The Heavens Are Empty - Avrom Bendavid-Val [15]
Even though our studies and work and learning our father’s trade made us grow up quickly, we still had a childhood. Our toys were simple homemade toys. We used to play in the fields. We tried to catch birds. We would make a certain little trap and set it in the field to catch the birds. Of course we would get the birds with the idea of holding it and then letting it fly away.
In our town we spoke Yiddish. To the Gentiles we spoke Russian and Polish. Probably more Polish, because Trochenbrod was so close to the border, many villages in the area had Polish-speaking peasants. We used the languages of the Gentiles when we did business with them.
A wedding was a joyous event in Trochenbrod; everyone participated. I remember that marriages were arranged by the fathers without the children’s permission. Two fathers would meet in the field. “If I’m not mistaken,” one says, “you have a girl sixteen years old and my boy’s seventeen. I think they would be alright.” After deciding on a dowry which could be money or food and board at the bride’s parents’ house for a certain amount of time, the fathers shook hands and this way decided their children’s fate. At the wedding everyone danced, men with men and women with women. Meanwhile the nervous bride and groom sat at the ends of the long table and looked at each other wondering what would be. Despite what each one thought, the match was accepted. There were no Tzeitels, no refusals, and no Chavas, no intermarriages. Not in our town. [Tzeitel and Chava are two of the daughters in Fiddler on the Roof.]
Until I was ten years old, when they used to say the word Jerusalem, or Yerushalaim, I had no idea that it even existed in this world even though I went to cheder. I thought it was something on top of a mountain in heaven. The only outside thing that everyone knew about was America, the land of opportunity. We were aware only that things were good in America. Everybody wanted to get out and go there where everyone did alright. We thought that the sidewalks were made of gold. America was our goal and how to get there was our major problem.
In the early twentieth century, as the world moved inexorably toward World War I and Russia moved inexorably toward the Bolshevik Revolution, ideological currents coursing through Europe began to seep into Trochenbrod. Communist, Labor Zionist, Beitar (a right-leaning Zionist youth organization that stressed self-defense), General Zionists, and other secular movements sprouted in the town. Trochenbrod became somewhat more up-to-date, with a wide assortment of religious, cultural, and social organizations, and an ever-expanding array of businesses. By the time World War I erupted in 1914, many Trochenbroders were regularly visiting the nearby cities several times a year for trade, medical attention, government affairs, to buy things not available in Trochenbrod, to have their photographs taken, or to call on relatives. Trochenbroders knew about and argued about world events and Eastern European and Jewish affairs. The town continued to prosper and diversify in terms of the numbers and variety of economic activities. It increasingly became a commercial center for Ukrainian and Polish villages in the region, even as it managed to remain relatively isolated and deeply religious.
By this time, not only had Trochenbrod’s nonagricultural activities diversified quite a bit and prospered, its agriculture had also diversified. The main crop and staple of the Trochenbrod diet was potatoes, as it had always been. But now farmers also grew wheat, rye, oats, barley, and a variety of vegetables—cabbage, radishes, carrots, cucumbers, beans, corn, tomatoes, and beets. They raised cows for milk and other dairy products, and chickens,