New Zealand

The Jewish community of New Zealand—in addition to being one of the world’s southernmost—is quite small, numbering an estimated 7,500 people. When famed writer Peretz Hirschbein visited the country in the 1920s, however, that number was even smaller.

Hirschbein recorded his impressions of New Zealand in his People and Places (Felker un Lender), a travelogue in which he recounts his journeys there (as well as in Australia, Tahiti, and South Africa). Upon arriving in New Zealand, Hirschbein was seized by a feeling that has struck Jewish travelers throughout history: the desire to see how other Jews live in faraway places.

What Hirschbein found were Jewish communities undergoing internal demographic shifts, which at times generated conflict with long-established communal leaders. He found, too, that Yiddish played a prominent role. Unlike (relatively) nearby Australia, New Zealand does not appear to have been the site of much Yiddish literary output. But Hirschbein describes both the persistence of Yiddish and the deeply emotional place the language held for many (though not all) of its speakers.

While Hirschbein leaves his interlocutors anonymous, the smallness of New Zealand’s Jewish communities makes identification fairly straightforward. The rabbi of the Wellington community whom Hirschbein met was likely Herman van Staveren, while the rabbi of the Auckland community was likely Samuel Aaron Goldstein. (It should be noted that Lazarus Morris Goldman’s The History of the Jews in New Zealand presents a rather different picture of both rabbis.) — Ryan Mendias

 

The city was windy. And Wellington has a reputation as a windy city. The city is new. Modern. It has some seventy thousand residents. But even before I had laid eyes on the four walls of my room, there grew in me a desire to see Jews.

I took out a phonebook and began to go through the alphabet looking for Jewish names. They appeared on every page. The Jewish people. And here, a Dutch name, but with the notation “Reverend.”

“Could this be a Jewish rabbi?” And so I called.

An energetic, youthful voice answered and asked, “Who’s calling?”

“Pardon me, are you the Jewish rabbi?”

“Yes, I am. Wellington’s Jewish rabbi. And who are you?”

“A Jewish writer from America. Just now arrived and I’d like to see a Jew.”

“Very well. I’ll be right over.”

It seemed clear to me that I was speaking with a young man, given his energetic voice and willingness to come over so soon. I was impressed however when, half an hour later, a gray-haired old man arrived, who was over sixty years old. Neat, in an overcoat and top hat. He rather seemed like an old gentile than a Jewish rabbi.

Our conversation began, rather warmly from his side, with a welcome of “borekh ha-bo” and a few other Hebrew phrases. But when I started to ask him about Jews in New Zealand—their number, their lifestyles, their place in society—he suddenly went quiet. He looked at me sharply and asked a bit harshly, “Why do you ask so much about our brother Jews?”

“I’m simply interested in the situation of Jews in far-off countries. I’m a Jew myself after all. I’d like to know how many Jews there are there in New Zealand.”

“One mustn’t speak of their number so loudly.”

“Surely you’re not worried about the evil eye?”

“Our neighbors do not need to know our number. In Wellington we are perhaps seven hundred souls, and our neighbors know of no more than two or three hundred.”

“???”

“Yes, they do not know our number, and if they did, it would be terrible.”

“New Zealanders are a very liberal people. What do you mean that one shouldn’t say aloud how many Jews there are?”

“Young man,” he said to me, “I know what I’m saying. And, above all, they must not know the number of Russian Jews. Their number is greater than ours, and since they have come here . . . it’s no good.  I’ve been here now thirty-five years. I gathered together the first ten Jews. All was in good order until the Russian Jews came and brought their arguments, criticism—they’re useless.”

“I’d like, Rabbi, for you to introduce me to the Russian Jews.”

He looked at me; on his face appeared barely concealed anger and unhappiness. I sensed that he regretted that he had come to see me and felt that he had embarrassed himself. He did not answer my request. He sprang up from his seat, looked at me as if he wanted to leave, and turned to me suddenly. “We have a lovely museum here. If you’d like, I can take you there.”

I became uneasy. I nevertheless agreed. And yet it was rather foolish that instead of meeting with living Jews he took me to the local museum, if one could call it that. A few small rooms where various stuffed animals and birds stood frozen in different poses on artificial twigs and other such things, dusty and bursting, and which in the moment did not at all penetrate my mind.

Coming out of there into a park, I was refreshed by the sight of several mimosa trees casting their shade with golden, downy heads. I fell silent. He fell silent. There was nothing more to speak about. We went through the streets, the both of us quiet. A heavy, tense mood prevailed between us until we arrived at a clothing shop.

“Here I shall introduce you to your Jews. And if you leave tomorrow, well, go in good health.”

He led me into the shop, introduced me to the Russian Jew, and left with a haughty air.

But the middle-aged Russian Jew with a gentle face began to speak to me in Yiddish, asking who I was and, learning that I came from a Russian province, bursting into tears like a small child. His tall son, born in New Zealand and already a young man, seeing how his father cried, also started to wipe away tears.

The Jew caught his breath and became a little embarrassed by his own tears. He smiled and launched into a long speech: “Oy vey, oy vey, I must let everyone know right away that you’ve come. Oy vey, a Yiddish writer. Are there really Yiddish writers? Already more than thirty years here. In my youth I left home for London. Then came here. My son was born here. Twenty-six years old. You’re leaving so soon. Perhaps you’ll read something for us. We have, may there be no evil eye, a real community of Jews here. I’ll call them right away.”

And he began to phone one Jew after the other. One by one, they appeared in his shop and looked at me in amazement. Instead of selling his wares to the customers who came into the shop, he merely introduced me to them, even the Christian ones. Far from some great secret, they began to speak loudly about their Jews. One might have thought that Wellington did not have seven hundred Jewish souls but rather many, many thousands.

It was truly remarkable that at my lecture in Wellington a couple of days later, more than three hundred people had gathered: fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, grandfathers, grandmothers, and grandchildren. With great eagerness, they sat and waited for the speaker.

And when the host, introducing me, apologized that I would have to speak to them in Yiddish, he was interrupted by a great, heartfelt outburst of joy from everyone in attendance: “Oy, Yiddish! Oy, Yiddish!”

I spoke for a long time. I spoke of Jews from around the world. Of our lives in America and in other countries, as many as I knew. I told of our literature and authors. The audience sat with bated breath and listened. My reward was that, after the lecture, young children came up to me, and a twelve-year-old girl said to me in a halting Yiddish, “We thank you for talking to us in Yiddish and telling us how the language of my parents is spoken all over the world.”

I spent several days among the Wellington Jews. The rabbi later came looking for me once more and insisted on bringing me to his home one evening. Surrounded by his circle, among his grown children, sons and daughters, the Russian Jew in me suffered. The rabbi complained, “They have no respect.”

“He’s been with us for over thirty-five years. He’s found more favor in the eyes of the gentiles than among Jews. And it’s possible that he likes the gentiles more than the Russian Jews.” That was how the Russian Jews had complained to me about the rabbi.

And yet the gray-haired image of the Wellington rabbi is deeply etched in my memory. I left his home late that night. It was a cold night. A heavily starred evening. He walked me out. He stretched his pale hand toward the sky and remarked, “See, what grand stars the heavens of New Zealand contain.”

And each time after that, when I went out alone for a walk in the cool, starry nights of New Zealand, my memory returned to that pale hand, which once pointed out the stars to me.

* * *

On a hot and sunny afternoon, I arrived in Auckland, the largest city in New Zealand, which counts more than a hundred thousand residents and among them five hundred Jewish souls. Once I’d freshened up from my travels, it was difficult to stay cooped up in my hotel room. The evening was too beautiful, and the waters around the city were magnetic. When I returned to the hotel after a walk through the tidy, charming paved streets, I was handed a calling card and a bouquet of flowers. From the variety of flowers and their freshness, I understood that they came not from a store but rather had just been cut from someone’s garden. But even more amazing was to read the name of the Auckland rabbi on the card. While you lose many of your more sentimental traits when traveling, there nevertheless remains a place in your heart for unexpected flowers brought by a person from whom you never in your life would have expected flowers.

Once again, I imagined that a rabbi who sends flowers would be a young man. How could it be otherwise? But a while later, someone knocked on my door. I told them to come in, and it was the rabbi. A gray-haired Jew in his seventies. With an intelligent and tired face, with all the signs of a learned scholar in his appearance. Yes, he had been the one who brought the flowers over earlier.

In his welcome was the warmth of a loving uncle but none of the ostentatious pride of a grandfather or an old rabbinic master. I couldn’t restrain myself and remarked, “I noticed that the flowers came from someone’s garden.”

“Yes, from my garden.”

“Amazing.”

“Yes, from my own garden,” he answered proudly. “I’ve always loved gardening, ever since I was a child—even now I haven’t given it up. But a few days ago we had a huge windstorm, which made a terrible wreck of my garden.”

“How long have you been here, Rabbi?”

“I was just a young man when I came here from England. But I was born somewhere in Lithuania. I don’t remember where. I don’t recall the city.”

We went outside and he led me to the aristocratic street where the synagogue was located. A tidy white building looking out over the harbor. On the lower floor is the Sunday school for Jewish children. He brought me there. And afterward, after telling me about his life, work, and various youthful follies, he went into a darkened side room and brought out a dusty case, out of which he took an old cello.

“In my younger years I used to play. Now I’m a little rusty. Would you like to hear me play Kol Nidrei?”

I sat in a corner and observed the old Jew, in love with his younger years but now a rabbi somewhere at the end of the earth. It occurred to him to specifically play Kol Nidrei for the foreigner, who had come from a faraway country. One could tell from the dust on the case that he had not played in a long, long time—and that the cello was angry at the unjustified interruption. Only now, when he had bent over the cello and contended with the bow over the strings, did I realize that he was all played out.

His hands shook—and not just his hands. Now his heart, his whole being, shook, driving his fingers forward, which became lost in the four taut strings as if in a great labyrinth. The shaking of his whole hand dominated his fingers. The Kol Nidrei came out shattered, destroyed, tragic, and deathly.

When he finished, he sat there for a while, his head bowed, contemplating the cello. Getting up, he said, “Yes, my hands do shake. You just never know until you try your fingers out on the strings.”

Looking at the foreigner from the other side of the Seven Seas, he recalled his youth and his way here. His newly brightening glance evoked the image of a wanderer. I saw him as an old Jewish wayfarer—but no rabbi.

That same evening he showed me his large library and the volumes, in several languages, concerning Judaism. We walked among his flowerbeds, which were behind his home.

I later found out how beloved he was in his community and what a good mentor he was to his community and its Jews, who were mostly Russian Jews. But when I gave my lecture a few days later in his own Sunday school, no more than twenty Jews came. Even though the rabbi himself had informed the community about it, and even though he himself was the host, the audience did not come. He was certainly a good mentor, and our Russian Jews let themselves be led away by him to that side of the mountain where one observes our scattered multitudes. I much preferred Wellington—the rabbi there was no learned scholar, and our Russian Jews did not let him lead them.

With a sorrowful feeling, I walked through Auckland’s bright, lovely paved streets. I happened to see in a tailor’s little shop an old, patriarchal-looking Jew immersed in his sewing. I came into the shop and got his attention. He thought that someone had come to ask him for work. From behind his glasses, he looked me over from head to toe. But I began to introduce myself in Yiddish.

“What’s it like for a Jew in New Zealand?”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t mean anything. Really. I just saw a fine Jew with such a Jewish appearance and asked myself, what it’s like for him in such a faraway country.”

“Young man, I am not a Jew.”

“But you’re speaking Yiddish, and you look so Jewish.”

“I am a Catholic.”

“What do you mean!”

“Yes, young man,” he said angrily. “Why are you so surprised? My son is a Catholic priest; I became a Catholic. So what does it matter if I speak Yiddish?”

He said nothing more and went back to his work. He was sewing a black garment with white thread.

This is how flowers were once received in faraway lands.

Peretz Hirschbein (1880–1948) was a renowned writer of plays, novels, and reportage. Among his expansive oeuvre are his travelogues, documenting his years spent traveling around the globe. Born in an impoverished town in Grodno province, Hirschbein’s was a life of ever-expanding horizons—both artistic and geographic. His decades traveling in the company of his wife, the poet Esther Shumiatcher-Hirschbein, took him through the Americas, Asia, the South Pacific, and Africa and provided rich material for both his fiction and nonfiction.

Translator

Ryan Mendias lives in New York City, where he is a practicing attorney and Yiddish enthusiast.

Read the story in its original Yiddish through the Yiddish Book Center's Steven Spielberg Digital Library.