3 Two weddings and a funeral
Published in the Forverts on September 21st, 1946
Tate did everything he could so no one would focus on how gravely ill he was. A few times a day, he would get out of bed and wander around the house, with a cane, and touch and look at everything we had bought for Bas-Sheyva and prepared for the wedding. When the inlaws arrived, he also thought that we shouldn’t forget about our poorer relatives who lived in the nearby shtetlech. Every time he remembered one poor relative or another, he would say, “For God’s sake, don’t forget them too!” He would also say that there should be as many poor people as possible at the wedding feast.
“Don’t spare a dime, Feige,” he would said to mame, who, even more than he did, really made an effort to hide the heavy thoughts she was carrying because of his illness. “Don’t spare a dime!… It costs so much already, we can pay a little more… God is our father and he will not abandon us…”
Mame did everything that tate told her. But once it became clear to her that he was walking around the house with his cane too much, she beseeched him, “Follow me, Leyb Sender, and lie down. You are already tired and you need to rest. And believe me,” she continued leading him to his secluded alcove to rest, “believe me that at our daughter Bas-Sheyva’s wedding, mirtzeshem, we won’t want for a single thing. It will be good for God and man alike…”
And so it was.
At the wedding, which took place two weeks before Pesach in the little village of Zatishiye between Vasilkov and Belaya Tserkov, so much family came that even at a fair you never saw so many people. There wasn’t a single Jewish landowner in all the nearby shtetlech and towns who didn’t come to the wedding. Among the landowners, all Jews with a broad hand and a lot of power and strength, there were also chasidim of the Makarover rebbe. My tate wouldn’t invite any other chasidim1. He would certainly not have them at the doorstep of his house. And the Jewish landowners did not come alone, but with their wives and children, and they drove to the village in horse-drawn carriages. Just as they felt at home among the Jews, so too they felt at home among the goyim, and they spoke the goyishe language Ukrainian just as freely and easily as they spoke Yiddish.
But all the landowners and family from the shtetlech who came to the wedding made way for Abba the klezmer musician with his band of musicians, who were brought down from Belaya Tserkov. Abba the klezmer musician was a smart, cunning Jew who even then, even in those times, wore a pressed shirt and a refined, short little kaftan that fell right to his waist. He wasn’t born yesterday, and he knew how to perform for high-ranking courtiers, for whom a “kerbel is a mumzer”2.
The greatest wears brought for my sister Bas-Sheyva’s wedding were from the rich farmer Eliezer Shmuel, who had a reputation for being a very wealthy, powerful man with a generous hand. Abba and his muscians performed for him some kind of “vivetsh” and some kind of “dobrivetsh” , over which Eliezer Shmuel was truly beside himself with joy, and he said that he had never heard anything like it before…
The simche was great. The wedding turned the whole village of Zatishiye upside-down. Our goyishe neighbors, simple peasants, felt just like family and came to the wedding. They brought gifts and danced and offered their best wishes to the groom and the bride, that they may be blessed with good fortune and never know bad times… In those days, Jews and goyim still lived together in peacefully in the villages… The goyim began to show hatred towards the Jews only later, when they were persuaded that the Jews alone were to blame for all the troubles that befell them…
But no matter how great the simche at the wedding was with Jews and goyim celebrating together in the village, the joy was still overshadowed. And how could it not be, because the whole time tate was so ill and so weak. Everytime he sat at the table, cane in hand, to watch everyone dancing and rejoicing, he would soon turn his head away, his face would grow pale, and he’d have to be taken back home to rest in bed for a little while.
Mame usually was the one to take him home. She was always the first to notice how pale his face became when he sat down. He didn’t resist when she led him back to rest. Leaning on his cane with a strange smile on his sallow face, he walked with a sense of submission. He no longer had even a trace of strength, of the possessor’s authority and confidence he had before he got sick.
Walking like this with mame, he comforted and reassured her, “It’s not over, Feige, it’s not over… Soon I will come back out to celebrate again… It’s not over! Let the music play on! Let us dance! Let us be happy!”
As far as he could, he gathered all his strength, and with mame he led his daughter to the chupe - his very first daughter, whom he had married off before she was even born…
His new kaftan hung loosely on him because he was so emaciated and weak. But his face still shone. You could see how joyous and lucky he felt to lead his first child to the chupe. After the ceremony when the dancing began, I watched as he kvelled and clapped his hands, and I was suddenly overcome with such a strong desire to make him happy that I didn’t know what to do. I ran to him, grabbed both his hands, and started kissing them. Tears were falling from my eyes. Tears of joy. Soon I entered the round3 and danced with such joy that my sadness evaporated away, and tate was full of naches4.
“Dance, Shmuel’ik!”, he encouraged me each time I ran up to him, full of joy, and kissed his hands again. “Dance Shmuel’ik! At a wedding one should dance! At a wedding one should be happy!…”
And four weeks after the wedding he died.
After tate’s death, mame took on the the heavy burden of providing for us. She began running the farm herself, and people started calling her “Feige the Possessorka.” But as she began immersing herself in the business and learning what she hadn’t known before, she soon realized that tate was not at all as well-off as he came across and he had spent much more than they could afford…
For two years, mame struggled with the farm, and it was very difficult for her to manage. Without tate’s authority, without his confident air, their possessiye couldn’t go on as it had before. Nothing worked like it did when tate did it. We couldn’t afford all the things we could when he was still alive. Everything was completely different from what it was…
Even a permanent melamed for the children could not be kept. And I confess, at the time that didn’t bother me so much because I never had a great desire to learn. But now, I regret it very much…
But life went on. When mame was exhausted from the miserable possessiye in Zatishiye, she married off my older brother, Itzhik Gedolia5, who was nicknamed “Kotik”6 in the family - he was quiet like a little kitten who’s always playing in the corner. Itzhik Gedolia was married to the daughter7 of a certain Shmuel Pekelis8, a Jewish merchant, who lived in Belaya Tserkov and conducted business with other cities as well.
My brother Kotik’s wedding was the first time I saw and heard the badchen Berele Shachnes, who in those days had made a name for himself in Jewish cities and shtetlech in the Kyiv and Podolier Governorates. He was really an artist in his profession, and he acted like he was building a whole dynasty9. Everyone knew that he doesn’t perform at weddings all by himself, but along with his son-in-law who helped with the performance to earn his room and board10.
Whenever the badchen Berele Shachnes performed the Kale Bazetsn11, the women would always shed tears, and this was no exception. After the Kale Bazetsn, he performed a scene that his son-in-law helped with. I still remember the scene they performed during my brother’s wedding after they performed the Kale Bazetsn which made all the women cry.
In this scene, Berele with his pointed beard struck such a pose as if to say you could rely on him and you’d soon see something worth every penny. As he was standing like that, his son-in-law came in disguised as a beggar and began singing a very sad nign12:
I walk the streets
One by one.
I beg for alms,
But no one will look my way.
He sang it one time, and then a second time. And then he implored, “Spare a coin!”
Then Berele Shachnes the badchen lashed out in anger at the poor beggar, and they began a dialogue:
– Berele: Hey, you cheapskate, why did you come here just to make the wedding guests sad? This is a wedding where everyone is meant to be happy!
– Beggar: But how can I be happy, when I am a poor Jew begging for money?
– Berele: You must be happy!
– Beggar: I must?
– Berele: Yes, you must!
– Beggar: Nu, if I must, you have to show me how. Come on, how could a poor Jew like me be happy?!
– Berele: I’ll show you! Of course, I will show you!
Then, they sang to each other:
Make merry, pauper,
Enjoy yourself, poor man;
He who has nothing,
really has it all.
I really enjoyed it. I gazed open-mouth at the whole performance in awe, and I can say that this was the first time in my life that I had ever seen theater. Yiddish theater. Even to this day, I still think about the badchen Berele Shachnes, the first Yiddish actor I ever saw in my life…
as in, no other kinds of chasidim - only Makarover chasidim↩︎
idiom: “a ruble is a bastard,” meaning money was no object↩︎
As in, dancing in the round↩︎
joy/pride↩︎
later, he became Isaac Casten in America↩︎
kitten, in Russian↩︎
her name was Chuna, later changed to Anna in America↩︎
This is probably incorrect. According to Anna Casten’s gravestone, his name was actually Isaiah-Leyb, not Shmuel.↩︎
This phrasing draws a parallel with chasidic dynasties↩︎
More specifically, this is in support of his קעסט↩︎
Wedding song for the bride↩︎
singular nigunim↩︎