Wednesday, December 24, 2025
Elder of Ziyon
It tells a fictionalized story of the terror Jews had in Eastern Europe on Christmas Eve.
A DARK and biting winter afternoon, and yet the streets are swarming with people. Shops are bright with gilded sweets and holiday wares; from every chimney rises the sweet smell of holiday dishes-Christmas, the great festival of the nations, is at hand, and everywhere there is light and life and merry, bustling preparations. Everywhere ?no, not quite everywhere. There is one street, a narrow, dingy one, so dark and dull that it would appear as if all the gloom crowded out of the town by the holiday spirit had sought and found shelter there.
Within the tall, crooked houses the women go about with troubled faces; the men are still in the streets hawking their small wares. Now and then the musical drone of prayers breaks the stillness; all else is silent and gloomy.
From a poor room of one of the houses comes the sound of weeping. It is Veitel Packelträger's home, and within Veitel himself-the patient, the diligent-is lying on his bed by day, while Rochel, his wife, with two children dragging at her skirts and one at the breast, goes about complaining:
"Who will earn bread for the little ones, when thou liest there with an injured foot? How couldst be such a Shlemiel, Veitel!"
"God has helped thus far-He will help further," replies the more optimistic Veitel. "Do thou but tend to thine own affairs, and send at last that gift to Herr Bürgermeister."
"Shema!-now he would lay this blame also on my head," cries Rochel, and falls to weeping silently. Alas! the spirit of gloom is lodging in Veitel Packelträger's home. The sources of his trouble are twofold. One lies in the circumstance which Veitel's name indicates-namely, that he is Packelträger [pack-carrier], a bearer of burdens, whose business in life it is to carry heavy loads from morning till night. On a recent day, when, as often before, his zeal outran his strength, he had stumbled and dropped one of the iron bars with which he was laden, on his foot, and now he lay a helpless sufferer, and there was none to earn bread.
The source of the other trouble is a deeper and more permanent one It lies in no less a circumstance than this: that Prodow, the town in which Veitel lives, is a "Trefa-Mokum" [literally, unclean place]; in other words, a place forbidden to Jews.
Sixty-three so-called "tolerated Jews" are lawful residents therein, much to the indignation of its pious Gentile burghers; but since these sixtythree are the fertile source of the city's funds their presence must needs be endured.
Veitel Packelträger is not of the tolerated. He is too poor; for "toleration" is a high-priced privilege. His presence in the town is a breach of the law; yet he is there, and like him many others, for in those places where it is lawful for Jews to live the crowding is too dense, the competition too keen, and only the sharpest wits can there survive. Veitel, alas! has little wit; only a pair of strong shoulders. He asks nothing but to be allowed to make a beast of burden of himself for a pittance, to labour in peace; but he may not. Three times with the others not tolerated has he been driven out of the town; but the cry of hungry children was stronger than the arm of the law, and three times did he come crawling back.
For the last few years he has had comparative peace-if peace it may be called, to rise at morn in trembling and to go to bed in fear-yet let none suppose the law had gone suddenly blind, or that it slept. No, it was wide awake; its eyes closed designedly, but not so tight that they did not blink with greedy desire at the tribute of purses of coin and tubs of butter, of casks of wine and fat geese, which the Jews laid yearly upon the altar of its good-will.
Veitel Packelträger's annual offering to the law, whose tangible form was Herr Bürgermeister, was the product of one fat goose, his only wealth, which Rochel tended and fed with pious ardour, for thereby
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hung the family weal or woe. Now Christmas eve, the time of the sacrifice, was at hand, and Veitel's offering was not yet placed.
"Now get the Yüngel [little boy] ready; he must carry the gift there at once," Veitel was crying from his bed.
"Shema," cried his wife, "the child I should send!"
"Who, then? Me, perhaps? No one will eat him."
"Nay, nay rather I will go myself." "Shah-nonsense!" cried Veitel, and gazed with some alarm at his pretty wife, whose twenty five years, in spite of poverty and care, lay but lightly on her graceful head.
"Veitel-hast forgotten-Nittel-Nacht! Wait -perhaps grandfather will soon be home from Schul. Thou wouldst not send the child out alone among them and just to-night?"
"Grandfather! - Grandfather is himself a child. Why didst not have our gift ready in time?" cried Veitel.
"Must I tell thee again? Two hours I waited in Nossen Schochet's [Nathan the slaughterer's] house. Nu, certainly; first comes Frau Parnassin, then Frau Wool Merchant anybody first-Rochel, the wife of a Packelträger, can wait!"
"Dost think I have no heart in my body? But what's to be done? Hirshl must go-have I money for a messenger? With thy lingering about thou wilt yet bring us and the whole Kille [community] to destruction."
Rochel wrung her hands in fear for her child, but her husband's last argument was too fully convincing. Did they not exist at the mere whim and pleasure of the Bürgermeister? His displeasure might mean suffering for the whole community. With an aching heart she placed the pot of white goose-oil and the large creamy liver, wrapped in many cloths, into a basket, and hung it upon Hirshl's arm, fortifying him the while with advice and warnings.
"Of all things, Hirshl, my life, do not pass the church. Thou knowest how they are. They might think thou wert trying to peep in, and might, God forbid, do thee an injury and if thou meetest anyone, hide in the shadow, or if they notice thee, step aside into the gutter, and pull thy cap politely, and if anyone asks thee what thou carriest, say they are old shoes from the cobblers, and if they should molest thee-run, run as fast as thou canst."
Hirshl was a little, thin boy with a soft child's face, out of which shone strangely wide, dark, halfshrewd, half-melancholy eyes. He knew that his errand was not void of dangers; for Christmas Eve, Nittel-Nacht [St. Nicholas' Night], as it was called, has always been a favourite time for Jew raids, when the people fresh from church, where the priests had fired them with religious zeal, delighted in
plundering and murdering the Jews in the name of Christ, their Lord.
He knew that his father and the other men in the Gass always remained awake on this night, that they might be prepared in case of danger; but he also knew all the good hiding-places, all the dark windings and alley-ways of the town. So, grasping his basket firmly, he set out upon his errand.
Up to the end of the Jews' street he walked at ease, but at the corner, where began the enemy's world, he stopped like a frightened hare scenting the hunter's hounds. The street seemed peaceful and empty; and swiftly, noiselessly he hurried on. He passed the cemetery without a tremor; on that night it was but the living he feared. The next turning brought him to the church. He remembered his mother's warning not to pass it, but just beyond shone a bake-shop window sparkling with Christmas splendour. He longed to have a peep at all that glory. No one was stirring-he would risk it.
Just as he came opposite the church door it opened, and forth came a group of laughing men and girls who hurried away, the last one leaving the door ajar. From the shadow into which he had crept Hirshl could look within, down to the shining altar, where hung a half-naked, bloodstained effigy of Jesus of Nazareth.
"It is their God," he thought...
How spectral the gloom of those shadowy naves ! What harrowing mysteries hid behind those dark chancel doors! Was it there they kept that awful host, on account of which the Jews had to stay in their houses during Passion Week, and which bledso the Christians said-when a Jew looked upon it ? Then a chancel door began slowly and noiselessly to slide ajar, and Hirshl turned and fled in terror.
The next turning brought him to the Rathhaus Square, which he dared not cross, for it was forbidden to Jews. As he was about to go another way his footsteps were arrested by the sound of shouting voices, crying:
"Jew dog, damned hound!"
He knew those sounds but too well. It was one of the Gass in trouble. Creeping swiftly to the corner, he saw a pack of rowdy boys pursuing an old, feeble man, who, gasping and trembling, stumbled painfully along, dodging their missiles, and looking about with wild hunted eyes.
"Dedè [grandfather]!" shrieked Hirshl. He had recognised his grandfather. With a bound he was at the old man's side, dragging him to the corner and into a dark doorway. The old man was panting hard and trembling like a leaf. Hirshl, too, was trembling, but it was with impotent hate and fear and deep, deep pity. He soothed the old man's hand lovingly, and his tears fell hot and fast upon it.
"What art doing out so late alone, Hirshl
Leben?" said his grandfather at last.
"Did they hurt thee, Dede?" sobbed Hirshl.
Nay, nay do not weep-'twas only a little dirt," and patiently and stolidly the old man wiped the mud off his wrinkled face and white beard.
"Why, O why didst thou go on the Rathhaus Square? Dost not know it is forbidden?" cried Hirshl.
Why should I not know? But it was dark, and with all the people and noise my head went like a mill-wheel-I must have lost the way."
"Why wast not in Schul? Where didst get that basketful of apples? Why wast walking in the street?" questioned Hirshl.
"Esoi!" said the old man, for he could not tell Hirshl how he had sat behind the stove, until the thought that his son-in-law Veitel was lying ill, and there was none to earn anything, and he himself was ever eating the bread of idleness, became more painful than he could endure; and how, instead of going to Schul, he had bought a basket of apples, and had gone to peddle among the school-children.
"Esoi!" repeated the grandfather, "a Yüngel [little boy] does not need to know everything," and Hirshl questioned no more. He knew that his grandfather was very old, and sometimes childish, when he did foolish things. He started again on his errand, but his progress now was slow, for he
had to lead the old man, whose feet were stiff with cold. At length they arrived at the Bürgermeister's house. Hirshl delivered his basket, and received as reward a gilded cake, but, knowing it to be trefa [unclean], he dropped it into the gutter. Then they mended their pace and arrived at home unmolested.
It was the custom of the men to spend the night in groups, playing cards, that in case of a raid they might not be taken in their sleep, and even the most pious did not condemn a game on this occasion. On account of Veitel's injured foot, his neighbours agreed to meet in his room, and soon after supper they began to arrive.
Rochel had put the younger children to bed, but fully dressed, that no time might be lost in case of danger. Hirshl as the eldest had permission to remain awake. He now sat at the corner of the table where the men were playing, watching the game, and listening to their conversation.
They spoke of many things; but through it all, like the warp of a cloth upon which the rest is woven, ran the complaining about the Gentiles; but Joel Wineseller, who was a great wit, cracked jokes continually.
The grandfather, who had been praying all the evening, now closed his prayer-book, and then he rehearsed again the pitiful tale of his street "If I were a man, I would kill them!" cried Hirshl, his eyes flashing rage.
"Still, still," cried the grandfather, "do not add to thy sins. It is on account of our iniquities that we are punished and in Golus [exile]."
Jacob Sofer now began to tell a harrowing tale of Polish persecutions, when, on a certain Christmas eve, a whole congregation had taken refuge in their synagogue; how there they had fought for their lives, and how, with their own hands, they had killed their wives and daughters rather than let them fall alive into the hands of the Christians. Others told similar tales, and Hirshl listened, white with horror.
"Why, O why are the people so wicked?" he mused. "When I am a man I will be so good, so pious, that the Lord will let us return to Yerushelaim where there are no wicked Goyim."
Suddenly he was startled out of his musings by a cry of alarm.
"A knock,” gasped his mother; "did you not hear a knock?"
The company listened with white, strained faces. They started; they had heard it clearly now-it was a knock. Someone blew out the light; Rochel fled to the bedside of her children. In Hirshl's short life there lay the memory of a time of terror, when, clinging to his father's neck, they had fled in the night, and hidden in a cold, black forest. He
clutched his grandfather's arm in agony, and they waited with bated breath for what would follow. But all remained still; only the wind moaned, and the shutters creaked. Someone took courage to look outside. The knock came again; then they saw that it was but a broken latch tapping in the wind.
They relit their candle, and sat down to renew their game. Rochel was weeping softly at her baby's cradle.
"My God," she wailed, "why did we not remain in Fishow? They have it good-they live behind strong Ghetto gates."
The men were playing as before, but they told no more harrowing tales. Joel Wineseller's jokes fell on deaf ears; his laughter, too, was hollow. At every sound they started; they trembled at their own heart-beats.
The grandfather was busily praying again, shaking himself with pious ardour, and when he ceased, it was but to comfort Hirshl, and to tell him of that glorious time when the Messiah would come; and when all Israel would dwell at peace in Zion, each man under his own vine and fig-tree, in a land flowing with milk and honey, as the Lord has promised.
And the long night dragged wearily on; the wind sighed and moaned; the feeble candle blinked and spluttered; and little Hirshl's soul was heavy with trouble and weariness. Then slowly and strangely the room waxed wide and bright, the murmuring voices came faint and distant, the wall of the house swelled like a mist, and Hirshl found himself standing in a large, fine square, just like the Rathhaus Square. Before him stood a beautiful building with a golden dome. The Holy of Holies shone at the top of a wide stair, and before it stood grandfather in a white robe as at the Seder; below were crowds of people all singing joyfully, and over all shone a bright golden light.
"It is Jerusalem!" cried Hirshl, and clapped his hands. "And the light that shines over all, that is the Shekhina."
"Adon olom asher molach," sang the people, and Hirshl's heart leaped high with joy. He, too, would sing, "B'terem kol yezir nibro," and as he opened his lips-he awoke.
Alas! the glory of Zion was fled-he was only at home in the Gass; but it was morning, and the terrors of the night were passed.
How sweet the white light of day! How sweet the smell of the simmering soup-pot! How sweetest of all the strong comfort of his father's voice chanting the old familiar morning prayers!
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