Category: Jewish Voice

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From Al’s To Zutz – PRESERVING DELAWARE’S JEWISH BUSINESS HERITAGE

Twenty years ago, the Jewish Historical Society of Delaware celebrated the opening of “From Al’s to Zutz,” an exhibit at the Delaware History Museum recognizing the memorable role of Jewish merchants and businesses in Delaware.  We will be recalling those memories with photographs and other memorabilia on our website and on our Facebook page, facebook.com/JHSDel.

Join in and share your memories and photos.

From Al’s To Zutz –
PRESERVING DELAWARE’S JEWISH BUSINESS HERITAGE

By LYNN EDELMAN
Editor

Take a stroll down memory lane to a time when Wilmingtonians schlepped their children to Wilmington Dry Goods for back to school supplies, haggled over the price of groceries at Sam’s Market and noshed with friends at Blatman’s Kosher Sanitary Bakery. Now through November 6th, you can celebrate Delaware’s rich Jewish business tradition through a unique exhibit at the Delaware History Museum in downtown Wilmington.

“From Al’s to Zutz” is a proud partnership of the Jewish Historical Society of Delaware and the Historical Society of Delaware. This treasure trove of photos, signs, newspaper advertisements, menus and other memorabilia took nearly five years to put together. Judging from the tremendous turnout at opening night festivities, it was well worth the wait.

“More than 400 people packed the gallery space so tightly that you could barely move,” said Marvin Balick, President of the Jewish Historical Society. Balick, a Brooklyn, New York native who was ‘raised here from the time I was a little boy,” said that the exhibit sparked fond memories of the time spent with his father and six brothers. “In preparation for the exhibit, we collected old Yellow Pages listings from the Wilmington telephone directory,” said Balick, who waxed nostalgic over an ad for Turkish and Steam baths operated by Leib Katz. “I can remember packing a lunch and spending the entire day at the schvitz,” he recalled.

Memories like these mark our very existence,” Dr. Barbara Benson, Director of the Historical Society of Delaware, who finds some parallels between the way that Jewish and Quaker settlers did business in Delaware. “Both peoples established small companies here rather than the large factories that were founded by other ethnic groups,” Benson explained. Many of these businesses began with merchandise peddled from carts directly to customers then eventually expanded to become storefronts.

Benson said that jobs at Wilmington institutions like “The Dry Goods” provided more than just an income to the emigres who served as employees. “For many, it was their first experience with the American culture,” she stated, adding that “a number of newcomers learned the English language while they assisted customers.”

Unlike larger East Coast cities Delaware Jewish merchants have always marketed their goods to the broader community. Also, because of its small size, Delaware’s Jewish community never established a “ghetto”, Benson maintained, explaining that “the addresses of these companies marked an economic entry point-many began in lower Wilmington and migrated to the suburban areas along with their customers.”

Although extensive, the exhibit “just scratches the surface of Jewish business in Delaware,” said Julian Preisler JHS Executive Director. Preisler emphasizes that the collection is not “a definitive history of Jewish business in Delaware but rather “a work in progress.” He plans to continue to expand the Jewish archives – which are housed rent-free in the basement of the Delaware Historical Society – and to develop a comprehensive data-base so that people who do not have physical remnants of their connections to Delaware’s Jewish business tradition can document their memories.”

Throughout the run of the exhibit, community members will have an opportunity to share their stories and compile an oral history of Jewish businesses in Wilmington, Newark, Dover and other communities throughout the State.

Why? “These stories are gone, and many of their former customers are gone as well,” said Benson, emphasizing that “We must preserve our past to pass on the future generations.”

“From Al’s to Zutz” is funded through grants from the Delaware Humanities Forum and the Jewish Fund for the Future, the endowment arm of the Jewish Federation of Delaware and through the generosity of numerous community businesses and individuals.

Admission is $4, but is free to members of the Jewish Historical Society. For additional information about the exhibit or to become a member, please call Julian Preisler at 655-6232.

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Night of the Murdered Poets

The following article originally appeared in The Jewish Voice on August 10,  1984.

Thirty-two years ago today in the dark cellars of Moscow’s Lubyianka Prison, on Aug. 12, 1952, after months of torture and interrogation, 24 of the leading Jewish writers, artists and poets of the USSR were murdered. This was the climax of Stalin’s campaign to eradicate Jewish culture from the Soviet Union. Three decades later, in spite of detente, grain deals, cultural exchanges, Senate resolutions, human-rights petitions, Helsinki and Madrid, Soviet policy has never veered from this relentless quest to reduce Jewish life in the USSR to a footnote in its revisionist history.

This was not always so. Shortly after Lenin signed the 1917 “Declaration of Rights to the People of Russia,” Jewish cultural institutions flourished. At that time, one could choose from 11 Yiddish newspapers or more than 60 periodicals, visit Yiddish theaters in major cities and purchase books from publishing houses offering dozens of editions with copies in the millions. Although such activities were carried out strictly according to party policy, few sizable Jewish population centers were without a cultural establishment employing Yiddish, the language of “the Jewish minority.”

By the 1920s and ’30s, however, Jewish culture began its subsistence on a starvation diet. Government assistance was diminished in stages. Jewish identity was discouraged and assimilation was officially promoted.

In the late 1940s, Stalin began his campaign to systematically dismantle Jewish culture. By 1948, only one school of higher learning remained. It was closed later that year. In 1949, all theaters, including the Yiddish State Theater in Moscow, were denied all state subsidies and subsequently folded. The glorious tradition of Jewish theater in Russia came to an abrupt end.

That same year the campaign against Jewish culture turned brutal. In 1949 and into the 1950s – what had been called “the Black Years” — many writers and poets simply disappeared. Solomon Mikhoels, the great actor and community leader, was lured to Minsk and found decapitated by what was later reported as an “auto accident.” Writers and editors were imprisoned, never to be heard from. In the winter of 1948-49, it was estimated that more than 431 artists, writers and musicians disappeared into the Gulag.

The fate of the most prestigious of the Soviet Jewish writers was reserved for the summer of 1952.

The trial, which resulted in “The Night of the Murdered Poets,” began on July 11, 1952. Among the 25 accused were renowned Jewish academics, physicians and the leading Jewish poets and writers in the USSR. They were charged with being “rebels,” “agents of American imperialism,” who also wanted to separate Crimea from the Soviet Union and to “establish their own Jewish bourgeois national Zionist republic.”

On July 18, the verdict was announced: 24 received the death penalty; only one, a woman, was sentenced to a long prison term.

On Aug. 12, the executions were carried out. They were not acknowledged for years. The bodies of the victims were never discovered. A decade later, during the Khrushchev “thaw,” some writers’ wives were sent a slip of paper telling about their husbands’ “liquidation” – with no explanation other than it had been done “under a bad time.”

In the ’50s, the executions were halted, but the policies set down by Stalin have continued in various guises until the present. Some examples: Jewish learning has been almost totally suppressed. Not one Jewish school has been permitted in the Soviet Union for more than 30 years. Generations of children have grown up ignorant of their Yiddish heritage. The so-called Moscow Yeshiva, 16 years old, consists of a handful of overaged students and has yet to graduate one rabbi. By contrast, other, much smaller, ethnic national groups such as the Germans and the Poles, enjoy a wide network of cultural and educational institutions conducted in their own language.

Despite the official suspension of Jewish culture in the USSR, a thirst for Hebrew and Jewish education persists. Seminars and unofficial classes proliferate — in cramped apartments, under KGB surveillance and harassment, and with the ever-present threat of arrest for “subversive activities.” Study groups and Hebrew language courses – from kindergarten to adult levels – exist in many cities, often using primitive, home-made texts.

Yet, while the flame of hope flickers, the tunnel grows darker. During the last year, several changes have been made in Jewish policy:

  • An end to immigration: On April 1, 1983, Pravda appealed for, and later won, the establishment of an “Anti- Zionist Committee of the Soviet Republic.” On June 6, the committee – appropriately window-dressed with a Jewish membership – gave a two-hour press conference during which the deputy chairman declared that Jews no longer wished to leave because “family reunification has essentially been completed” and have ceased to succumb to “Zionist lures.” He said nothing of the 300,000 Jews already in refusal waiting for their exit visas.
  • The severance of contact between Soviet Jews and Jews abroad: The same committee declared that “citizens who are of the Soviet people” and that Soviet Jews reject with contempt attempts by Zionist propagandists to interfere in their lives.
  • Forced assimilation: Hebrew and Jewish history circles — sporadically harassed but comparatively tolerated during the past few years — were formally declared by the committee as antithetical to Soviet law.
  • A broadening of anti-Zionist propaganda to include neo- Nazi themes. The chairman of the anti-Zionist committee characterized Zionism as a “man-hating ideology” which is “modeled on the ideas and methods of Hitler.” Much in the propaganda campaign is drawn from a newly published book by Lev Korneyev, the most prolific anti-Semitic author in the USSR, entitled The Class Essence of Zionism. In this and other recent writing, Korneyev declares the Holocaust “a myth of Zionist propaganda” and argues that the figure of six million Jews is a gross exaggeration.

Despite the 32-year span, the repercussions of Aug. 12, 1952, live on in Soviet policy. May this date and the memory of the murdered poets, writers and intellectuals it recalls give pause to those of conscience and human concern everywhere.

JEWISH EMIGRATION FROM THE USSR

STATISTICS

1965 -June 1967 4,498 1975 13,221
Oct. 1968 – 1970 4,235 1976 14,261
1971 13,022 1977 16,736
1972 31,681 1978 28,864
1973 34,733 1979 51,320
1974 20,628 1980 21,471

 

1981 1982 1983 1984
January 850 (24.9)* 290 (26.9)* 81 (23.5)* 88 (25.0)*
February 1,407 (15.8) 283 (21.9) 125 (27.2) 90 (54.4)
March 1,249 (14.3) 289 (27.3) 101 (32.7) 51 (35.2)
April 1,155 (15.5) 288 (29.5) 114 (9.6) 74 (32.4)
May 1,141 (15.8) 205 (27.8) 116 (29.3) 109 (45.9)
June 866 (14.5) 182 (27.5) 102 (38.2) 72 (40.3)
July 779 (22.2) 186 (23.1) 167 (22.8)
August 430 (22.3) 238 (20.2) 130 (22.3)
September 405 (28.6) 246 (20.7) 135 (40.0)
October 368 (24.2) 168 (34.5) 90 (46.2)
November 363 (25.0) 137 (38.0) 56 (42.9)
December 434 (22.8) 176 (39.8) 97 (32.0)
9,447 (18.6) 2,688 (27.3) 1,314 (29.5)

From October 1968 – June 1984, 264,105 persons left the Soviet Union with visas. Approximately 163,062 of them went to Israel.

‘Figures represent the percentage of those who proceeded to Israel.

Day Grows Darker

Leyb Kvitko (1893-1952)

Day grows darker
And darker.
Gangs come nearer to the town,
Gangs muddled with blood
From killing children hardened,
Coming closer zealously greedy,
Cutting heads,
Exhausted, terrified heads.
And my head too,
My head that’s yet so young,
And too my heart,
That lullabied deep inside the joy of love.

…A survivor tragic
Will enumerate the slain.
My dead name will he write
Along with many others in letters small
On a lengthy list.
Oh, may he not forget at least
To note on that long list
How old I was!

Let him leastwise note,
That my heart was bloody young
That strong, like fear, was my will to live,
Strong and crazed,
Like my final day.

translated by Herbert H. Paper

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A Yiddish Playwrite

Levenberg

FRANKLY SPEAKING
Zev Amiti
Yiddish Play Premieres in Wilmington!

It was the first of its kind ever in the 50 year history of the Wilmington Drama League; and without doubt, the first of its kind ever, outside of the Jewish community in Delaware.

A one act play with a strictly Jewish theme, written and directed by a Jewish resident of our state was presented Feb. 3 and 4 in the Drama League near 40th and Market Street before enthusiastic audiences but I suspect it was seen by not more than a half dozen Jewish residents of our city.

“So? What’s all this about?” you may ask.

So — I’ll tell you. It’s basically about my nephew, Moishe, whom many of you know better as Morris Levenberg, known more formally as His Honor, Justice of the Peace Morris Levenberg.
I know, it’s not always kosher to write about one’s kith and kin but believe me, this is different.

Here is a Jewish resident of our state and city — a native, too; actually born on the second floor of a house that stood at Second and Shipley Streets many years ago — who has taken on a hobby of writing, directing, and participating in plays.

Maybe you remember when Reb Morris Levenberg used to direct plays in the old Jewish Community Center that used to be on French Street, between Fifth and Sixth, just below the old Adas Kodesch synagogue?

And I recall once when he staged a play on the bimah of Beth Emeth. Yes, right there on the bimah on a Friday night! It was the dramatized story of Bontche Schweig and what happened to him when he appeared before the throne of the Almighty.

Well, getting back now to my story:

The Drama League had decided to enter a play in the national one act play contest and so it offered four one act plays on Feb. 3 and 4 with the audience helping officials of the Drama League to select the one to be entered in the national contest.

So Reb Morris Levenberg wrote a one act play, based on a story by Isaac Mordecai. He helped to cast it and he also directed it. It was named “Strike of the Poor People” and it involved an old Yiddish legend that once upon a time a wealthy man decided to marry off his daughter and in accordance with Galitzianer tradition (you see, Reb Levenberg’s grandparents and mother came from Galicia), the father had to invite the poor people to the wedding.

And according to tradition, if the poor people of the village did not attend the wedding and participate in the festivities, there just could not be a wedding.

However, on this occasion, the poor people of this particular village in Galicia, went on strike. They sent a negotiator to inform the father of the bride-to-be that they would not “honor” the wedding until they were assured of a raise in donations of money, their own selection of the food, served by caterers of their own choosing.

At first, the father, Reb Yitzchock, refused to agree to the demands but finally he had to give in. Here was the point of the play: Rabbi Menasha who was scheduled to perform the wedding ceremony, advised Chaim, the negotiator for the beggars’ union that according to Talmud and Jewish law, any one who receives charity is bound to share that charity with others, particularly with the shul.

The role of the father, Reb Yitzchok, was played with great skill by Joe Halloran, a veteran member of the Drama League, whose Yiddish mannerisms and accent were superb, thanks to the direction of Reb Levenberg.
Others in the play were Clyde Hess as Rabbi Menasha; Victoria Prober as the bride and Steve Porno as the negotiator for the beggars.

The acting was so wonderful, with add due respect to Reb. Levenberg, you would have thought it had all been directed by Menasha Skulnick or Boris Thomashevsky.
Anyway, the play did direct the audiences to a fundamental Jewish law!

Even beggars who receive charity are required to share that charity with the less fortunate.

Maybe someone can persuade Reb Moishe Levenberg to restage his play in the Jewish Community Center or even in a shul.

This article by columnist William P. Frank appeared in the Jewish Voice on February 24, 1984.

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William Topkis Cited In Jerusalem

William Topkis and family published in The Jerusalem Post

An Israeli Perspective

William Topkis Cited In Jerusalem

By DR. DAVID GEFFEN

The first William Topkis (1878-1925) was alive and well in Jerusalem one night last week. On December 12, 1989 at the Israel Museum, the Steven Spielberg Film Archives of the Hebrew University presented a retrospective program on the work of Ya’akov Ben-Dov, considered to be the first Jewish filmmaker in the country. During the program of lectures, slides and films, William Topkis was cited for writing the filmscript and directing a film made by Ben-Dov in 1923.

The film, which Topkis entitled “Palestine Awakening,” told the story of a rich American Jewish tourist who landed in Haifa intending to spend only one day in “this dirty, filthy country.” Instead, he stayed on for a month seeing everything there was to see in the cities and in the kubbutzim and moshavim. At the end of the film the tourist announces that he is returning to the United States to close out his affairs and then will come to live in Palestine.

The significance of William Topkis’ participation in the making of this film in 1923 is greatly enhanced by the diary which he kept of his daily activities during his five-month stay in the Holy Land. His diary entries of the period in May 1923 when the actual filming was being done read like a film log. It is the only written record of the film and supplements the 19 minute portion of the actual film which has survived.

During the program at the Israel Museum Topkis was hailed for his Zionist career, for his film partnership with the DuPonts and Samuel Goldwyn and for his encouragement of American tourism through this film and through the American Information Bureau which he opened in Jerusalem in April 1923. As the work of William Topkis was described, I was proud to be a Delawarean. William Topkis was one of the first American Jewish leaders who realized the potential of film as an. informational device in giving wide audiences the picture of what was transpiring in the rebuilding of Eretz Yisrael. Because of his premature death in 1925, he did not have an opportunity to write or produce any more films. However, the film he left us did break new ground while setting the tone for future productions.

The public career of William Topkis began in the early part of the century when he was elected the secretary of Congregation Adas Kodesch in 1901. His English written minutes are among the first in that language of a Delaware Jewish organization. On Rosh Hashanah in 1901 he helped to write the sermon which calmed the Wilmington Jewish community in the wake of the assassination of President William McKinley.

He served as president of the Wilmington YMHA in 1913, and in 1917 Topkis was elected as Delaware’s only delegate to the first American Jewish Congress. After attending several national ZOA conventions, he was elected to the national executive committee in 1921, serving for several years with distinction. In 1923 he took his wife and daughter, and he went to Palestine to see the country; “a visit to the land of his fathers” and to do what he could to help promote its development.

All together, he and his family spent five months in Eretz Yisrael and several months in Europe, where he attended the World Zionist Congress as an American delegate. His two lasting contributions from that trip are the film and the assistance he provided for Jewish tourism in the country through his American Information Bureau. On returning to the U.S., he gave an interview printed in the national ZOA magazine, The New Palestine, and in various anglo-Jewish newspapers. In the course of the survey of his trip, he urged that 200 American Jewish businessmen should go and live in Palestine for that will “change the face of the country.”

I was pleased to hear about and see the work of the first William Topkis here in Jerusalem. I also told my friend Yaakov Gross, the historian of the film career of Ben-Dov, that the second William Topkis is currently the President of the Jewish Federation of Delaware. From Delaware to Jerusalem and back, William Topkis has left his mark.

(Note: The Steven Spielberg Film Archives is anxious to locate a complete version of the film made by Topkis and Ben-Dov. Any information about the film or still pictures taken as the filming was being done can be sent to Dr. David Geffen via The Jewish Voice. Hopefully, an English version of the Ben-Dov film composite will be available in 1990.)

Originally published in the Jewish Voice on January 5, 1990.

Learn more about William Topkis

THE LIFEBLOOD OF PALESTINE JEWISH TOURISM  by David Geffen   April 15, 2013

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