I left Kletsk, my birthplace, as a youth. I parted from my parents, siblings and friends and only very hazy memories remained with me.

Life seemed desolate and poor, frozen by tradition, and struggle for existence was very difficult. Specific Impressions of childhood and youth are engraved in my memory.

The fixed Market Day was different from other days of the week. The shtetl changed its face. It is like a boiling cauldron, tumult, and bustle in the market and in the streets. Jews are rushing –  busy and troubled – and we, children just freed from attending the kheder are running around and push in between many farmers’ wagons and specially arranged tables and benches loaded with a variety of merchandise, as if we are partners to this whole bustle. Gradually towards evening the storm subsides and all returns as it was before.

Market day was considered the most important event from which most of the Jewish population made a living.

At the first Russian revolution 1905: Various political parties in the Jewish street. Each one of them fixed a meeting place for its members in the evenings, on a specific street. A sort of a political bourse. Groups of youth and grown-ups assemble in the evenings in these streets, discussing, arguing, making a lot of noise. Sometimes members of one party encroach on the space of a rival party and the noise increases.

We are, too, present in these streets. We cannot understand what is going on but we push in and run around and pretend we are part of all this tumult. We are proud of it. But then the worried mothers look for us and drag us home.

An episode: In the middle of the day suddenly appears my childhood teacher, Golush, one of the leaders of the revolutionaries, accompanied by his group. He is a talented speaker and very dedicated to the revolution. He orders to close up stores and businesses, walks up to a podium set up in a hurry, and delivers and ardent speech against the Tzarist regime, against capitalists, and against the Jewish bourgeois who take advantage of the workers… Then came the black evening remembered by all veteran Kletskers. When Sabbath was over, one family celebrated a joyful wedding. Suddenly armed Kozaks Cossacks [metaphorical?] surrounded the house and other houses, grabbed from them known youth as revolutionaries and rebels against the regime. Those youth were arrested and exiled to Siberia. Many never returned. That was the end of those youth we worshipped as brave heroes.

We were three brothers. Father, R’ Matityahu, was a graduate of the Slobodka Yeshiva, Great in Torah and ordained as a Rabbi. He was offered to serve as a Rabbi in various cities but he declined. At first he dealt in wholesale of flour and then opened a shop for material/linen on Tzepra Street. When a local community governing body was organized, he was elected to be the head of the community and since then dedicated himself to public service. He especially took care of religious education and initiated the establishment of Talmud Torah for boys and Beit Yaakov for girls. He contributed money for needy young students [probably of the yeshiva] and they always ate with us, each of them on his fixed day of the week.

My mother Hinda managed the store. She was industrious, capable, educated and held advanced ideas. She was a graduate of a Russian school. Her opinions opposed those of my father’s. She took the matter of educating her children into her hand. She wished to prepare us for practical life and insure our sound economic basis for life. After the first stages in the old style khedr she enrolled us in secular Russian schools. That was resented by my father and caused him sorrow; In the orthodox circles they gossiped and grumbled about this weird form of education.

My mother, however, was insistent and I enrolled in a Russian high school in Nesvizh. It was difficult to be accepted to that high school. According to the Tzar’s rules, only 10 percent of places were open for Jewish students. [Numerus Clausus]. I was one of the best students there. After that, I spent some years wandering in various cities for the purpose of education and enlightenment. From time to time I visited my home town briefly.

(C)

I spent some time in Kletsk after WW1, when the shtetl was included in the Polish state. I noticed many decisive changes: it became a vibrant shtetl, active and dynamic in all spheres of life.

The Zionist ideas and movement was dominant in the Jewish street and imprinted its influenced in spiritual and public life. It was a new generation of youth, energetic and initiative, very active in Zionism and Hebrew culture. My brother, Abraham, was one of them. he had inspiration and acquired a general Hebrew education. He was a guide and spiritual educator of the young Zionist generation. He was among the initiators and founders of the Tarbut School, an exemplary institution where the children of Kletsk were educated in the spirit of pioneering and Hebrew culture.

Materially we were all hanging by a thread. We then resolved to fulfil our duty to join the pioneers. Unfortunately, Aliya was blocked to young pioneers. I went to Warsaw and for a whole month knocked on every door but did not succeed. Since I found an opportunity to immigrate to South America, I went to Argentina and for several years served as a teacher in the colonies of Baron Hirsch. I experience there spiritual loneliness and therefore moved to the USA where I dwell among my Jewish people and acquaintances.