THE ORGANIZATiONS:
The Zionists and the Bund

It all happened so suddenly, so unexpectedly, so quickly.  It was as though one came out of total darkness into a bright sunny day.

In a mere moment we left the darkest of dark ages and entered a new renaissance.

How was this possible in such a short time?  Only the ones who directly witnessed this transition can truly understand, or at least feel and appreciate the experience of this phenomenon.  Descriptions can only approximate what really happened,  how it affected us, and those around us.  Nevertheless it is important to include this story as part of the history of our shtetel

I was a child then, and now I am a living witness with strong memories.  It was dazzling.  It happened right after the end of World War I, infecting all the sleepy, staid Jewish shtetels throughout eastern and central Europe.

Poland became free and declared itself a Republic.  I can still remember the cry:

"Rzeczypospolita Polska!"

The Russian, German, Austrian, and Prussian oppressors disappeared.  They had kept the population isolated, forbidding the publishing of, and even the reading of books and newspapers.  We had yet to experience radio, and for centuries we had been insular.

Suddenly we were recognized as part of Poland.  Local elections were called, and we Jews were considered as equals (for voting at least).

The Jews of our shtetel participated in this initial election, and with the exception of the mayor, all the elected aldermen (city fathers) were Jews.

The local Polish people, being afraid of all authorities, had not gone to the voting poles.  Once the election results were announced the local Poles reacted violently, and the new major was forced to declare election fraud. There was almost a "pogrom" against the Jews of our shtetel.  A Polish group was appointed to run the city, leaving only two Jews in City Hall.

But in Warsaw, in the Polish Parliament called the "Sejm", many Jews remained, and with strong speeches, they opened Poland to the democratic world.

For decades and more the various authorities had imposed a form of dress uniform on the Jews; uniformly dark – mostly black long coasts (Bakeshis) and little black pill-box caps with hardly any visor.  All Jewish men wore them, even the male children.  The women universally wore padded gray clothes.  The married women also wore the large ugly "Pariks," the ugly wigs that made them look unattractive.

Suddenly, with the new freedoms granted, the men discarded the black garments of the Jewish Diaspora, and blossomed out with European, mainly French, imported jackets and vests.  Instead of the little caps, they now chose to wear bright rimmed round hats.  Many of the women discarded their shameful wigs and began to openly show their own hair (although for many their hair was still quite short).

Some of the older women raised their fists and predicted the wrath of God for the sin of abandoning the style of garments that was surely the "Will of God."

It was too late.  Emancipation had come to the shtetels.  The Chaider, the dark Hebrew schools, were abandoned.  Most Jewish boys and girls now flocked to the sunny Polish schools, learned the language, and became Europeans.

Zionism also came to the shtetels.  The Balfour declaration was embraced as a bona fide legitimacy to have a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

Although Anti Semitism was raging in Poland a number of Jewish youths began to become farmers and workers on their own land.  No more were they restricted to living as merchants and makers of deals.

I, too, even as a child, was swept into this.  I became a Boy Scout and a soccer player with a nice group of equals.

In the beginning the Zionists met in private homes, but as the movement grew and became stronger more space was needed. The Zionist group, of which I was a part, was able to rent a loft and establish a home for the organization.  We sang Hatikvah, and learned modern, contemporary Hebrew.  We brought in lecturers from the big cities and became well established as an intellectual group.  We also had theater groups and gave performances in the large hall where the volunteer fire brigade met and kept their equipment.

And quickly another movement emerged: The Bund.  This was a Jewish political party espousing social democratic ideology.  They were very anti Zionist. Where the Zionists wanted to reestablish a Jewish homeland in Palestine, the Bund wanted the Jews to regard themselves as Polish citizens, with equal rights and responsibilities.

They rented their own loft, in a very poor and depressed area.  They sang the "international".  They had their slogans painted all over the windows and walls

"Workers of the World Unite."

And at one point they called the whole Jewish population of our shtetel to the big prayer house to explain their movement.

Everyone came and I remember very vividly how a man, Yitzik Gall, stood up and with his fist in the air, looking down on the few people that occasionally employed some help (a shoe maker, a tailor, a cabinet maker, maybe 6 or 7 people in all).  He shouted at them:

People didn’t know what a strike was.  Everyone went home.

The Jewish exodus from Poland started.  Most went to America, some to Palestine.  We, too, left to start new lives in the United States.

All too soon Hitler started his campaign.  In 1939 Poland was overrun.  Freedom and democracy were over.  It lasted about 20 years.  The Shtetels became history.