Category: Life

Glimpse into lives of orphaned Pinsk relatives

Anne, left, and Eva Gitelman. (photo from Deborah Rubin Fields)

The things we take for granted. Today, we spend countless internet hours looking for someone (or something). We assume increasingly rapid communication systems will effectively power these searches. Yet, for Eva Poll and Anne Rosenthal Schiffman, my paternal grandmother’s nieces (my first cousins once removed), staying in touch was a tremendous undertaking.

Beginning in the mid-1920s and continuing for almost 70 years, these two sisters struggled to keep in contact with their three Pinsk siblings, once their orphanage had shipped them and 32 other Jewish orphans to adoptive Jewish families in the United Kingdom.

photo - Pinsk's orphaned children on the SS Baltricer, April 1926
Pinsk’s orphaned children on the SS Baltricer, April 1926. (photo from Deborah Rubin Fields)

How did I piece together this faraway story of my Pinsk relatives? The truth is that until their death, my cousins Eva and Anne held on to letters, cards, diaries and photos from Pinsk (today a city in Belarus). Through these saved items, my family’s story emerges.

Eva was born in 1913 as Chaya. She was the fourth of five children born to Avrom and Shaina Basya Gitelman of Pinsk. Anne was born in 1916. She was named Chana. Their older siblings were Hershel, born 1906, Sarah Leah, born 1907, and Devorah, born 1909.

Prior to 1918, I know little about Eva and Anne’s life. But late that summer, both their parents died within weeks of each other. With their deaths so close together, the parents might have succumbed to either the influenza pandemic or to starvation (giving their five young children whatever food they had been able to scrounge). According to Azriel Shohet, author of The Jews of Pinsk, 1881-1941 (translated from the Hebrew by Faigie Tropper and Moshe Rosman, edited by Mark Jay Mirsky and Moshe Rosman), at the time, conditions in Pinsk were terrible.

Eva and Anne went to live in the Jewish orphanage at 2 Dominikanska St. It is not known how my older (but still quite young) cousins managed, either on their own or with assistance.

My paternal grandparents had just emigrated to Chicago but, somehow, they learned the children had been orphaned. My grandfather contacted the Joint Distribution Committee, asking for photos of the orphans. With eight of their own children, it is unlikely my grandparents were in a position to provide much assistance.

All I know is that by age 16 or 17, Sara Leah married Yisrael Kuper and that they quickly began their own family. Devorah began working in the Pinsk veneer factory and lived with the Kupers. At some point, Hershel married a woman named Faigel and became a father.

What I have learned through research is that the orphanage’s economic situation worsened in the early 1920s. Shohet writes that even though the staff took good care of the orphans, it sometimes had to feed the children hot bean cereal instead of bread. In August 1923, the orphanage sent the following “advertisement” [translated from Yiddish] to the Pinsker Relief Fund in London:

Chaya learns in the school and Chana Gitelman learnt dressmaking. In peacetime, they lived in a village near Pinsk. In the war, they became ruined. The parents died and the children were taken to an orphanage…. They … are good children and very diligent. (Courtesy of David Solly Sandler, author of The Life and Times of the Children from the Three Pinsk Jewish Orphanages in the 1920s)

By 1924, the two sisters and their orphaned friends knew they were candidates for adoption by Jewish families in Britain. In 1924, close to the time of Rosh Hashanah, a friend named Faigel Bambel wrote the following in Anne’s autograph book:

To remember
To Chana Gitelman
When you go away to a faraway land, don’t forget me…. Don’t forget how it was for you here where we were together. Today I send you my wishes, and I believe that we’ll remain good friends. (Yiddish translation by Amy Simon)

By 1926, the orphanage had found homes for Eva, Anne and 32 other orphans. A few months before departing Pinsk for the United Kingdom, the siblings had their last family photo taken. (For unknown reasons, Hershel and family are not in the picture.) At sailing, Eva was 13 years old and Anne was 10 years old. The sisters never saw Pinsk again.

While I never asked Eva or Anne about the psychological toll of leaving family, the onboard ship photo seems to indicate the difficulty of parting. Eva is the only child holding a suitcase. According to her nephew, Colin Schiffman, Eva saved all her Pinsk correspondences in this suitcase. Moreover, Eva kept the suitcase under her bed, taking it out to use as a writing table.

They were adopted by two different Jewish London families: Eva by the Polsky family (Eva later shortened her family name first to Pole, then to Poll) and Anne by the Rosenthal family. To their credit, these two families permitted the girls to maintain contact with one another, as seen in the lovely 1929 photo from their adolescence.

From saved correspondences, I discovered that until at least 1939, the sisters were in contact with the Pinsk part of the family. To insure responses to their letters, Eva and Anne purchased two-part (send-and-receive) international postal cards. One saved card already shows the Second World War censor stamp the British employed after declaring war on Germany.

image - Eva and Anne purchased send-and-receive international postal cards. This saved card, sent from Pinsk, shows the censor stamp the British employed after declaring war on Germany
Eva and Anne purchased send-and-receive international postal cards. This saved card, sent from Pinsk, shows the censor stamp the British employed after declaring war on Germany. (photo from Deborah Rubin Fields)

Anne must have told the Pinsk family about her plans to marry Bobby Schiffman on July 14, 1940, as brother Hershel sent a message: “Chana, how are you, what’s new with your wedding and with work? Regards to your parents and to your husband/groom.” Cousin Chaya wrote: “Regards to Chana and her husband.” Bobby and Anne had three sons: Alan, Stephen and Colin and eventually several grandchildren.

Eva chose to remain single. She had been engaged at least once, but did not go ahead with marriage because she had promised her Pinsk family she would always look after her little sister. Eva’s nephew Colin confirms that, by 1941, Eva was already living with the Schiffmans in London. Colin recalls that, as a young woman, Eva led a busy social life. For most of Eva’s working life she was the final quality-control person at the clothing factories at which she worked (and she sent back many items!).

After the Second World War and for the next 50 years, Eva searched for family, but kept her feelings to herself. As such, she never revealed how much emotional or physical energy it demanded to send numerous handwritten letters to Jewish newspapers, to the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, to the JDC, to Yad Vashem. Just as important, she never divulged how hard it was waiting for replies. While she found relatives in such far-flung places as the United States and Argentina, she unfortunately discovered no Pinsk family member had survived the Nazi onslaught.

With Yiddish-speaking relatives, the sisters communicated in (both written and spoken) Yiddish, but together they conversed in English. As the years went by, the two sisters seemed to enjoy a quiet life of working in the family’s Newbury Park house and garden, taking care of Colin, Bobby and the family cat, and, importantly, keeping each other company.

Anne died in August 1995. Eva died in April 2001. Despite trying childhoods, a difficult passage from one country to another and an upbringing in two different homes, until the end, the two sisters remained tremendously devoted to each other.

In the macro, their cherished papers provide an eye-opening glimpse of one corner of early 20th-century Eastern European Jewry. In the micro, they open a fascinating window to the lives lived by some of my relatives, lives marked by separation, on the one hand, and continuity, on the other.

Deborah Rubin Fields is an Israel-based features writer. She is also the author of Take a Peek Inside: A Child’s Guide to Radiology Exams, published in English, Hebrew and Arabic.

Tabor Winery lets soil do the talking

Tabor Winery uses only 10 growers, which is unique and helps control the quality of the grapes. (photo from taborwines.com)

The fifth in a series featuring nine Israeli wine producers features Justin Kohn of Tabor Winery. The most recent article – on Bazelet HaGolan Winery – was published in the Jewish Independent on Sept. 19, and can be found online at jewishindependent.ca.

Christopher Barnes: How did the winery get off the ground?

Justin Kohn: We’re fourth-generation growers, in the village by Tabor, right by the Mount Tabor. The Sela family [was] growing for about 100 years, and Oren Sela, company CEO, told his father, “Let’s make our own wine. A lot of people are doing it now in Israel, and they’ve been very successful.” They started up with 30,000 bottles, really to friends and a few critics, and word got out. Now, 2.3 million bottles later, we’re the sixth-largest producer in Israel.

CB: Talk a little bit about the types of soils and the climate that you have.

[vsw id=”8GfHOExGNg8″ source=”youtube” width=”425″ height=”344″ autoplay=”no”]

JK: We’re in the Mediterranean, of course, so a lot of wine producing reaches that area. But Israel has got a lot of microclimates within the small country that it is. Being located in the Galilee, where the winery is, we do get some nice cool nights and hot days, as well, but the elevation is pretty good. Right by the mountain, Mount Tabor, the elevation is 562 metres above sea level, so that’s a good altitude to have.

We also have some vineyards in the northern part of the Golan, even some in the northern Galilee and even some in the Golan Heights, so we really have the best selection of grapes coming out of the Galilee region. But, unlike other large wineries, we only use 10 growers, which is unique – this helps us to really control the quality. Each grower is incentivized by an agronomist, who will evaluate the quality of the crop and, therefore, pay them more based on the quality. She’ll visit each grower once a week and she has the ultimate say, not just when to prune, when to harvest, etcetera, but even which grapes to grow. There have been times she’s ripped out vines and replanted new vines where she’s deemed them suitable in that soil type.

CB: What would you say is unique about Tabor?

JK: I think the most unique aspect of Tabor Winery is that we really allow nature to take over and we try to step back. We let the soil do the talking, let the grapes do the talking. We don’t try to mask it. The winemaking process is pretty simple but we take ultimate care in the growing. We really focus on the soil to make sure that we have the ideal varietal growing in a soil, and how to manage that particular varietal throughout the year.

Additionally, we started as a boutique winery; we’re now producing 2 to 2.3 million bottles – we’re a large winery – but, as I mentioned, as a boutique, our focus and our DNA has always been on quality. We’re able now to continue producing quality but we don’t have the pressure of producing volume. I mentioned we’re the sixth largest – those ahead of us are about five times our size. Some of them, number five is even two times our size.

So, the attention to quality is there and yet the economies of scale to drive the price down per bottle really gives us an advantage over some other wineries.

CB: Anything else you want to add?

JK: I think Tabor is in a very unique position in the market, in that we’re making wines that are approachable and drinkable for what the consumer wants and at price points that are also approachable, everyday price points…. We think wine is meant to be enjoyed by people with other people. Being able to come home to that bottle every day is really what it’s about.

This article is reprinted courtesy of the Grape Collective, an online publication for all things wine. For more information, visit grapecollective.com.

 

Cherie Smith’s support legendary

“Do it! Just do it!” Cherie waves her hands impatiently, puzzled by my hesitation. We are sitting on the white sofa in her bright living room on Point Grey Road. Behind us, through the large picture windows, I see the waters of Burrard Inlet shimmer in the morning sun, framed by the blue mountains of the North Shore.

photo - Cherie Smith
Cherie Smith (photo from Jewish Book Festival)

It is mid-morning and light is streaming into the comfortable open space, where each corner bears Cherie’s personal stamp: the beautiful flower arrangement on the glass-top coffee table, the white sculpture on a stand, the painting above the fireplace and the colorful blanket thrown casually over the back of a cozy armchair. Further in, two low steps up, is the large dining room table with the eight high-back, white leather chairs. Behind it, a cupboard with glass doors displays Cherie’s collections of china, glasses of all sorts and other small trinkets. More artifacts are displayed on the heavy, black wood buffet against the wall. The kitchen is small, but efficient, just off the dining room. From where we are sitting, we can see the entrance door and, on the right, a small corridor leading to the second floor where a large triptych, my own painting, hangs over the stairs. One entire wall of the hallway is covered with books.

Books are Cherie’s world.

I met Cherie at a party, a casual encounter in a room full of people. Despite her friendly manner, I was intimidated by her, knowing that she and her husband were not only affluent, but also people who could be defined as pillars of the community. Little did I know that, in time, we would become close friends; much more, that she would become my mentor, giving me all her support and encouragement in my attempt to publish my first book.

Sylvia Barbara, nicknamed “Cherie” by her father, was born in in the middle of the Great Depression, in the small town of Kamsack, Sask. Her father, a general practitioner, delivered her himself, since the local obstetrician was too drunk to perform. Both parents were Jewish immigrants from Poland and Russia, now living in this tiny town of 2,000, including many Doukhobors and First Nations. As a child, Cherie became keenly aware of the racism against minorities, and saw her father trying to offer assistance to those in need at every opportunity. Growing up in Kamsack was a very long way from Cherie’s later life in Vancouver. But, as I was to find out when I got to know her better, her modest childhood was the foundation for her generosity of spirit, her lack of prejudice, her warmth and her humanity.

Slim, well-groomed, her brown-reddish hair cut short, her dress casual but of good quality, Cherie was unaffected and friendly, a mover and a shaker. Once she made up her mind about a certain activity, there was nothing that could stop her. Speaking in quick, concise words, waving her hands about, she passionately advocated her ideas.

As I said before, books were Cherie’s world. She and her husband Buddy owned a bookstore for some time and later promoted writers whenever they could. Cherie would invite writers to speak and even subsidized them by paying their expenses. She was the founder of the Jewish Book Festival, which she tirelessly supported and organized, and now bears her name.

But I digress. Let’s return to that particular sunny morning in Cherie’s living room, where she listens to me worrying about the crazy idea of publishing a book.

“How can I do this? I have never done it before, what if it fails?” I am quite anxious. Perhaps the work is not good enough, perhaps I shall lose all the money lent to me so generously by friends, and perhaps I won’t find a publisher, perhaps, perhaps. But Cherie will have none of that. Doubt and fear of failure are not in her vocabulary.

“Do it! Just do it!” she urges me.

We revisit all the risks and all the benefits of this adventure. She tells me again and again that The Trials of Eve, the largest, most daring and risky work I have ever done, has to be published; it has to be launched into the world. She cajoles, encourages and prods me into taking the plunge. She is willing to help edit my poems; she will help with information and with whatever is needed for the publication process. “Just do it!” she says again and again.

And I did do it. The book came out in due time, first as a limited edition that won the Alcuin Citation Award and, later, as an expanded soft-cover version; both a victory of Cherie’s indomitable spirit.

image Mendel's Children cover
Cherie Smith published her memoir as a legacy to her grandchildren in 2001.

When Cherie became ill with the cancer that would eventually take her life, she took it in her usual commonsensical style, bravely fighting her way through without complaining. While visiting her, she told me about her swimming routine at Kitsilano Pool and about her efforts to publish her own book as a special gift to her grandchildren. We would take long walks on the beach, soaking in the beauty of English Bay. She, as usual, continued asking about my activities rather than talking about herself, her warmth and interest flooding over me like sunshine. Later, when she lost her hair due to the harsh chemotherapy she endured, she bought an elegant wig, always putting on a brave front, always concerned about her appearance, but almost never talking about her illness. Only when it became apparent that she was losing the battle did she begin making remarks about luck and fate. She became obsessed with the urgency of finishing the book that she was working on, and kept writing as much as she was capable of in her condition. The book was published before her death.

My last visit with Cherie in her white, sunny living room, took place shortly before her death. Her illness had taken a huge toll. Her body, devastated by the disease, was like a shadow of itself, transparently thin, her face lined, her voice a whisper. She still wanted to know what was happening in my life, but this time she also talked about her own death. I could barely answer her, my voice choking in my throat, tears welling in my eyes. We said goodbye and I left. It was the last time I saw my friend, Cherie.

After this, she refused all visits other than family. She wanted us to remember her as the vibrant, energetic and lively person she had been. And this is how I remember her. But each time I walk past her house, which has now been sold, a dull ache in my chest reminds me that I have lost a very rare, true and irreplaceable friend.

For information and a full schedule of events for the Cherie Smith JCCGV Jewish Book Festival, which runs Nov. 22-27, visit jewishbookfestival.ca.

Pnina Granirer is a visual artist who has exhibited locally, nationally and internationally and whose work is found in numerous private and public collections. Over the years, she has written short essays and poetry, some of which were published in Pnina Granirer: Portrait of an Artist by Ted Lindberg (Ronsdale Press). The Trials of Eve, a work of 12 mixed-media drawings and 12 poems, received an Alcuin Citation Award. This work is in the special collection of the Glenbow Museum in Calgary. The soft-cover edition features a lengthy essay written by the author. Granirer is currently in the process of working on a memoir. This article was originally written in 2009.

Mystery photo … Oct. 17/14

Group of men, Royal Canadian Legion, Shalom Branch No. 178, 1954. (photo from JWB FONDS; JMABC, L.14240)

If you know someone in this photo, please help the JI fill the gaps of its predecessor’s (the Jewish Western Bulletin’s) collection at the Jewish Museum and Archives of B.C. by contacting archives@jewishmuseum.ca.

Circumcision evolution

The “scientizination” of brit milah, circumcision, has had several implications, according to Dr. David Koffman, assistant professor, department of history, York University.

photo - Dr. David Koffman
Dr. David Koffman (photo by Rebeca Kuropatwa)

Koffman spoke at the University of Manitoba on Sept 19, hosted by the university’s Hillel Winnipeg. He centred his talk around the influence of the interdenominational New York Board of Rabbis, which was founded in 1914 to train and certify mohels. The board centralized, coordinated, promoted and professionalized Jewish circumcisions in New York state throughout the 20th century, he explained. They trained mohels in the newest surgical techniques, methods of asepsis and hygiene, newly developed clamps and devices, provided malpractice insurance and acted as a guild/gatekeeper for Jews entering the profession. By the mid-1960s, the board opened a school to train mohels.

“Its job was to control the narrative, to keep it Jewish in the face of changing norms in America,” said Koffman. “By the 1940s, the popularity of circumcision, long seen as Jewish barbarism, began to skyrocket among gentile parents for their newborn sons.”

Circumcision changed from being mainly a religious rite to a surgical procedure in the 20th century.

“Secular medicine’s enthusiasm for circumcision put Jewish medical men along with many other Jews in a bind,” said Koffman. “On one hand, the growth of endorsing opinion by experts about circumcision from a variety of medical subfields offered the most gratifying validation mohels and clergymen could ever hope for. Urologists, surgeons, gynecologists, even psychiatrists, indicated the right vilified by Christians in America no less than elsewhere before the 20th century. Mohels eagerly then sought medical training and certification and proudly fused religious rhetoric about brit milah with newfound medical rhetoric on health advantages.

“On the other hand, medicine’s capture of circumcision and its popularity among non-Jews presented an entirely new set of problems for religious Jewish leaders of the non-Muslim world. The penis, concealed in public, but revealed when naked in private, remained a key sign of Jewish difference where it mattered the most, to make more Jewish babies. Perhaps more threatening than the erosion of the boundary between Jews and gentiles was that science itself might strip the fundamental religious meanings….”

With respect to Christianity, Koffman explained, “During the Second Great Awakening, Christians turned to circumcision as the foil to the conversion experience. The reborn, or born again, were circumcised by accepting Christ … they were as un-Jewish as they could get. This was a metaphor of circumcision.

“Keep in mind that Jan. 1st in the Catholic calendar was the Feast of Circumcision, eight days after Jesus’ Dec. 25th birth.” This is a practice that no longer exists, however, as it was removed by the Church in 1960 and renamed the Solemnity of Mary, he added.

“There was a striking discord between Jesus and his followers that Jesus himself was circumcised,” he pointed out. “Most questions had little to do with the Jews…. Where, for example, did Jesus’ foreskin go? Was he reunited with it during the rapture?”

Turning to the science, Koffman said, “By the 1920s, circumcision was becoming the mark of high social standing for many, for it indicated that a mother had the ability and means to deliver her baby in a hospital by an attending physician.”

In the first two decades of the 20th century, civic planners argued that universal circumcision would help restrict the spread of tuberculosis, syphilis and other venereal diseases. Before this development, said Koffman, circumcision was, for Jews, at its core, “a sign of the holy covenant between God and Israel, as prescribed to Abraham in Genesis 10 … and [of] God’s promise to Abraham’s descendants.

“In essence, mohels ‘scientized’ milah but, in doing so, they invited new predicaments for the Jewish body. Embracing medicine achieved many short-term gains. It accrued medical status for mohels, insisting that they were on par with physicians.

“Perhaps most importantly, embracing the science of circumcision [made it possible] for American Jews to make a broad public reckoning of their historic contributions to medicine and science.

“The transformation of circumcision from ritual once exclusive to Semites to a medical procedure available to all also posed a threat to American Judaism because medicine for all its power hollowed milah of its mysteriously potent spiritual power. For the first time in Jewish history, there was a very real possibility of huge numbers of illegitimate milah, circumcisions performed on boys by someone other than a mohel, or at the wrong time, or in the wrong manner. The Jewish penis would grow to be indistinguishable from its non-Jewish counterparts. All this helps explain why the board worked so hard to represent mohels at hospitals, aiming to control its narrative.”

The board conducted research in the 1930s and 1940s about hospital-regulated circumcision, which required that mohels be certified. It encouraged public and private hospitals to make circumcisions available and encouraged hospitals to provide space to perform the rite, as well as educational materials to obstetrics and gynecology professionals about the benefits of circumcision.

“Jewish parents were increasingly having their sons circumcised in hospitals, paid for by insurance companies, instead of at home or at synagogue,” said Koffman.

“By the 1960s, religious justifications began to give way to the anxieties about the infant’s pain,” said Koffman. “Mohels, wearing their medical hats, assumed it a given or perhaps an integral part of circumcision.” One manual produced in the 1950s, entitled Welcome Home Mother and Son, included no fewer than eight references to pain and anxiety.

The board also supplied a steady stream of support materials to agencies, synagogues and rabbinical associations interested in promoting circumcisions in other states and countries. By the mid-1960s, the board positioned itself not just as a regulator of New York State, but as the custodian of the practice and an advocate of circumcision.

“Milah literature doubled down on the medical benefits, but also emphasized the theological benefits,” said Koffman.

“The great scholar Elliot Wolfson called Jewish circumcision ‘the cut that binds,’” said Koffman. “It’s a severance that connects Jewish boys to their fathers and grandfathers, to Jews across time and borders.”

 

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.