I left Kleck at 14 years of age. Until settling in Israel, I visited Kleck several times including in 1918/19 when I stayed there for several months.

The way I remember Kleck in childehood – there was poverty on the one hand and spiritual and moral spirit on the other hand. In those days Kleck had about 1000 Jewish families. Most made their living from craft-work, shops and small trade with the neighborhood farmers who were also suffering economic hardships and their pieces of land were small and were cultivated primitively. There were very few wealthy people and many very poor people.

Still, there were almost no ignorant people in Kleck. they liked books, and there were among them scholars and enlightened.

The traditional-religious nature of spiritual life found expression in that there were 5 synagogues in Kleck , 2 small praying houses (shtibles) and they were also used for Torah studies singularly and in public. There were also minyans in private houses.

Until I left Kleck, we lived on Radzwimont street, named after the nearby estate of Prince Radz’ivil. On our rightk a small dilapidated house, front wall caving in, the roof – rotten and letting the rain when it rained. In the broken window panes they stuck pieces of cloth. Leibe Yankel Yoel’s with wife Freide and daughter Alte lived there. Alte was a seamstress and the only provider for her family.

... They said about Leibe that he was a real scholar. He used to walk to the Beit Midrash very early morning to pray and teach his listeners.

...Freide used to make a round of houses asking for donations of money and articles for the needy: shouse, clothes, utensils for a new poor bride, hot soup or jelly for a poor mother who had just given birth, or is sick, money for persons who were stripped of all they had and were ashamed to beg for alms. Even when she did not get any donations she did not complain or reprove and used to explain that they probably could not afford donations. - - - the couple were happy and people use to say that they were one of 36 tsadikim.

On our left lived “Moshe the Shliaser” (locksmith). He used to prepare hand-made knives and almost every Jewish house in Kleck used them. His main customers were the farmers. On fair and market days his wife offered to sell the knives or else to trade them for eggs, potatoes, onions, etc., This hard working Jew always contributed to the needs of others and of the Kloyz.

On the eve of Passover we were very busy. In the synagogue-sqare we made our copper dishes kosher for Passover – immersed in boiling water. [HK: even in Tel-Aviv of my childhood there were still some religious Jews with built fires on surrounding bricks on a vacant lot, on top of which were big vat with water, boiling constantly. People would come with their silverware and pots and pans to immerse in the water to make them kosher for Passover]

I settled far from Kleck, became rich and property owner. My mother died and my father moved to a house on Vohlin Street with my brother Barukh who later perished with wife and only son in the Holocaust. - - -