A personal story
Part II
There was mutual help with the food. The entire neighborhood
participated in preparing food for the seudas mitzva
of a neighbor who married off a child. Because there weren't
any refrigerators, the preparations were begun the day before
the wedding. Everyone took upon herself to cook or bake
something for the meal.
My wedding was in the Babad Hotel opposite the Machane Yehuda
police station and the messader kiddushin was the
chief rabbi of Jerusalem, Hagaon R' Tzvi Pesach Frank
zt'l. Two days before, they took a cook to prepare the
chickens, and the neighbors and extended family all came to
help. A `chicken' then was a chick weighing two or three
hundred grams. They raised a few chicks like that in the
courtyard and we got a few others which we cooked for the
wedding. We made meat loaves from them with a lot of bread
and eggs. As a side dish, we made ourselves noodles and soup
nuts, much bigger than they have today, and we also pickled
cucumbers. For dessert, we cooked the fruit of the season and
it was a festive meal.
For the meal, only the immediate family was invited. The rest
of the guests came after the chuppa and were treated
to homemade lekach [what we call in America eier
kichlach, large, light-rounded sugar-sprinkled cookies]
which were stored in pillowcases so that they didn't dry out,
and a cup of syrup-flavored shaven ice chips called
barad (hail).
We were one of the lucky people who had our own small tin
stove. When my sister got married, we baked sponge cakes in
honor of her wedding. We baked all of the cakes ourselves. We
beat the egg whites up with two forks and they stood up so
stiff within minutes that when we turned the bowl upside-
down, the whites did not fall. Cakes were baked in a wonder
pot and they came out very high. We stayed up all night,
frosting the cakes with lovely cream and decorated them with
scalded almond halves that we laid in flower shapes, adding
colored candies for decoration. To add variety, we added
parsely leaves. We prepared the creamy icing from margarine,
cocoa and coffee and alternated between dark and white cakes.
All this we made the night before the wedding because there
was no refrigeration. We also baked strudels in the same oven
as the bread.
Sometimes, I would bake sponge cakes for my grandmother, who
lived in Shaarei Chessed. I made them from four eggs that
rose so high that they even lifted up the cover of the wonder
baker. And do you know the secret of the success of our cakes
and of everything we cooked? We cooked with love, pleasure
and satisfaction. We put our whole soul in the
preparation.
The food at the wedding was served by the family. The boys
served the men and the girls served the women. We took a
photogapher who took black and white pictures and there was
tremendous joy felt by everyone. The entire atmosphere, the
whole occasion, was enveloped in holiness and the joy of
mitzva.
How did you spend your free time?
As you know, all the old neighborhoods were built around wide
couryards that were spread between the houses that crowded
them on all sides, like compounds. By the way, in the
neighborhood of Botei Broide where we lived when I was young,
the apartments consisted of one and a half rooms. The little
girls would go out to the common courtyard and play with the
Israeli counterpart of jacks, but instead of ten jacks, they
used five smooth stones which they gathered from neighboring
fields. You threw one up in the air and had to catch it while
scooping up the other four, with variations to the rules, of
course. They tried to find stones that were as smooth and
uniform as possible.
Girls also jumped rope. They used the rope used to hang
laundry in the courtyard so that on laundry day, they
couldn't play with it. Little girls also collected `goldies,'
the tinselly wrappers that came on chocolates or other
packaged condiments which people could rarely afford.
During apricot season, which was short, children collected
the pits and used them like marbles. This was mainly a boys'
game. They shot them into holes made in cardboard shoeboxes
or tried to hit others on the floor. Girls and boys would
play "Odd or Even?" where you had to guess if they had an odd
or even number of pits in their hand. Winner took all. Some
collected for the sake of collection. Children knew how to
make whistles from them by rubbing them in the sand until
there was a small hole in the side.
Girls loved to tell Torah stories, enact them, and sing
quietly. A ball was a real treasure. At one point, I had to
leave my home for a certain period and as a consolation gift,
when I returned they bought me a tennis ball. It was the only
ball in the neighborhood and it transformed me into the queen
of the courtyard. We had dolls, but nothing like the store-
bought kind. We would take an old sock, stuff it, tie it in
three places and sew some buttons on the `face.' We put these
in shoeboxes and covered our dollies with remnants of cloth
and loved them dearly.
A Stipend of 100 Lirot
From what did we live? My husband was a ben Torah from
the day of our wedding to this very day. He studied in Etz
Chaim and was allotted one hundred lirot per month. On
Rosh Chodesh he brought home his `salary,' took off a tenth
and gave me the rest, invariably saying, "This has to last
you until next Rosh Chodesh. Do with it what you understand
is best."
We managed. We didn't throw anything out. We didn't splurge.
We recycled everything. An article of clothing that got
ruined wasn't thrown out. We cut the fabric up and made
something else smaller, or turned it into a kitchen towel or
handkerchief. I know how to make delicacies from leftover
pieces of challa or bread. We didn't throw food out if
it was not yet spoiled. Once every two days, the garbage man
came and collected our trashcans which were hardly full.
Today, even the big green dumpsters are not enough for all
the garbage and waste thrown out.
We bought food for pennies. Twenty eggs cost a shilling, but
even those were sometimes very scarce. Mother trained us to
be satisfied with little. She would say, "I have plenty of
food — oil and salt and a small tomato and sometimes a
little scallion. Who needs more than that?" She drilled the
trait of sufficiency into us with the oft repeated credo,
"Whatever I have is good for me. Whatever I don't have, I
don't need!"
I raised my children on half a leben apiece and would tell
them, "In life, it's good to look at the half that's full and
not at the half that's empty." When we were already a big
family, my husband would buy one small bottle of malt beer (a
pint) for Shabbos. He shook it up well so that it filled with
foam, and would then pour each child a glassful; it looked
full, though half of it was air. Ask my children: they'll
tell you that they had a wonderful childhood and lacked for
nothing.
I raised all my nine children in two rooms. Years later, we
went to live in a more spacious apartment of two and a half
rooms, but all the furniture moved with us to the new
apartment. All of my furniture is still from my wedding and
it's still beautiful and very serviceable. We didn't change a
bolt. Once they made good quality furniture and I made sure
to take care of it.
My father z'l was a ben Torah, like his father
before him, and Boruch Hashem, we have a continuation. My
father studied in the Harry Fishel Institute together with
Maran Hagaon R' Shlomo Zalman Auerbach ztzkv'l and
Hagaon R' Yisroel Yaakov Fisher zt'l. My father-in-law
had a kollel called Midrash MiZion where they studied
the laws of Eretz Yisroel.
In order to get an idea of the dedication to Torah and the
real paucity of years gone by, I'll tell you about my
grandfather zt'l who was the brother of Hagaon R' Tzvi
Pesach Frank zt'l. My grandfather and his brother
emigrated from Kovno by themselves as young boys before the
First World War. Their parents remained abroad. My
grandfather was fourteen and R' Tzvi Pessach was sixteen.
They had no family here, so they slept on a bench in
shul and ate `days' at the homes of different
families.
When war broke out, there wasn't enough food. The baalei
batim could no longer host outsiders and the two young
brothers suffered from starvation. After two weeks of
subsisting on water and a little bread they had found in the
trash, my grandfather said to his brother, "Look what Torah
does, I feel like I've gotten fat." The amazed brother looked
at him and said, "You think you're fat? You're swollen from
hunger!"
As a young man, Grandfather learned with a study partner. Two
girls from the same neighborhood and courtyard would serve
them hot glasses of tea to ward off the Jerusalem scarcity
and cold. When he came of age, the young man was asked if he
would be interested in meeting one of the girls who had been
bringing them tea — for matrimonial purposes. Since my
grandmother was the older, she was chosen of the two. On a
certain day, she was told that she was allowed to look at the
boy whom she had been serving each each day because he was
going to be her intended chosson. My grandfather was
told the same thing.
When she left the room that day, she was asked her opinion
about the young man. She said that he was a bit short, since
she happened to be tall. They told her, "It's true that he's
short in stature but he's great in Torah." She accepted what
they said. Immediately afterwards, he was asked how he felt
about his `intended.' "Oh, I forgot to look!" he replied,
having been so engrossed in his study. This did not stop them
from getting engaged the following day and going on to
establish a fine Jewish family of which I am the second
generation.
Boruch Hashem, we personified the saying that "From paupers
will come forth Torah." We make do with what we have and are
happy with our lot. My sons learn in kollel and their wives
are mothers and housewives, raising outstanding families.
How? We don't ask how or why. The verse, "Why should the
nations say..." can be interpreted as follows: The nations
ask `Why?' We don't ask any questions, we just serve Hashem
with pure faith and trust. Every day we see overt miracles
that proves that Hashem looks after bnei Torah and
sustains them. Boruch Hashem, we are all adequately dressed
and we have what to eat. Clothing is passed down among the
children and from them, to the grandchildren. I mend whatever
needs mending.
It has never occurred to us to take a vacation in a hotel or
guesthouse. At the very most, we exchange apartments. When
the children were small, I switched apartments with my sister
who lives in Bnei Brak. I didn't even take along clothing,
since our children are of similar ages. We used the clothing
and diapers there and washed everything, of course, as they
did with our things.
Life in our neighborhood was very cohesive. We felt like one
big family. We had a sense of responsibility towards one
another, and always helped out when it was needed. The
courtyard was shared, including the outdoor toilets. We
participated in each other's simchas and lent a hand
or commiserated with our neighbor's troubles and sorrows.
There was never a question of what to do with the children
when a mother gave birth or was sick. The neighbors always
pitched in. We shared everything we had and even what we
didn't.
Fortunate are we for children who haven't brought shame upon
our old age!
