My Zaida's Experiences with Anti-Semitism Prior to Immigration

April 10, 1998 - First Seder Night

A Conversation/Interview with my Zaida regarding antisemitism in his life prior to coming to Canada.

The following notes are derived from a 1-1.5 hour conversation I had earlier this evening with my grandfather, William Globman. My goal was to get an understanding of the conditions of his

life, especially with regards to the interactions between the Jews and non-Jews, up until and including his immigrating to Canada. My summary is compromised by several factors, including

his memory of events approximately 80 years old and his ability to convey them to me in a framework that would be meaningful to me, given that I have lived only in an environment that is

extraordinarily different from the one that we were discussing. It is also coloured by my prior understandings (or misunderstandings) of the turn-of-the-century Russian Jewish shtetl. For these reasons I often try to objectify certain characteristics of the setting, such as asking how many people lived in his town or how often the pogroms occurred. Obviously no one could be expected to answer such questions as precisely as I would have liked.

My Zaida was born in 1910 in a town called Kitaygorod, outside of Odessa in Russia. It

probably had a total population of 5-20,000 people, of which a fair amount (maybe 25%) were Jewish. The Jews lived in their own area of the town and interactions with non-Jews for purely social reasons were very unusual. My Zaida did not have any non-Jewish friends. He mentioned there were poorly educated town girls. He looked on the Russians as being “different” and would not agree to seeing them as either better or worse or to hating or being jealous of them. He felt that anti-semitism was very prevalent and felt that there may have been some jealousy on the part of the inadequately cared for Russian poor for the Jewish social structure in which community values, education and charity for the poor was very strong. I got the impression that being the poorest of the Jews was much preferable to being the poorest of the Russians.

Not all the Russians were “bad”. He recalled that his grandfather, who purchased wheat from the various surrounding farms and sold it in town, got on well with several of the Russians with whom he had business interactions, and that they showed up at his grandfather’s funeral; however, most of his stories regarding intercultural interactions were of the opposite variety.

He discussed three principal types of antisemitic conflicts. The first seemed to be just the

somewhat more hatred-filled and racially-charged version of boys fighting with each other. For instance, if while picking blueberries in the woods, he and his friends ran into a group of Russian boys (they would rarely pass each other on the street due to the segregated, non-reinforced legally?- nature of the town). They would start throwing rocks at each other. It would seem that this would happen quite frequently, although not at every such meeting. 

The second type, which was also quite frequent, were random individual attacks which

may have been perpetuated, for instance, by several farmers who would come into town to sell their produce and then gotten drunk. This often consisted of robbing Jewish homes and

businesses.

The third, and most severe, type was the organized pogrom. These were less frequent-

occurring possibly several times per year (?) but varying based on the prevailing sociopolitical climate at the time. He recalls running home from “Cheder” (school classes) and hiding in the cellars or in the bushes near the water by his house. On one occasion he had to hide out for an entire week. The Russians would come in sizable groups (?100), often on horseback, and with guns as well as swords. He recalls after one such pogrom walking through the town and seeing seven dead, all of whom he knew, one of whom was his cousin. He also recalls once that an aunt was hit on the head with a sword and was covered in blood and only survived because the blow had been lessened by the thickness of her hair, which was rolled up above her head in a bun. 

These pogroms were often organized by the comparatively educated (“the Jews killed

Christ”), students from a nearby “gymnasia” or by gang-like groups. He remembers a story of one of the richer girls in town being sent to Odessa for higher learning, where she fell in love with a non-Jewish student; however her parents refused to let them marry (we know nothing of his parents’ positions), eventually turning him into a Jew-hater and the leader of one of these pogroms.

The 1917 Bolshevik revolution, at first, led to a lessening of antisemitic manifestations and

seemed to portend an improvement in a lot of the Jews; however, relations gradually returned towards pre-revolutionary standards. The Bolsheviks did not outlaw religious schooling and practice on part of the Jews and others; however they discouraged and ridiculed it.

Anti-Bolshevik sentiment in the early years after the revolution was often strong. He recalls an armed group entering the local bathhouse, rounding up about a dozen Bolsheviks (Jews and non-Jews alike), cutting off their limbs and killing them, then throwing them into a mass grave.

My Zaida has no memories of his father who left for Montreal in 1913 when my Zaida was three. His father had gone ahead with two (?) of my Zaida’s older sisters and an uncle with the intentions of earning money and sending for the rest of the family the following year; however, World War II and the communist revolution intervened. His father worked as a presser in a clothes (?) factory in Montreal, developed cancer and died at age 47. They were informed by telegram written in English and translated with much difficulty. His uncle returned to Russia. Money was sent from the New World to support him and the remainder of the family in Russia.

My Zaida contracted and survived an episode of typhoid fever. The family was middle class.

Zaida attended Cheder. This was held in a room of the Rabbi’s house and was a group of

approximately 20 children at a given level of study, but of somewhat varied ages. When the

next level was reached, it would be held in the house of another teacher/Rabbi. The emphasis of the education was on religious matters such as the Hamesh (the five books of the Torah) but included reading, writing, math and information on Russia at a more advanced level (outside the Jewish community only ?).

The thought of leaving Russia for a better life in America was always present in my Zaida’s

head, as far back as he could remember. Both antisemitic sentiment and economic hardships played a role in this. There was no single event that triggered the desire. When the time came for him to leave with his mother and other siblings, they had to be smuggled across the border into Poland. They remained there for several months while attempting to obtain falsified Polish passports, which they eventually did. 

They left Poland on a Canadian ship out of the Baltic port of Gdansk; however there were problems with this boat and they spent time in both Germany and Liverpool before taking a “fancy” American ship to New York. The crossing of the Atlantic took five days (?). Zaida arrived in New York on February 8, 1923. They soon moved to Montreal where he had several years of elementary schooling (grades three and four) before starting work as a furrier. He later spent a year living in New York before moving back to Montreal and marrying my Bubbie, Edith, on March 18, 1937.

Thanks to Lilac for transcribing- Just like old times!