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We Are Mitnagim
Several generations ago my family lived in Minska Gubernia. Nowadays I can fly there any day of the week. When I land I can rent a car and drive there in a matter of hours. When we lived there, such a trip was unimaginable. There were no planes and the roads weren’t even paved.
Cousins who wanted to make the trip to America saved up for years. And instead of riding coach on Continental with all the other regular paying customers, we rode a stagecoach to the nearest train, and instead of riding the plane-to-the-train we rode the train to the steamship and were holed up in steerage, a foul place by all accounts.
Leaving our homes, friends and family behind, gradually the memories of Slutsk, Glusk, Starobin, Chaplitsy, Pohost, Milkhevitchi, Dzerzhinsk, Ivenetz and Dubrova faded away. The biggest town listed above is Slutsk.
The word Slutsk means good soil and all that it yields. Just as “Fertile” Crescent refers to the rich land and life near the Tigris, Euphrates, Jordan and Nile Rivers.
Resettled and regrouped, we are free here to work hard 5, 6 or even 7-days-a-week if we choose. And we may celebrate our holidays and read our scrolls that remind us of about leaving Egypt, and when Haman hung on gallows that were meant for us, and when the Maccabees outwitted the Greeks. And we remember macabre times on Tish’a'bav and Yom Hashoah.
This is not to say our lives in Eastern Europe and along the Slutsk River are forgotten. The past 100 years of American Jewry has been spent trying to overcome every aspect of human nature we had to endure. However, we never allow ourselves to totally forget the lives we lived in each and every place before America, even as we savor every day of living in America. For here it’s possible to be a Jew and an American who is every other red-blooded as every other American.
Like all other Americans, we learn about George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Just as in Talmud Torah and Hebrew School, Jews are taught about our forefathers, such as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Saul, David and Solomon. Yet, when Americans are taught European History, the Jewish presence in Europe is all but forgotten. How could it be remembered if it’s never taught? It wasn’t taught to me and it’s not being taught to my children.
To remember the centuries my family lived peacefully among Eastern European pagans, long before the Christians ever arrived on the scene, is also to remember how hard Christians worked to ingrain anti-Semitism in people all across Europe. And to remember how hard they worked to ingrain their hate, is to remember how long their hate lasted and all that it has led to.
Now Muslims teach their children to hate. How long before their hate abates? It took over 1,000 years for the Christian’s lies to melt away. Why does anyone think a little shuttle diplomacy will make the Arab hate melt away? Their hate could also take 1,000 years to melt away.
My memories of Eastern Europe aren’t mine alone. All Jews of Eastern European origin remember where they came from and who they come from.
My family is made of mostly Ashkenazi Jews. The Sephardim melted in with the Ashkenazis after previous evictions from Spain, Portugal and beyond. In the Pale of Jewish Settlement nearly all of us were Mitnagim. Ashkenazis, Litvaks and Mitgnagim–and now to the list I can add I’m a Connecticut Yankee.
I know few gentiles would consider me as such. They usually call me a New York Jew, which has undertones I can’t say I love. Call me what they may, I am as much a Litvak as I am a “red-blooded American.” I say red-blooded because only a certain class of Americans call themselves “blue-bloods.” Jews have never been included among them.
In the 16th and 17th centuries Jews were every bit as much a part of the Dutch West India Company as Peter Stuyvesant (1610-1672) was. Peter Stuyvesant, the son of a minister, served as a church warden and rose to become director general of New Netherland.
When he finally arrived to become the most powerful person in New Amsterdam, what did he do with such undiminished influence?
Immediately he wrote the directors in Amsterdam saying from this time forth he wanted “none of the Jewish nation be permitted to infest New Netherland.” The directors of the Dutch West India Company responded to Mr. Stuyvesant saying we “would have liked to agree to your wishes and requests… but… we observe, that it would be unreasonable and unfair, especially because… they have invested in shares of this Company.”
Only later, when Stuyvesant surrendered to the British in 1664, and retired from public life, were Jews allowed to blossom in the many ways we chose to contribute to New York and America. And together, Jews and gentiles helped make this city and this nation into all that we are today.
Here from the start, playing as much a role as anyone else in its founding, wouldn’t you think you’d hear more about Jews when studying American history? Sorry, but for whatever reasons, we’ve been left out by most accounts. And yet, having been here playing vital roles since the very beginnings of this great nation, you’d think there might be a place among the blue-bloods for Jewish Americans.
Everywhere you go, people draw invisible lines between us and them. Just as Peter Stuyvesant thought Jews were beneath him, so have many others. We all draw lines between us and them, but these lines need not be full of hate and prejudice. Just as Southerners saw Northerners as different, and Northerners saw Southerners as different, it took years and a long, bloody war before we started to see ourselves as one.
As in America, in Europe we Jews also had regional differences with distinct accents, customs and cuisines. Not that I need to remind you, but lest anyone forget, I am a Litvak. And we Litvaks are no different than everyone else in that we also think we’re pretty good. However, our pride is also mixed with self-deprecating humor. In the mix, we are as quick as anyone to acknowledge we’re among the classiest, smartest, funniest and most sensitive Jews to ever live.
Who we are comes from our culture. This is where we get our demeanor and depending on how our parents treated us, this is also where we developed our personalities. And there’s no denying our gene pool. Our genes and culture are rich, worth appreciating and preserving. But if not by us, then by whom; and if not now, when?
We preserve our past by telling stories. We don’t teach others by teaching our own to wear belts of explosives. We teach our children by taking them to lectures and then talking with them afterward. My my cousin Chaim took his son, Isaac, to a synagogue in Hartford to hear a lecture, Isaac and his father arrived early. So Isaac’s father talked with the other men who also arrived early to hear the lecture. These men had good seats where they could see and hear all that was to happen. When the speaker arrived with his entourage of about eight or ten serious looking bearded Chassidic men who wore long black coats and round fur hats, everyone in the shul grew quiet.
The speaker was introduced, and when he approached the dais and began to speak, the room hushed and the audience listened to every word.
When the lecture ended Chaim looked at Isaac. Isaac saw how agitated his father looked. Isaac could tell his father was on the verge of being angry about what the speaker had said. Chaim took Isaac and together they left the synagogue. After being silent for some time, pointing his finger at Isaac, Isaac’s father said in Yiddish, “Gedenk, mir zeinen Misnagim!” (Remember, we are Mitnagim.)
