What Can You Find in the World’s Oldest Yiddish Letter? Exactly What You Would Expect

Looking for proof that nothing ever changes? In this ancient letter a mother complains to her son that he doesn't write to her often enough… Sound familiar?

Cairo Genizah - A Micro History | 15.01.18

The letter in the photograph is stored in the Cambridge University Library, TSMISC36. Line 5: I was, lo aleinu {may it not happen to us}, very sick, lo aleinu, from the first day of the month of Tamuz until the first day of the month of Av…

Among the treasures discovered in the Cairo Genizah are also documents written in Yiddish.

In fact the Cairo Genizah is the source of the oldest Yiddish texts in the world – an anthology of midrashim and parables, and even a German folk legend about a valiant duke who performs acts of gallantry to win the heart of a Greek princess.

But daily life interests us more than legends of knights and princesses, so we decided to present excerpts from a series of letters from Rachel Zussman, an elderly widow who lived in Jerusalem, to her son Moshe, who settled with his family in Cairo for business reasons. The letters were written in Yiddish in the mid 1560’s, and eventually made their way to the Cairo Genizah. They teach us much about the composition of the community in Jerusalem, its economic state, and communication and travel between Jerusalem and Egypt, as well as a mother-son relationship dating back 500 years.

From what we can tell, Rachel Zussman seems to have been a comparatively educated woman who was relatively financially stable. Nonetheless, she appears not to have written the letters herself, but instead dictated them to a professional scribe, who may have incorporated verses and proverbs. Her husband died in Jerusalem, and it was there that her financial situation deteriorated, as we will see.

As typified by the stereotype of the “Jewish Mother”, Rachel complains about the lack of letters from her son (and a letter from her son explaining why he didn’t write back was even found in the Genizah). Less stereotypically, her son Moshe married a woman named Masuda, in other words a Jewish woman who originated from the Arab countries, and Rachel was very satisfied by the match, even suggesting that his daughter Beila (her granddaughter), who had reached marriageable age, be married to a young man from Masuda’s family.

Here are excerpts from Rachel Zussman’s letters, translated into English from the Hebrew translation of Chava Turniansky, who translated and published the letters:

“My dear son, may you live and be well…I, lo aleinu, am very sick, lo aleinu, God Almighty knows what will be my end due to our sins…my dear son, do not be distressed. I also ask the faithful doctor (in other words, God) for you not to be sick – for me to suffer instead of you. And I also ask that He not let me die until I see you once again and you place your hand over my eyes and recite Kaddish after me. And so, my dear son, do not be distressed, live and be well…

I do not know where to obtain money from. Poor people have no money. My dear son, bring me a linen garment with you. I do not have, due to our many sins, a sheet on my bed, or a cover for my pillow. If I was, God forbid, to die I would not have a sheet to be covered in when they remove me from the bed. I am ashamed before other people. I do not have a turban for my shrouds to put on my head. If you are able to buy me one there cheaply, do so. And bring barley with you. I could not find any here at all. Bring two.”

A reply from Moshe to his mother was also discovered in the Genizah:

“Know, my dear mother, that we are all healthy and invigorated… therefore, my dear mother, I was unable to even send you a letter throughout the above period, and I was also unable to buy the things you wrote to me…”.

Further on in the letter he also reports about the boys’ studies with their teacher, and about the idiotic son, about whom he says that talking to him is like “talking to a plank”.

Moshe’s letter was sent to his mother Rachel in Jerusalem, so how did it end up back in the Cairo Genizah? Because his mother wrote her reply on the blank spaces on the page, and sent it back to Cairo. She had much room to write, as her son Moshe’s letter was relatively short… Here is a quotation:

“To my beloved son, my dear Moshe, and to your dear and modest wife my daughter-in-law Madam Masuda. I understand that you did not receive all my letters… My dear son, I am very very hurt and distressed that you distress me so much due to our sins with your deliveries… my dear son, God will forgive you for distressing me so much. Had you at least sent me the [the page is torn here] and the barley for an entire year…” However, the letter is also full of motherly good advice, from the way every loan should be meticulously recorded, to the following:

“Go and bathe in the river as little as possible. In this way it will not be able to harm you.”

Which is true.

(The seven letters discussed in this article were published and translated into Hebrew by Chava Turniansky in an article in volume 4 of the ‘Shalem’ journal. They are all in Cambridge, except for one which is in the National Library in Jerusalem. A decade ago, more excerpts from letters in Yiddish to and from Rachel Zussman were discovered in Cambridge.)

The Viral Nature of Anti-Semitic Imagery

The Dreyfus Affair that divided France and risked the Republic is not just the story of the sham trials, it is the story of the first viral hate campaign of images in mass media brining to the surface the most ancient of hatreds in a brand new way.

Melody Barron | 02.01.18

Antisemitism Diaspora

While anti-Semitic imagery and iconography has existed and was promulgated for centuries, it was the eruption of the daily newspaper and the popularity of the postcard in the mid-19th century that enabled the dissemination of the images faster than ever before.

The Dreyfus Affair that brought to the surface the division of France is not just the story of the sham trials and Emil Zola’s “J’Accuse”; it is also an example of one of the first image campaigns in the press, instigated by Zola’s famous publication.

“J’Accuse” hit the papers on January 13th, 1898, in L’Aurure, the famously Dreyfusard publication, at the height of the Dreyfus Affair. It is arguably Zola’s most famous piece of writing, fiction or non-fiction. However, it initiated what might be termed in contemporary language the first viral campaign. A war of images regarding Alfred Dreyfus as either innocent or traitor, human or monster, was battled between newspapers that had a wider distribution than ever before.

While Zola and his Dreyfusard allies were caricatured by the anti-Dreyfusards, the truly vicious images were of Alfred Dreyfus himself. The anti-Semitic depictions published by La Libre Parole in a series named the Museum of Horrors showcased Dreyfus as a snake, to give but one example. The series was published during Alfred Dreyfus’ new court-martial in 1898, and the caricatures were clearly aimed at all French Jews whoever they were.

“History of a Traitor”, 1899 Central Archive for the History of the Jewish People, Jerusalem, F/261

“History of an Innocent”, 1898 National Library of Israel

The so-called viral nature of the image exchange indicates how close to the surface the hatred towards Jews had bubbled during that period of time. The blunt racism and anti-Semitism depicted in the caricatures published at the time threatened to destabilize the state, using the Jews as a tool of division by the right as a perfect scapegoat.

“Dreyfus is a Traitor” November 1898 Musée d’art et d’histoire du Judaïsme, Paris

It was a golden age of caricatures. This art converged along with the daily newspaper and the Dreyfus Affair. It enabled the slew of images of hate aimed towards a minority to be engaging, entertaining, and viral. The idea spread to other European countries, all the way to the United States.

The stereotypes and canards perpetuated in the caricatures drew from both the antiquated ideas of Jewish usury and greed, but also modern ideas of conspiracy, as well as industry domination and control, which had been made popular by the publication of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”. Those ideas rose in prominence through the publication of caricatures showcasing Jews attempting to disguise themselves as non-Jews, Jews being portrayed as world dominators, and manipulators of finance and politics.

Caricatures of Jews committing election fraud from “Hatemail: Anti-Semitism on Picture Postcards”

This article was written with the help of Dr. Betty Halpern-Guedj from the Library Collections.

Information for the articles was gathered from Dreyfus and Zola: A Moment in the Conscience of the World, Dryfus: The History of a Jewish-French Family, and Hatemail: Anti-Semitism on Picture Postcards.

“God! When Will You Put an End to this Miserable Life?”

What went through the head of a soldier forced against his will to fight in the First World War? How did he react when asked to simply kill his enemies and not take them captive? A glimpse into the diary of the Jewish soldier Karl Klein.

Stefan Litt | 01.01.18

מלחמת העולם הראשונה

Italian artillery captured during the First World War

February 1917, two and a half years after the outbreak of the First World War. There had been no significant movement of the war fronts in Europe for several months, both sides had suffered hundreds of thousands of casualties, without any purpose and with no gain for either side. On the western front, almost two million British, French and German soldiers died in heavy battles near Verdun and on the Somme River in 1916; on the eastern front, the Russian generals sent hundreds of thousands of soldiers to certain death. Civilians in many countries suffered from lack of food and fatigue, countless families mourned for their sons and fathers who would never return. In Russia, the initial signs of the revolutionary movement began to appear, and the First Revolution broke out in February of 1917, leading the Russian empire to the threshold of disintegration.

The heavy losses forced the various armies to enlist more and more new soldiers. One of those soldiers was Karl Klein, a Jewish accountant from Vienna, who was recruited on February 1, 1917 to the Austro-Hungarian army, which fought as an ally together with the Kaiser’s German army. From the offset, Karl Klein understood that a significant period of his life was beginning, a period that was shrouded in uncertainty. It seems to have been this understanding that led the new soldier to write a diary, at least for the next year and a half.

The new recruits trained for three months in a military base, before being sent at the beginning of May 1917 to the southern front, the Austrian-Italian border. The border was situated in a beautiful region, on the southern edge of the Alps, south of the city of Trient. This region is characterized by well cared for villages scatted among tall mountains and pastoral lakes. This was also the site of the ethnic border between German speakers and Italian speakers. The Austrians built forts and posts on the immense mountains, sometimes as far as 3500 meters high. They were extremely difficult to reach, as Karl Klein mentions in several places in his memoir:

June 2 [1917]:

“Pai is located above the village of Mezzolombardo, on a 1000-meter high peak. We march there with all the equipment, up a narrow winding path. At times, the view from this path is breathtaking. Far below are the places, such as Begina, further right is the Etsch Valley [the river is called Etsch in German and Adige in Italian], encircled by tall mountains on both sides.”

Perhaps this the view Klein saw? The view from a cable car in northern Italy

Karl Klein was not enthused by the war. Due to the general state of affairs and in keeping with his personal opinions, Klein wrote on May 26th, 1917:

“Deep down, I would rather we were not the victors in this great battle, but for there to be no victors and losers at all. Austria’s internal state only strengthens this desire. We are facing a group of democratic countries, who are working seriously toward general disarmament and liberty for all nations.”

From this excerpt we can understand that Klein did not belong to the group of nationalists who were convinced that the armies of the neighboring countries must be defeated at all cost. When reading the memoirs, we see that Klein was not a “war hero” and did not look for adventures on the battlefield. He did not try to escape his fate as an Austrian soldier but also did not miss opportunities to reduce the dangers he was exposed to on the front.

Alongside descriptions of the events, Klein recorded the places he saw and visited, whether in his official role, or in his free time. Karl Klein also included maps of the region, which he drew in an extraordinarily clear manner, interspersed between the pages of text in the two notebooks in which he wrote his memoirs. He sometimes noted the places his unit was staying at the time.

A map drawn by Klein. The Map is in the second notebook recently given to the National Library

Klein did not forget his Jewish identity during the War. On September 16, 1917 he wrote:

“Today is the eve of Rosh Hashana. I think glumly about this joyous festival, in the forsaken corner with the destroyed houses. I have not even received any news from home. I sadly ponder my future destiny. In an hour’s time we will take our positions and spend the night there – as usual – almost sleeplessly in a dank and cold cave. God! When will you put an end to this miserable life? This terrifying question does not leave my thoughts. Will I ever again live a regular life as a civilian?”

The weeks and months passed with oscillations of the front, training, and attempts to improve the daily diet – until mid-November 1917. During the massive Austrian attack on the Italian front, Karl Klein’s battle hour arrived as well. Klein describes the events of November 11 and 12, the days in which he was personally involved in the fighting, in great detail. From the description of these days in his memoirs we can feel the level of fear Klein felt during the battles. Several of his comrades from the unit fell, and others were injured.

From a military perspective, these were successful days for the Austro-Hungarian army’s war effort. In the fall of 1917 the soldiers managed to capture more areas in Italy, a fact Klein does not expressly mention. This demonstrates Klein’s apathy toward the victories and losses of the opposing armies during the war. However, on a personal level, the author of the memoirs did not remain apathetic toward the fate of the Italian soldiers he was forced to fight against.

On November 18, Klein wrote:

“An order has been issued that no Italian should be taken captive, as it has recently been reported that they shot our soldiers after they surrendered and approached [the Italians]. This order greatly depresses me; I will never be capable of killing an Italian, whose mother would mourn for him just as much. When our unit will be forced into this situation, how will I manage to avoid it?”

After his unit returned from the front, Klein became sick and was sent back to Austria-Hungary, this time to a military hospital in Bohemia, where he stayed for several months. These may have been his happiest months of the entire War. He recovered, returned to Italy and was appointed as a quartermaster, an appointment which kept him away from further activity on the front.

However, Klein and his friends spent the final weeks of the war waiting and listening to the rumors: riots in Austria, negotiations for a ceasefire and more. By the fall of 1918 the soldiers’ discipline became increasingly loose, and the end of the war seemed imminent.

On October 15, 1918 Klein wrote:

“The commanders are updating the soldiers, following instructions from the top ranks, about the impeding ceasefire, the Germans and the Czechs separately. Our forces are meant to retreat to the border of the Empire within five days. This news causes a great breath of relief among the soldiers who underwent difficult experiences […] the barrack is full of soldiers’ joyous conversation. The Czechs are signing national songs…and the name Masaryk can be heard.”

The soldiers received the order to retreat to Austria on November 1. It took Karl Klein ten days to make his way home to Vienna, first together with his friends but as they advanced, the enormous, ancient army began to fall apart, until it reached a state of total chaos. The soldiers were eager to reach home and no longer saw the officers as having any authority. On his way, Klein saw the evacuation of the southern Austrian region, which was transferred to Italian rule as part of the ceasefire. When he reached Vienna, Karl Klein witnessed a momentous moment: the declaration of the Austrian Republic on November 12, 1918:

“The establishment of the Republic was festively declared in Vienna today. For me, this was a sad day of memories. A year ago today we fought in the attack against the Italian positions in Monte Longara. The following night I experienced terrifying moments.”

A photograph of the one of the notebooks found in the Karl Klein archive which was recently deposited with the National Library

It seems that the diary Klein wrote did not survive, but served as the basis for the memoirs Klein wrote after returning home safe and sound in November 1918. The difficult months undoubtedly left their mark on Klein and he decided to dedicate his time to writing memories of the “Great War” (as it was called at the time, they did not yet know that not long would pass before it would need to be numbered). Klein wrote his memoirs in two notebooks in clear handwriting. In the margins he noted numbers of photographs which appear to have shown scenery and events, but the photographs are missing.

20 years later, Klein once again found himself at the forefront of the whirlwind of history. As a Jew, Klein fled from his native Austria and managed to emigrate to England. There he was once again forced to don uniform, this time of the British army. Klein survived this war as well, we do not know if he wrote another diary. Recently, the members of his family decided to give away the remains of the estate of Karl Klein, the Viennese accountant. Among the various materials, two notebooks were discovered which testify about the historic events which took place precisely 100 years ago, from the perspective of a simple civilian who understood better than great leaders that this will be a war with no winners or losers.

A photograph of Karl Klein in British army uniform

“Tropical Zion” Revealed

A rare photo album reveals how refugees from Nazi Germany made the Caribbean wilderness bloom.

Chen Malul | 27.12.17

Antisemitism Jewish Immigration Life Before The Holocaust The Holocaust מלחמת העולם השנייה

Even Hitler was shocked by the lighting speed of the Anschluss, the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in March 1938. The exultant hordes who welcomed Adolf Hitler concealed a terrible truth: opponents of the Nazi regime, left-wingers, and above all – Austrian Jews – began to feel the iron rod of the Nazi tyranny as soon as the occupying forces entered. Thousands of Jews knocked on the doors of the American Embassy in Vienna in an attempt to receive exit visas from the country which had suddenly been annexed to the Third Reich.

11 days after the Anschluss, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, president of the U.S.A., proposed the establishment of a special refugee committee to aid immigration of refugees from Germany and Austria. The President appeared to be interested in a rapid and full solution to the problem of refugees from the expanding Third Reich, but Roosevelt quickly clarified that no country – including the U.S. – can be expected to radically change its immigration policy. This reserved tone cast a cloud of gloom over the committee meetings from the outset until the wording of the final conclusions.

Discussions in the Evian Committee, July 1938. Source: Encyclopedia of America’s Response to the Holocaust

For nine days, from July 9th – 15^th of 1938, representatives of 32 countries convened in the Royal Hotel in the city of Evian on the banks of the Genève Lake in France. The representatives raised various claims against raising the quota of entrance visas for refugees: America kept its word and refused to increase the existing immigration quotas (which amounted to 27,370 refugees from Germany and Austria per year), but promised to utilize them fully – something it had not done in previous years. The representatives of the United Kingdom vehemently refused to discuss the possibility of settling the refugees in the Land of Israel. France raised a similar argument, and added that its financial condition does not allow for the absorption of more refugees.

Belgium agreed with the general tone and also refused to raise the immigration quotas. The Netherlands offered to accept additional refugees, but added the draconian condition: The Netherlands would serve as a transit port for the refugees on their way to a final destination. The Australian representative surpassed all other members of the committee with his claim that “As we have no real racial problem, we are not desirous of importing one”.

Will the Evian Committee lead us to freedom? A cartoon published before the beginning of the Evian Conference’s debates on July 3, 1938

The only country that agreed to take in a significant number of refugees was the Dominican Republic. The representative of the Republic, one of the Conference’s final speakers, promised that his country would allot expansive plots of land for agricultural settlement of European refugees. The tiny country kept its word. And so, two years later, the settlement known as the “Sosúa Settlement” came into being.

The Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People has a collection which documents the Jewish settlement there, which also includes a photo album depicting the life of the Jewish community in Sosúa from May 1940 – when the first Jewish refugees from Europe began to arrive – until July 1947. The only texts in the album are the words added to the various photographs, but when looking through the album one can have no doubt of its importance.

The Sosúa Settlement Album

The city of “Sosúa”, a word which means worm in the language of the island’s original residents, received its name from the nearby Sosúa River. Prior to the arrival of the Jewish refugees to the region and Sosúa’s growth into a city, Sosúa was a tiny village – it was originally the dwelling places of the workers of the banana plantations, and after the plantations were abandoned – the village was used by the island’s wealthy residents as a summer vacation destination.

A stamp issued by the government of the Dominican Republic marking the 42nd birthday of then President Rafael Trujillo

When the Second World War broke out, the dictatorial President of the Dominican Republic, Rafael Trujillo, transferred the lands in the Sosúa region to the management of James Rosenberg, one of the heads of the “Dominican Republic Settlement Association”.

James Rosenberg, initiator of the Sosúa Settlement

Signing the contract with the Dominican Republic

The first quota the Dominican Republic issued for refugees amounted to five thousand visas. Only 757 Jews managed to take advantage of them. The first settlers arrived on May 7, 1940, from countries bordering on Germany.

Even though the album is a publicity album published by the settling company, the photographs in the album are consistent with what we know about the development of the new community. Many of the refugees understood the need to abandon their previous occupations as doctors, attorneys and other kinds of free professions, and quickly adopted agriculture and farming. Each immigrant received 80 acres of land, together with a mule, horse and ten cows. A cooperative named Productos Sosúa was established in order to market the agricultural produce, milk and meat the settlers produced.

The children receive classes on agriculture

The album depicts extensive construction of infrastructures: establishment of buildings, paving roads and dedicated cultivation of the agricultural crops

Though the refugees left the professions they had worked in in Europe behind, they did bring with them the Jewish traditions and culture and adapted them to their new home; they established kindergartens and schools in which the young boys and girls learned Spanish, studied agriculture and celebrated Jewish festivals.

Synagogues and a Jewish cemetery were also established in the city, as well as reading rooms and a general store in the European model.

After the Second World War, several thousand Jewish refugees from Europe and Shanghai came to Sosúa. These immigrants are also represented in the album.

New settlers from Shanghai arrive in Sosúa

Most of the members of the community immigrated to America during the 1950’s and 60’s – settling primarily in New York and Miami. It is estimated that the number of Jews currently living in Sosúa range between twenty and a hundred Jews. The current mayor of the city is Ilana Neuman, a descendant of Jewish refugees who came to Sosúa during the Second World War.