In memory of Moshe Shorenson
“Moshe, my dear, come to bed, it’s already so late.”
“I’ll soon be finished binding this book that I promised its owner would be ready by tomorrow morning”, replied Moshe to his wife’s urgings.
After all, one’s word is one’s word and must be kept, otherwise no one will have any faith in you. And a bad reputation spreads faster than a good one so can Moshe have the heart to leave the job unfinished? To this day, no one has ever lodged any complaint against him.
Silence reigns, broken only by the buzz of flies, though even they fail to distract Moshe from his work. From an adjoining room, where the children sleep, can be heard the faint sound of snoring.
Outside the shutters, too, there was complete silence and no flicker even of movement. The whole town of Krak was as fast asleep as the dead. Nature also was at rest – there was no wind, no rail, no dew. Without a doubt, Moshe was the only one still sitting in his workshop absorbed in his work.
You may doubtless think that Moshe is your ordinary bookbinder. On the contrary, he is highly qualified and a specialist in his art. When he binds an old book, his skillful fingers shape an antique work of art, far superior and more beautiful than any new book you can buy. He cuts and straightens out all the pages adding new flyleaves in the front and back and making a new cover with the synopsis in the back or inside cover. He decorates the cover in gold, so that one cannot fail but become enamored of the appearance of the book more than its actual content, apart that is from the holy books, whose content is of course incomparable.
Indeed, in the surrounding shtetls, apart from in Krak itself, the dynasty of bookbinders of the Shorenson family was widely known. Moshe’s father, Shimon, the famous bookbinder, was known not only for his skill but as a learned man, a man who had ordination as a rabbi. People would come to him not only to bind books, but to ask his advice and for a blessing. Keiden was a county town, to which county Krak also belonged. Many Keiden residents were Shimon’s customers and the Jews of Keiden held his opinion in high esteem. But Shimon hardly hoped that his son Moshe would become such a great specialist in the craft and inherit all its secrets. It only goes to show that often the children excel over their parents. And thus, the proud title of “bookbinder” passed on from one generation to another. In addition to bookbinding, Moshe could also put up wallpaper.
Moshe was conscripted into the Czarist Army in 1912, where he served in the 19th Siberian Firing Squad. Before completing his service, World War I broke out followed by the civil war heralding the Russian Revolution. He was wounded twice, was a prisoner-of-war and returned home only in 1919. It was then that Moshe began a new life. During all the years of his absence, he yearned not only for his shtetl Krak, but also for his craft. Moshe had a reputation of having hands of gold not only because the lettering on the cover was engraved in gold, but because he never refused to make the covers either in leather or cardboard, shiny or matt, large or small – everything he did was with perfection. His family was quite large but his earnings were small, as he lacked the audacity to ask a high price for his excellent work.
He was proud of his little shtetl. With great vexation he spoke of those who abandoned their nest and headed for the large cities.
“If one must go, then one’s destination should be Eretz Yisrael, the land of our forefathers, not for the sake of the fleshpots or an easy life.” His ideal was to collect a little money and take his whole family to Eretz Yisrael. Krak was in fact Jewish shtetl. Most of its inhabitants were Jews, not unlike other small shtetls in Lithuania. Only a few non-Jewish families lived there. By contrast, 300 Jewish families lived there, comprising their own artisans businessmen, a rabbi, a chazan (cantor), learned men and paupers, their own shul (synagogue) and cheders (Hebrew schools). A few intellectuals and some wagon drivers. They also had their own shochet (meat slaughterers) and a number of butcher shops, rich merchants and Jewish poverty. The shtetl also had rural merchants, who traded with the non-Jews of the surrounding villages. In a work, Krak was rich in all things like many other pre-war Jewish towns and villages in Lithuania.
A congenial youth grew up there. But after completing the cheder, they had to go to another town to study in a yeshiva or a high school. A small section remained to continue studies in the only local Lithuanian high school. Apart from all this, there was a Jewish hospital, an old-aged home, a pharmacy, a photography shop, an inn; also a police officer and two constables. The older generation would rise early at dawn every day to hasten to prayers at the bet-midrash and read a chapter of the psalms, study a blatt gemorrah ( a tractate of Gemorrah) or Mishna. There were also those who liked to indulge in a little gossip or unburden their cares. The youth were quite different and were drawn to science, becoming estranged from religion. But a portion remained loyal to tradition and devoted to Jewish rituals and customs. Most of them departed to study in the Yeshivas.
Shabbat eye was a major event in the shtetl. Just before sunset, all the stores and workshops would close down, the wagon horses were unharnessed – all is concentrated on this effort. If I should try to resist the custom by being tardy in closing the shop or going to the barber, – they would make of me a piece of twisted string. Moshe was not as religious as his father, but he was strictly observant of all the rituals. Shabbes was Shabbes and kashrut (kosher food) was rigorously adhered to. Though his income was low, the family had kiddush (prayer over wine) on Friday nights, the tastiest meals including gefilte fish, tzimmis (a carrot dessert), cholent. Early Friday morning, his wife, Esther, would bake a whole slew of goodies for the whole week, including plaited challot for the Sabbath.
In one respect, the little shtetl of Krak did differ from the others – it had no nickname. In Lithuania of those days as well no doubt as in other European countries where there were Jewish communities, it was a common thing for a shtetl to have a nickname, such as, for instance, the Polish shtetl of Chelm. Who hasn’t heard of the fools of Chelm? In Lithuania there were the gluttons of Rasein, the hunchbacks of Keidan, the goats of Widokl, the sleeping Kelmer folk, the worms of Ragol and many more. You may perhaps think that, God forbid, all the Jews of Keidan were hunchbacks, or that whole families in Rasein who would for days on end go hungry and then fall upon any food provided – would that make them gluttons? The Jews of Kelem too had no greater tendency to fall asleep than other shtetl Jews, while there was no lack of wise men in Chelm. These nicknames were the result of incidents in history together with the peculiarities of certain famous personalities.
I took a special interest in why the Jews of Kelem were known as sleepers. Well, the Jews of this shtetl themselves told me this story: A magid (preacher) recently arrived in the shtetl. As was the custom, the Jews assembled in the synagogue. Where then would those traditional Jews spend their Shabbat? Either in shul, or go walking after the Shabbes meal, or take a rest after a week of hard work. The majority would turn out to hear what he had to say. So one time, the magid happened to be a nudnik and he kept on repeating himself, so that a number of his listeners, out of sheer boredom, dozed off and the rise and fall of snoring could clearly be heard. The magid noticed that most of the congregation was asleep, but failed to grasp the cause. That’s why when he came to another town, he reported that the Kelmer Jews were sleepers and wouldn’t even listen to a sermon by a magid! Thus gradually the legend spread about the sleeping Jews of Kelm.
And here is an example about the Widokler Jews, how they came to be known as goats: Most of the Jews of the shtetl of Widokle lived very frugally. They couldn’t afford to keep a cow, nor to buy dairy products especially for large families. So they kept a goat. Thus the nickname stuck of the “Widokler goats”. And so on for all the other nicknames of Jewish shtetls in Lithuania.
Nicknames were applied not only to shtetls, but also to certain individuals. For instance, Krak did not have a nickname and had a good reputation in the neighboring towns. Doubtless, that is why it was rich in nicknames for its Jewish residents. For example, Meir, the shoemaker was known as “Meir the Fig”, Mendel, the tailor, was called “Mendel the Goat”; then there were Nissan the Whistler, Yankel the Bear-chaser, Berel the Matchmaker. Laizer, the foreman was known as “Sixfinger”, Meishel, the watchmaker was called “the Loksh” (noodle). Each nickname was based on the character traits of the individual. And women, too, were not exempted, such as “Soral the teigel” and “Henne the feigel”, “Reisele the Meshugen: and “Sheinke the hunchback”, “Malka the cow”, and “feige-Dvosha the Half-wit” (kunelemel). There were plenty of goodly appellations, though no lack of derogatory ones. For instance, “Avremele the Rat”, “Berel the Ox”, etc. Like Berdichev in the Ukraine and Chelm in Poland, Krak held a well-known niche in Lithuania. If one wanted to curse someone, one often used the expression: “I have you in Krak.”
As I said, relations between the Jews of the shtetl and the peasants of the surrounding villages were friendly. The Jewish merchants had their regular customers. The non-Jews would bring live fish, chickens, fresh eggs, cheese, potatoes and other vegetables to the market for Shabbat.
Moshe, the bookbinder, also had customers among the Christian priests who paid fairly well for the binding of their holy books. Nonetheless, Moshe was sometimes compelled to go to his neighbours for a loan for Shabbat purchases. One day followed another; their children grew up and expenses rose. As the saying goes, “Small children, small troubles, big children, big troubles.”
