Rasein was once a shtetl (a Jewish village) like all other small Jewish villages of the past in Lithuania. In truth, there it was given due honur and called – a town. It was quite unlike Boiberik or Yehupetz of Shalom Aleichem fame and certainly unlike the city of Odessa, since it had a mere 8,000 residents most of whom were Jews. Indeed, for this very reason it could never be called a town. It was purportedly distinguished for being much larger than the usual little village, meaning that Rasein was between a town and a shtetl – it was simply in the middle. It had all that any human being required for his daily needs. Firstly, it was crowned by that eminent former Rabbi Nathan Zvi Finkel, of blessed righteous memory.
Who was in fact the distinguished personality Nathan Zvi Finkel? For what reason was he so famous? He was born in Rasein in the year 1874. Already, at age 15 he displayed a remarkable knowledge of the Torah and had by then published his commentaries on the Tanach. The Kelmer Gaon, Rabbi Eliezer Gutman, gave him his daughter in marriage. He made it his aim to inculcate Yiddishkeit – Jewish tradition – among the younger generation. He was one of the founders of the Telshe and Slotzker yeshivas and later also in Slobodka (Kovna), which he named “Knesset Israel”. In the course of time, hundreds of scholars studied at this yeshiva and it grew. The greatest yeshiva in Lithuania. The rabbi was simply known as “grandfather”, since he was so beloved by his pupils like a grandfather by his grandchildren – “the grand father of Slobodka Yeshiva”.
The story is told that once a boy turned up in Rabbi Finkel’s apartment on a cold an frosty winter’s night without a wrapping around his neck. The rabbi took the scarf from his own neck and handing it to the youth said; “I know that you have a chill, so take this and wear it in good health.” He also gave him his watch to pawn so as to get money for food. The famous Hafetz Haim once said; I produce books and Rabbi Nathan Zvi Finkel “creates” the human being. Rabbi Finkel was famous throughout the whole world. When many of his Slobodka yeshiva scholars settled in Hebron, he himself went to settle in Eretz, Israel. Later he died from a very arduous illness.
Among the high-born of Rasein, a place of honour is reserved for Rabbi Markowitz, Shlomo Kalman Tuvia, of blessed righteous memory; born in 1880 he perished in the Kovne Ghetto. Another eminent Rasein-born rabbi was Rabbi Yehezkiel Lifshitz, son of Aryeh, of blessed righteous memory, who was born in 1877 and served as a rabbi in Yorberik and other Jewish communities. He was once the representative of the president of the Federation of Rabbis in Poland; he visited the United States of America and Canada at the invitation of the local Rabbinical Councils. He published numerous books and commentaries on the Torah and the Talmud. Thus Rasein played an important role among those one-time small Lithuanian Jewish towns and villages.
Not only did Rasein have among its residents there above-mentioned geniuses, it also had its fair share of astute Jews and sages and naturally too of fools. There were even two and a half crazies, one of whom was uncontrollable and had to be kept in a locked room with bars on the window, where he could scream, sing, cry and laugh undisturbed. There his relatives would bring him his meals. In the shtetl there was also a crazed woman who was known as Gitel-Gitel, the madwoman. In the summer, she would roam the streets passing the houses and shouting, banging and breaking anything she had a mind to, and even lifting a hand against people. In her home, she would break plates, damage the furniture and do much other mischief. In the winter, she became normal buying new dishes; she would paint her house and repair the damage done. She also apologized to those Jews in the shtetl whom she had harmed… She lived with her husband and it is told that she became crazy straight after the wedding. They had an only child, a beautiful boy. Unfortunately, after an unsuccessful operation – an appendectomy – he died. This too had its effect on Gitel and she became crazed, though strangely this craziness manifested itself only in the summer. No medicines could be found to bring about a cure. With the Nazi occupation of Lithuania, the first victims were the crazed; the Nazis were more afraid of them than of normal people.
Rasein had twelve study and prayer houses and a central synagogue in the middle of the town. Almost all the different stores in the town were owned by Jews, many of whose signs were printed in both Yiddish and Lithuanian. There were all sorts of craftsmen, an inn, a cinema, a printing shop and, of course, the famous Shvirskes dairy shop. You could buy there fresh milk, cheese, and a bottle of tasty soda water was well as the well-known Rosmarin’s ice-cream.
The Jews had their own cemetery in Rasein, where you could order a tombstone on the spot. Near the cemetery was the prison and not the usual one. It was certainly intended for political detainees, each of whom was given a separate cell. In fact, it was almost a Jewish prison, since most of its inmates were Jews.
What is there left to tell you? Yes, there was a Cheder, a school and a cultural center, and a fairly large library. Almost all the tables in the reading room were usually occupied. At the subscribers’ table there was a row of readers who wished to change book and the table itself was often piled up with books so that one could hardly see the face of the librarian. It was here that one could find Yiddish newspapers and journals from throughout Europe and a variety of Yiddish books from all parts of the world.
Greenery surrounded Rasein and grew in its center. It covered the snouts of the hunchbacked or closely packed wooden houses and squeezed through the bricks themselves. There was also a fairly large green park with hundreds of trees and shrubs, whose shade gave pleasure to the Jews on the Sabbath and the gentiles on Sundays. There was no lack of squares, but on the Sabbath, many couples loved to take walks outside the village and enjoy the open air. Not far off a brook swam into sight, known as the Raseike. Whether the shtetl was named after this stream or vice versa is no longer relevant. It was told that at one time the brook was a deep one, but now it merely reached to a child’s belly. To take a dip one had to sit in the water or lie down on the stony waterbed. That’s why it was easy to do all kinds of stunts in the water; stand on one’s head, make pyramids, roll around, splash around, tease the stream and try to chase the backwash and other such silliness that may come to mind. On Sabbath, Jewish couples would stroll to the stream. It would be teeming with youngsters, so that pleasure-seeking young men and adults preferred to go bathing in another, much larger and deeper stream, called the Dubisa. This stream was quite far from Rasein, so that most people rode there to avoid the long walk on foot. One could only permit oneself this pleasure on weekdays or during vacations. But most Jews worked hard the whole week and they never gave a thought to any such recreation, which they left for the youth to enjoy. Nearby, the stream branched off into very beautiful waterfalls, underneath which it was pleasant to cool oneself from the heat in summer.
The roads in the village were straight and stretched out long; they were paved with stones from the fields and the pavements were made of cement blocks. Not just because it was my shtetl, since for each one his village, his birthplace, has a precious place in his memory, but indeed my shtetl, Rasein, was clean, homey, most of whose inhabitants were honest, and friendly, despite the fact that, like elsewhere, there were many and diverse political parties, to the left and to the right. There were arguments too among them, which were sometimes resolved by a bout of fisti-cuffs when they felt that the advantage over the other could only be gained by a fight. I was on the Right, but I would never fight over a few votes. At other times, silence was the best option.
Rasein had of course a Schochet and a slaughterhouse, where we young lads or women would bring hens to be slaughtered, mostly on Friday afternoons or the eve of holydays. There was also a Mohel. There was a rabbi or a Dayan for whom the Jewish community had great respect. Half-an-hour before the Sabbath, a loud whistle would come from Perlov’s sawmill, so loud that it could be heard even by the deaf. The sound of the whistle reached every corner of the shtetl. This Perlov had a mill. On the eve of Shabbath, a few minutes before candle-lighting, the siren whistling was again heard coming from Perlov’s sawmill and mill, so that not only the local Jews, but also those in the surrounding rural dwellings knew that the Sabbath was approaching and the housewives would start preparing for candlelighting. The gentiles too were aware of the approaching Jewish Shabbath. The hooha stopped, and men dressed in their Sabbath best would each wend his way to his synagogue. Their wives prepared the Sabbath dinner table; they had managed before the onset of Shabbat to ready the cholent in its special pot for the next day and to place it in the brick oven at the bakery, as the simple Jewish housewife was won’t to do; so that Saturday afternoon after the morning prayers they could bring home the hot delicacy. Indeed, most of the Jews here followed the precept “Six days will you work and do your weekly labors and on the seventh will you rest from these and do not work, you and your son and your servant and your wife and your cattle and the stranger within your gate.”
So they lived week by week, the poor, the rich, all alike – even the so-called heretics (apikorsim) rested on the Sabbath. There were almost no light vehicles; and no buses on Shabbat. Most of the movement on the roads was by the horse and buggy and bicycles. The “Jewish” horses also rested on the Sabbath. Thus, peace and quiet reigned in the shtetl on the Sabbath. Only on weekdays could often be hard the clop clop of horseshoes on the cobbles and the hammering of carts and buggy wheels.
It happened one day that I was carried into my home. A cyclist had run over me. When I finally recovered, I decided that rather than lie under the wheels of a bicycle I preferred to ride on top of them. I had long cherished this dream in my memory, until it was finally realized when I became a little older.
And so the Jews in my shtetl lived, worked, studied, celebrated and mourned, fought and made peace with each other, dreamed and hoped for better times. There was love and jealousy, but no evil was committed by one against the other.
The youth grew up with new ideas and dreams. Most of them had leanings towards Zionism and dreamed of going to build their own land. Eretz Israel was the main destination of their dreams. To this end they prepared themselves, created kibbutzim and clubs; whether it was Betar, Poel Hamizrachi, or Poalei Agudat Israel, Poalei Zion or other branches of these, their sights were set on the Near East.
Should you ever wish to visit my shtetl, you ought to know that no train goes there, the nearest railway station is at Widokla about eight kilometers away. Rasein is located on the highway of Kovno-Kleipeda (Memel), about seventy kilometers from Kovno. The nearest surrounding villages are Tawrik, Shidleva, Kel, Nemaksht, Beitegola.
