosphere was like. Was it a second-floor classroom with a sign in the window and a bunch of typewriters sitting on old school desks? Was it close and stuffy, like the sweatshops its students work in? Maybe Papa's meeting with the "school man" (his English vocabulary must not have included the words "headmaster" or "administrator") took place in a dark hallway or staircase. It could have even happened in the classroom while class was in session -- sounds like the "school man" wanted to get rid of Phil in favor of a full-tuition student, so he might have deliberately made Papa argue right there, thinking he'd be too embarrassed to discuss Phil's discount arrangement in front of other students.

In any event, Papa's sense of duty is once again on display as he forks over $5.00 to keep Phil in class (if a previous commenter on this blog has the conversion right, this would be the equivalent of $60 in 2007, which was probably no small chunk of Papa's salary). My mother says the words "I am glad this is off my head" really jumped out at her because, for Papa, this would have been an over-the-top expression of impatience. But, these are Papa's private thoughts, and if that's as annoyed as he got I'm sure no one noticed.

Phil, by the way, was a Russian immigrant who came to America after his first wife "broke her head," as Phil apparently put it, in a buggy accident. He would outlive three more wives, all of whom, including Papa's sister Nettie, died under strange circumstances. This earned him the nickname "serial killer" among certain members of my family. According to one story, Phil half-jokingly offered to make Papa's other sister Clara his fifth wife when she was around eighty. "No," she replied, "I'm too young to die."

Sunday Feb 10

Same as yesterday
but in evening visited
Blue & White club, gave
them a talk about joining
the first district of the Zionist
Org.

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Matt's Notes

The "Blue and White club" mentioned here is presumably related to the Blau-Weiss Jewish youth movement started in Germany in 1912. Blau-Weiss took its cues from the German Wanderklubs, or hiking organizations, that promoted physical fitness through outdoor activity and, not surprisingly, became inaccessible to Jews in the early 20th Century. (Here's a 1924 photo of a Blau-Weiss outing.)

Blau-Weiss had a strong political agenda, focused specifically on the Zionist goal of physically preparing Jewish youth for the rigors of settling in Palestine. This relates to a broader movement among diaspora Jews to dispense with the image of the Jew as physically maladroit (perpetuated by anti-Semites and Jews alike) and replace it with a Jewish identity rooted in competence and toughness. These "muscle Jews," reminiscent of the Maccabean warriors of centuries past, would hardily sow crops (and new Jews) in Palestine thanks to their discipline, tirelessness and virility.¹

This thinking manifests itself in a number of organizations, including the Hakoa Vienna (hakoa means "The Strength") an all-Jewish athletic organization that fielded Austria's national championship soccer team in 1924 and sponsored a successful womens' swim team in the 30's. (I mention Hakoa Vienna because its swim team was the subject of a 2004 documentary called "Watermarks", which is now on my Netflix queue). As I've mentioned before, Papa was peaceful and learned himself, but he must have been more than a little partial toward the image of the "muscle Jew" or he wouldn't have fought to nickname his B'nai Zion chapter "The Maccabeans."

So, now that I've gone on that tangent, I have to wonder if the Blue and White club Papa visited really was related to the Blau-Weiss movement. It's certainly possible; even though Blau-Weiss's goal was to get Jews from Germany to kibbutzes in Palestine, I'm sure some members found their way to the heavily German Lower East Side and formed a chapter there. Still, blue and white are the colors of the Israeli flag and were always associated with Zionist regalia, so maybe New York's Blue and White club just named itself accordingly (if you' know anything more about this, please drop a comment).

In any event, Papa visited them as part of his ongoing efforts to keep the Zionist Organization of America's flagging first district (or chapter) afloat, which he's already put a lot of effort into this year. I have to wonder again what it was like when he "gave a talk." Was there a Blue and White clubhouse? Did they meet in a restaurant or coffee house? Maybe they met in a gymnasium if they were really an offshoot of Blau-Weiss. Did he lean on the edge of a desk, stand at a podium, or sit with everyone in a circle? And what did he speak? German? Yiddish ? English?

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References for this post

1- Pressner, Todd Samuel. “Clear Heads, Solid Stomachs, and Hard Muscles”: Max Nordau and the Aesthetics of Jewish Regeneration," Modernism/Modernity, Vol. 10 No. 2, 2003.

Wikipeida's entries on the Israeli flag and the role of the color blue in Judaism

Saturday Jan 26

In a cold night my helper
refused to distribute the
circulars for the mass meeting
that I am calling. I stood
alone in the terrible weather
distributing them doing it
lovingly knowing the respons-
ibility that rests on my shoulders
when Dr. Bernstein passed
me on his way to lecture for
the Zeire Zion.

He did not feel like speaking
but seeing my sacrifice he
got inspired and delivered
his best, he told me.

Later I joined him at the
Z.Z. So I unconsciously
served some purpose
I saw there a girl
that is good.

------------------

Matt's Notes

It got down to 7° on the night of January 26, 1924 (oddly, we've had the same kind of sudden temperature drop on January 26, 2007) so I can understand why Papa's helper left him in the lurch. Understanding is not forgiving, though, so I hate the old bastard, wherever he is. I think Papa, who had been worried about the prospects for his January 28th meeting for a while, wasn't in a forgiving mood, either -- he notes how he "lovingly" continued to shoulder his responsibilities, contrasting himself rather pointedly with certain would-be helpers who weren't quite so loving and responsible.

I'm sure Papa didn't distribute many fliers on that biting, snowy night. Any people on the street must have rushed by, chins tucked to their chests, hardly inclined to stop for the earnest young man who waved papers at them and said something about something coming up on Monday. Such young men were all over the place. Who could tell them apart?

I can't keep the Zionist varieties straight myself, but I think Zeire-Zion, Dr. Bernstein's organization, had a Zionist-Socialist agenda. I'm not clear on whether they thought the Jewish state would be a nice little place for socialist experiment or a glorious staging ground for a global socialist victory (the Zionist-Socialist movement was, not surprisingly, factional as well) and I may well have the whole movement entirely wrong, so please correct me if you know better.

As a labor activist himself Papa would have had some affinity for the Zionist-Socialists, but he wouldn't have stood out in the cold for them. Papa worked for the Zionist Organization of America and its related organizations, which concentrated on organized fundraising for business investment and land purchases in Palestine. The ZOA had its own internal philosophical clashes, but socialism wasn't in the mix.

Anyway, Papa gave Dr. Bernstein a boost and met a "girl that is good" at the Zeire-Zion meeting, so the night, as they say, wasn't a total loss.