from Shtamen un tsvaygn (Stumps and Branches)

Although she emigrated with her family from Poland to Toronto in 1914 at the young age of nine, Sarah Hamer-Jacklyn’s writing is rooted in the rich experience of shtetl life. She was born into a traditional Chassidic family in 1905 in Novoradomsk, Poland. After the family had immigrated to Canada, she learned English attending public school in Toronto. Hamer-Jacklyn maintained the connection to her mother tongue both at home and with private tutors, as well as through visits to the local Yiddish theater. In 1921, at the age of 16, she began acting and singing with a Yiddish theater troupe that toured across North America. She was married and had one son. In 1934, Hamer-Jacklyn’s first short story, “The Shopgirl,” appeared in the Yiddish daily newspaper Der tog (The Day). Additional stories appeared in numerous newspaper and literary periodicals across North America, including Tsukunft (Future), Vokhnblat (Weekly News), Der kanader adler (The Canadian Eagle), Yeg in Mexico, and The New Yorker. Collections of Hamer-Jacklyn’s short stories include Lebns un geshtaltn (Lives and Portraits, 1946), Shtamen un tsvaygn (Stumps and Branches, 1954), and Shtot un shtetl (City and Town, 1964). Hamer-Jacklyn died in New York on February 9, 1975, at the age of 70.

 “No More Rabbi!” (Oys rebe) was first published in Shtamen un tsvaygn. This comic tale takes place in the Polish shtetl setting with which the author was so familiar. Hamer-Jacklyn portrays the mix of superstition and pragmatism that governed family life in the shtetl with wry affection. She depicts
the intricate and tenuous relationship between the Jewish and gentile population. The story also provides an interesting window onto the dynamics of how women of that era managed the contradictory needs of motherhood and enterprise.

“No More Rabbi!” is excerpted from a new anthology of translations, Arguing with the Storm, edited by Rhea Tregebov and published by the Feminist Press. The book includes nine stories by nine women who descend from a long tradition – dating back to Glueckl of Hamlen – of women prose writers in Yiddish. Arguing with the Storm began as a communal project of the Winnipeg Women’s Yiddish Reading Circle, an informal group that took on the task of translating stories and memoirs composed and published from 1940 through 1990. It includes works that originally appeared in Yiddish in Europe, Israel, the United States, and Canada. The book’s title is taken from a poem by Rachel Korn, in which a widowed mother protects her children from the brutal weather by articulating her fears as well as her strength. As Kathryn Hellerstein writes in her introduction to the volume, “Ultimately, the stories in this anthology argue against the diminishing of women’s lives and the silencing of women’s voices.”

• • •
My Auntie Chaya and Uncle Isaac’s house was my second home. Here, in this overcrowded house of thirteen children, I started to develop a good appetite. My aunt once saw my poor mother running after me offering a piece of buttered white challah and an egg; I ran from her as though they were poison. My aunt boasted that in her home, I would fight for a piece of dark rye bread just like her own children. After that, my mother let me go as often as I wished to my aunt’s, even to stay overnight. Often I wouldn’t come home until Shabbes was over.

My aunt and uncle’s house was one with their shop, a spice store. The house portion was large and held a kitchen as well as a parlor. A curtain divided the space. Beyond the curtain, the mother and father’s two wooden beds were piled high with cushions. In the middle of the room, you could always find a crib for the youngest child.

At one side of the house was a long dark windowless room with a row of beds for the children. At night, when my aunt counted the children – not one…not two…not six…not eight…not twelve – if she counted an extra child, she knew it was me.

The house was always in an uproar, as if it were market day. There were children and adults, the family, brides and grooms, in-laws, engagement parties, a bris… And on top of all this, there were the happy sounds of children, the smell of cooking, a stove filled with pots, and the continual sound of a kettle boiling.

Their oldest daughter, Yentel, was already married and had a little boy only one month older than her own brother. Mother and daughter would often help nurse each other’s children. My aunt was of average height with a round figure and smiling brown eyes. Her daughter Yentel was very like her mother, only a bit taller and thinner. My Auntie Chaya was the buyer for the store and often would have to travel to larger cities to buy goods. Often, being a pious woman, she would make a side trip to visit the Rabbi to seek his advice. Then she would stop in Carlsbad, where she enjoyed submersing herself in the Carlsbad mineral and salt waters.

Her greatest dream was to raise at least one of her sons to be a rabbi. That was why she sent her children to the best schools and later to the yeshivas. But as soon as they grew up, they would disperse in various directions: one son got friendly with the Socialists and talked of revolution; the second went to learn a trade at a clockmaker’s. And so Auntie Chaya pinned her hopes on the middle son, Simcha-Bunem. He had a good head on his shoulders, was always engrossed in his studies, and followed his mother and father’s advice.

Then one day, the ten-year-old suddenly tucked his prayer curls behind his ears, stuffed his prayer shawl under his pants, rolled up his caftan and went off enthusiastically to play football with the boys on the street. He would come home singing gentile songs. My aunt wept. She realized that her dream had evaporated, that her son would never become a great rabbi. Whenever she would meet a rabbi, she would pray that she would be worthy of raising as devout a man as he.

Auntie Chaya’s father died a day after the birth of her youngest child. She wept bitter tears for her father, a great scholar, but was comforted in the knowledge that God had blessed her with a son. This she saw as a sign. They named the child Yochanan, after his grandfather, and my aunt was sure that one who carried the name of the great man would grow up to be a pious scholar, a great rabbi.

She raised the child with a great deal of love and special care. She never called him by his name Yochanan, instead calling him “my scholar,” or “my rebele,” my little rabbi. The entire family used the nickname the Rebele. Whenever she traveled, she left instructions that no wet nurse was to come near him. No outsiders’ milk; only her daughter was allowed to nurse him. If he should happen to sneeze or yawn, she would try to fend off the evil eye by kissing his eyes and spitting three times. Around his neck he wore a red ribbon that had a little bag hanging from it. The bag contained a wolf’s tooth as a charm to thwart the evil eye.

So Yochanan lay in his crib with his lucky charm, sucked his little fingers, and screamed. A greedy little thing and a screamer, he had to be constantly quieted either by the breast or with a wet rag wrapped around a piece of sugar. He strongly resembled his father, who placed great importance on his food, just the opposite of his thin and shrunken grandfather, who had fasted more than he ate. I was very attached to the child because he carried my zaida’s worthy name. So I rocked him and sang him “Raisins with Almonds.”

When the Rebele was eight months old, my Auntie Chaya left for a lengthy trip. As usual, the child was taken to Yentel to nurse. She would do this clandestinely. Her husband, Benjamin, disapproved of the whole idea. It seemed to him that his own frail child was being deprived of its best and only source of nourishment. Benjamin was a merchant who dealt in flax and corn. He always had a pencil tucked behind his ear because he was always figuring, and he figured that the brother would deplete the sister’s milk, thereby depriving the nephew. This did not sit well with him.

This became a constant bone of contention between husband and wife; she continually sought ways to hide the unwanted nursling she loved. Yentel would quietly sneak into her parents’ home, sit by the crib and bare the breast which Yochanan would eagerly fasten on and nurse. Then she would quickly run back to her own child. However, for Yochanan, with his plump red cheeks, this kind of nursing was not always satisfactory. He would often begin to cry soon after, demanding more. With loud screams, he would keep pushing away the wet rag wrapped around the sugar.

Four days had gone by already, and Auntie Chaya was still traveling. At the break of dawn, with the first sound of the rooster crowing, Yochanan woke screaming, demanding his due. Their older daughter, Adele, then began to wake one of the younger children so they would take the baby to Yentel’s, but nobody responded to her begging and pleading. They didn’t want to crawl out from under their warm quilts. From the long dark bedroom, you could hear their even breathing, their orchestral snoring, whistling, and snorting.

I then crawled out of bed and dressed quickly. Without washing, I wrapped myself and the howling Yochanan up in a large shawl, knotted the shawl at the back and left for Yentel’s. It was early summer. A new day was dawning. The sun was rising high in the clear blue sky, casting its golden rays onto the whitewashed, crooked little houses, which still had their shutters closed. The shops were also closed with iron bars.

My childish footsteps echoed along the cobblestones. Yochanan, snuggled at my waist and lightly rocked, stopped his crying. An old Jew with a large beard, carrying his prayer shawl and tefillin, was hurrying to the synagogue. Out of nowhere, a peasant appeared in a wagon filled with fruit. Giddy-up! Giddy-up! He cracked the whip that he used to hurry along his scrawny horse, which could barely pull the heavy load.

My cousin Yentel lived some distance from her mother and father’s house. I passed the synagogue and followed the footpath that led to her house as well as the cemetery. It was already the fourth day that I had brought the child to nurse. Each time, Benjamin would meet me with a dark, angry look, a look that was ready to devour both me and the Rebele.

Hard as it was for me to carry the child, it was even harder when Benjamin greeted me with eyes which pierced like needles. I arrived at their whitewashed house earlier than usual. The shutters were still closed. I knocked lightly, but nobody answered. It was quiet, and it seemed that everyone was asleep. I knocked harder, and slowly one half of the shutter opened. Benjamin stuck out his dishevelled head and, with half-closed eyes, asked in a quiet angry voice, “What do you want?”

“Yentel to nurse him –.” I showed him the child. I couldn’t understand the foolish question.

“Go away!” he ordered. “She’s tired and sick. She was awake a whole night and just fell asleep!” And he closed the shutter and disappeared.

I was left bewildered, but I soon regained my composure and knocked harder and doggedly shouted, “Open up! Open up! The baby’s hungry!”

It was quiet. There was no answer.

“Have pity on your little brother,” I pleaded, as Yochanan’s howls broke the silence of this quiet, still-sleeping street.

The shutter opened abruptly. Benjamin stuck his head out, glared at me with fiery eyes like sharp knives, and hissed through clenched teeth, “Get away, if you don’t want me to pour this slop pail over you! I’m warning you!” He reached out, shook his finger at me, banged shut the shutter, and disappeared again.

I was confounded. The child was crying and I didn’t know what to do. After thinking it over, I decided not to give up. I would not take home a hungry child. Slowly, I moved closer to the front porch and, as I was about to knock on the door, Benjamin appeared in his long johns carrying a slop pail in his hand. I jumped back instinctively.

“See?” He pointed to the slop pail. “If you don’t leave now, I’ll pour this over you and the Rebele!…”

He lifted the slop pail in the air, ready to douse us.

Frightened, I shielded the child with both hands as I beat a hasty retreat. As I got further away from Benjamin, he yelled, “Go, find a good cow or some healthy goye!…”

I ran and the crying child was rocked and fell asleep. After a while, I stopped running. This time, Yochanan started to cry in earnest. None of my rocking, cradling, or singing seemed to help any longer. On my way home, carrying the hungry child, I began to think that, God forbid, he might die if he didn’t get fed. Who knew when my aunt would come home? What should I do? I was in despair. I kept walking.

The town was beginning to awaken from its night dreams. Flowers were ready to bud. Fresh dew like drops of milk rolled from the green leaves. This was how Mother Earth fed her children. Today, however, Yochanan had no mother and I was carrying him home unfed.

Here and there, a Jewish woman carrying warm baked goods and fresh milk walked by. Jewish men were now returning from prayers. The iron bars were now being removed from the shops. From Bayla’s dressmaker shop, Chaim-Moisheh, her husband, hung on the door Bayla’s colorful peasant clothes made of cheap cloth. From her store, Kayla, the zogerin, the prayer leader for the women in the synagogue, rolled out a barrel of sour pickles, a sample of her salty wares. Each morning, Jewish shopkeepers eagerly awaited their first customer. This was the omen for the start of a good day.

As I came close to the house and went into the courtyard, I could see from afar pockmarked Manka, who was sitting on her father’s doorstep breastfeeding her child. The father of her child was unknown, so everyone in town called her “Manka-with-the-bastard.” Manka was a tall healthy gentile woman with light blonde hair, a short nose, and a pockmarked face. She had small narrow blue eyes that always seemed to be laughing furtively under heavy, light-colored eyebrows. She sat with two full white breasts visible through her unbuttoned blouse. Milk was leaking freely from them like the overflowing udders of a cow.

Her child, whom she called Yanek, clearly resembled his mother. He sat on her lap contented, playing with his little feet and refusing the breast that his mother kept urging upon him. In that moment, I remembered Benjamin’s words: “Go find some healthy goye.” Suddenly, a thought occurred to me. I went up to her and pointed to Yochanan. “Manka, have pity and nurse a hungry child!”

“Go away. You and your little Jew can go to the Devil!” she said heedlessly as she started to button up her blouse.

“Manka,” I begged her, “have pity on the child! His mother is traveling somewhere and he hasn’t nursed in a long time. He’ll die of hunger! He’ll surely die!” Yochanan looked greedily at the full breasts and suddenly began to howl.

Her maternal feelings aroused, Manka began to soften, and said, “Well, may the cholera take both of you!… Give me the little Jew – I’m not short of milk!…” She drew him to her breast and the child began to suck with such enthusiasm that the woman began to laugh, crossed herself and called, “Oh, my God, what a greedy little thing!…”

His cheeks now red and smeared, Yochanan was finally satisfied. I carried him back to the house, put him into the crib and he quickly fell asleep. Excited, I ran to the older daughter, Adele, and told her of the adventure that the child and I had experienced that day. Agitated, Adele turned pale, wrung her hands and, in despair, shouted, “What have you done?!…” Frightened, I looked at her, wanting to say something. But in that instant, Uncle Isaac ran in, having heard everything through the thin walls. He exploded. “Get out! Get out of my house! Don’t show your face here again! Get out!” He opened the door and hustled me out of the house, all the while shouting at me, “Scram! Get going!”

I went home crying, unable to understand the terrible thing that I had done. In my muddled thoughts, I knew that something was not right and this kept churning over and over in my nine-year-old brain. Two days later, when my aunt came home, I stood tearfully under her window, not daring to go into the house. She saw me, came out and, sadly, in a trembling voice, said, “Do you realize what you’ve done?”
“No.” I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Because of you, the Rebele’s not kosher any more…

No more rabbi! –”

And she herself began to weep bitter tears.