Only Yesterday (78 page)
But at night the winds cooled and the world began to cool off. And the next day the sun was dull and pressed and squeezed between the clouds. Before it finished its course, it was pushed out of the firmament. That sun, that devouring fire, that had blazed with its strong heat and burned all the grass of the field and parched the trees and dried up the springs of water—darkening clouds pushed her out until there wasn’t a corner in the firmament that it wasn’t pushed out of. And when we lifted our eyes to the sky to see if the clouds weren’t lying, abundant rain began coming down. Only yes-terday we had stood in prayer and pleading and we increased the number of Slikhot and we blew Shofars and we recited Hosanna, and today we read aloud the Praising, thanking and singing.
When the rains began coming down they didn’t stop com-ing down by day or by night. The water flowed from above and from below, on the roofs of our houses and underneath our houses, it swept away furnishings and brought down houses. But the cisterns were filled with water. And now we have water to drink and even to cook our food and to bake our bread and to dip our hands. For six or seven days the rains came down, and when they stopped they started com-ing down again. Finally, the rains stopped and the clouds dispersed and the sun shone. And when we came outside we saw that the earth was smiling with its plants and its flowers. And from one end of the Land to the other came shepherds and their flocks, and from the soaked earth rose the voice of the sheep, and they were answered by the birds of the skies. And a great rejoicing was in the world. Such rejoicing had never been seen. All the villages in Judea and the Galilee,
in the plain and in the mountains produced crops and the whole Land was like a Garden of the Lord. And every bush and every blade of grass emitted a good smell, and needless to say, so did the oranges. Like a blessed dwelling was the whole Land and its inhabitants were blessed by the Lord. And you our brothers, the elite of our salvation in Kinneret and Merhavia, in Eyn Ganim and in Um Juni, which is now Degania, you went out to your work in the fields and the gardens, the work our comrade Isaac wasn’t blessed with. Our comrade Isaac wasn’t blessed to stand on the ground and plow and sow, but like his ancestor Reb Yudel Hasid and like some other Saints and Hasids, he was blessed to be given an estate of a grave in the holy earth. May all mourners mourn for that tortured man who died in a sorry affair. And we shall tell the deeds of our brothers and sisters, the children of the living God, the nation of the Lord, who work the earth of Israel for a monument and fame and glory.
Completed are the deeds of Isaac The deeds of our other comrades The men and the women
Will come in the book
A Parcel of Land
Abu Tor (“Father of the Bull”) Arab sec-tion of Jerusalem outside the walls, near the Bethlehem Road, established in the 1870s.
Adjami Quarter Quarter in Jaffa. Ahad Ha-Am (“One of the People”)
Asher Hirsh Ginsberg (1856–1927) Hebrew essayist and philosopher, theoretician of the revival of Zion as the “Spiritual Center” against Herzl’s political Zionism.
Ahuzat Bayit (“Home Estate”) A com-mittee in Jaffa that founded a settlement by that name north of Jaffa, sub-sequently considered the inception of the first Hebrew city, Tel Aviv.
Aliyah
(literally: Ascent) Zionist immigration to the Land of Israel. Each wave of
Aliyah
is known by its number, indicating the period and countries of origin. The First
Aliyah,
1882–1904, was initiated by BILU and the Lovers of Zion in Odessa, even before Theodor Herzl’s political Zionist organization was established. Its members, independent farmers, created the first modern settlements in Palestine, supported by Baron Edmond de Rothschild and the Jewish Colonization Association. The Second
Aliyah,
1904– 1914, was dominated by young idealists coming from the Russian pogroms and revolution. It was carried by a Zionist Socialist ideology, fighting for “Jewish labor” and creating the first Hebrew-speaking collectives of workers. At the same time, the urban Jewish popula-
tion in Jaffa grew and the first Hebrew city was established in 1909.
Alliance Israélite Universelle First mod-ern international Jewish organization, founded in 1860, centered in Paris.
Starting in the 1890s, the Alliance fo-cussed its efforts on creating an international network of French-language schools, including Palestine.
Anglo-Palestine Company (APC, pro-nounced “APAK”) Later renamed Anglo-Palestine Bank. In 1951, renamed Bank Leumi le-Israel, the National Bank of Israel.
Antebi Albert Abraham Antebi (1869– 1918), leader of the Jewish community in Eretz Israel, born in Damascus, knew Turkish, and had good relations with the Turkish authorities. Was the representative of the Alliance Israelite Universelle and ICA ( Jewish Colonization Association) in the Land of Israel.
Antipatris Ancient Palestinian city in the valley of Kfar Saba, built by Herod.
Aramaic Targum The Aramaic translation of the Bible, printed on the mar-gins of the Torah text.
Ark The receptacle in the synagogue in which the Torah scrolls are kept.
Aronovitch, Joseph (1877–1937) He-brew writer and Palestinian labor leader, first editor of the influential journal of the Labor Movement,
Ha-Po’el Ha-Tsa’ir.
Asch, Scholem (1880–1957) Yiddish novelist and playwright.
Ashkenazi European Jews as opposed to
643
Sephardi (Spanish) Jews; the name de-rives from “Ashkenaz,” Germany.
Av Fifth month in the Jewish year, usu-ally July-August.
Ba’al Ha-Ness, Rabbi Meir The tomb of Rabbi Meir the Miracle Worker is near Tiberias; from the eighteenth century on, a Ba’al Ness alms box was found in almost every Jewish home. It was cus-tomary to contribute money or candles as protection against ailments and dangers.
Baksheesh Turkish for bribe.
Bar Yokhani Or Ziz, a big legendary bird like the phoenix, mentioned in the Talmud: “once an egg of a Bar Yokhani fell and drowned sixty cities, and broke three hundred cypresses.”
Barnett, Zerakh (1843–1935) Pioneer of settlement in modern Eretz-Israel and one of the founders of Petach Tikva.
Basel, Congress The founding Congress of the World Zionist Organization in 1897, in Basel, Switzerland.
Be’er Tuviya A
moshav
(labor cooperative) in the southern coastal plain of Israel, founded in 1887 by Jews from Bessarabia, with the help of Baron Edmond de Rothschild.
Be’er Yakov Town in the coastal plain of Israel, founded in 1907 by a group of 56 Jews from Russia.
Belzer Rebbe Hasidic Rebbe, heir of a dynasty founded in the Galician
city of Belz by Shalom Rokeah (1779–
1855).
Ben Shemen Youth village and
moshav
(labor cooperative) in central Israel. Land bought here in 1904 by the
Anglo-Palestine Bank was transferred to the Jewish National Fund in 1907, and became one of its first holdings in the country.
Ben Sirah Simeon ben Jesus, also called Ecclesiasticus, Hebrew aphorist, sage, and scribe of the second century bce whose wisdom literature was included in the Apocrypha.
Ben Zion, S. (Simhah Alter Gutmann;
1870–1932) Hebrew and Yiddish au-thor, came to Palestine in 1905.
Ben-Yehuda, Eliezer (1858–1922) He-brew writer and lexicographer, generally considered the father of modern, spoken Hebrew. Immigrated to Palestine in 1881.
Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem, founded in 1906 by Professor Boris Schatz, court sculptor to King Ferdinand of Bulgaria.
Bialik, Hayyim Nahman (1873–1934) Considered the greatest Hebrew poet of the period of the Hebrew Renais-sance, essayist, storywriter, translator, and editor, who exercised a profound influence on modern Hebrew culture.
BILU[im] Hebrew initials of “House of Jacob, come ye and let us go” (Isaiah 2:5). An organized group of young Russian Jews who emigrated to Palestine in 1881 and launched the First
Aliyah.
Bishlik Turkish coin.
Black Hundreds The secret fighting squads of the anti-Semitic Union of the Russian People, largely responsible for the pogroms of 1905.
Braslav Hasids Followers of Nahman of Braslav (1772–1811), one of the great spiritual leaders of Hasidism. His followers are called the “Dead Hasids” because it is the only Hasidic sect that has had no successor to the dead leader.
Brenner, Yosef Hayyim (1881–1921) He-brew writer, leading spiritual figure of the Second
Aliyah,
murdered during an Arab riot in Jaffa.
Brith Ceremony of circumcision of Jewish boys on the eighth day after their birth.
Brod In Polish, Brody; a central city in eastern Galicia, in the Austro-Hungar- ian Empire, on the Russian border, fa-mous for its enlightenment figures.
Broydes, Reuben Asher, or Braudes (1851–1902) Hebrew novelist and enlightenment figure, born in Vilna.
Buchmil, Joshua Heshel (1869–1938) Zionist leader.
Bukharan Houses in Jerusalem Housing project of Jews from Bukhara in Central Asia.
Burial Society Khevre Kadisha, the offi-cial society observing Orthodox Jewish burial rituals.
Carmel Wine Wine produced in the Rothschild wine cellars in the settlement of Rishon LeTsion (“The First in Zion”). Drinking Carmel Wine was considered a patriotic deed in the Diaspora.
ChaBaD Society The society of the Lubavitcher Hasidim.
Chamberlain, Houston Stuart (1855– 1927) An enthusiastic Germanophile and theoretician of anti-Semitism.
Cholent A stew traditionally prepared on Friday and placed in the oven be-fore the Sabbath to keep hot without having to light a fire on the Sabbath. Commandment (of Commission and of
Omission) Mitsvah, or ordinance. There are 613 such Mitsvot in the Torah.
Damascus Gate (Sha’ar Shekhem) One of the gates of the Old City of Jerusalem.
Days of Awe The days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
Degania A kibbutz on the Jordan-Yarmuk Plain south of Lake Kinneret, founded in 1909.
Diskin Orphanage An orphanage in Jerusalem, established in 1880 by Moses Diskin (1817–1898) to “save” children from another orphanage where foreign languages were taught.
Distribution
Halukah,
charity fees dis-tributed among poor Jewish settlers in Jerusalem by the community organization of their country of origin.
Dizengoff, Meir (1861–1937) A founder and first mayor of Tel Aviv.
Doctor Thon, Ozias (Yehoshua) Thon (1870–1936) Rabbi and early Zionist, Polish-Jewish leader, born in Lemberg. Assisted Dr. Herzl in preparing the first Zionist Congress in 1897.
Effendi “Landowner” in Arabic; here used ironically to refer to Jewish landowners as “bourgeois.”
Eruv A thread around a city neighborhood that symbolically makes it one courtyard, in which things may be carried even on the Sabbath.
Esrog (Ethrog) Rare citrus fruit, among the Four Species used on Sukkoth.
Etz Hayim Yeshiva (“Tree of Life”) The central Ashkenazi Yeshiva in Jerusalem, founded in the mid-nine- teenth century by Shmuel Salant.
Exile
Galuth,
Ashkenazi:
Goles,
the condition of Jews in Diaspora being ex-pelled from the Land of Israel.
Eyn Ganim A
moshav
(labor cooperative) of Hebrew laborers founded in 1907.
Eyn Zeytim An Arabic village in the Galilee with four Jewish households
Fables of Foxes
Mishley Shualim,
a collection of fables by Berekhiah Ha-Nakdan who lived in Normandy in the twelfth-thirteenth century, mostly adapted from the fables of Marie de France. (English translation by Moses Hadas,
Fables of a Jewish Aesop
).
Faithful Shepherd A part of the Zohar dealing with the justification of commandments.
Frankl, Ludwig August Ritter von Frankl-Hochwart (1810–1894), Austrian poet, secretary of the Vienna Jewish Community and founder of the Laemel School in Jerusalem.
Gate of Flowers A gate in the Old City walls.
Gate of Mercy A gate in the Old City walls.
Gate of Tribes A gate in the Old City walls.
Gates of Zion Library (“
Sha’arey Tsion
”) Hebrew public library in Jaffa.
Gershom Elder son of Moses and Zip-porah (Exodus 2:22; 26:24).
Gilboa Mountain range branching off to the northeast from the Samarian Hills, above the Jezreel Valley.
Gnessin, Uri Nissan (1881–1913) He-brew fiction writer introduced a proto-stream-of-consciousness prose into Hebrew literature.
Golden Book (of the Jewish National Fund) In which major contributions were recorded.
Gordon, Aharon David (1856–1922) He-brew writer and revered spiritual leader of the Zionist Labor movement in Palestine, who emphasized self-realization through settlement on
the land and the “religion of labor.”
Gordon, Judah Leib (1831–1892) Major Hebrew poet of the Haskalah.
Gross, Wilhelm Delegate to the first Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897.
Guardians of the Walls Strict adherents of the Orthodox tradition.
Guide to the Perplexed The classical book in religious philosophy by Moses Maimonides (1135–1204).
HaCohen, Adam, Abraham Dov Leben-sohn (1794–1878) Major Hebrew poet of the Vilna Haskalah.
HaCohen, Mordechai Ben-Hillel (1856– 1936) Hebrew writer and Zionist, settled in Palestine in 1907.
Hadera Settlement in central Israel, founded in 1890 by members of Hovevey Tsion from Vilna, Kovno, and Riga.
Haftorah
Hebrew:
Haftarah,
passage from the Prophets read in the synagogue after the weekly Torah portion.
Ha-Herut
daily newspaper, edited by Ben-Yehuda, published in 1908.
Hakham Bashi the title of the chief rabbi in the Ottoman Empire, composed of the Hebrew word for “sage” and the Turkish word for “chief.”
Ha-Magid
the first Hebrew newspaper, began publication in 1856 in Lyck in Eastern Prussia, and ended in 1903 in Berlin.
Ha-Mitspe
Hebrew weekly newspaper, published in Krakow, 1904–1921.
Hamsin
(Arabic, Hebrew:
sharav
) A