Superstitions

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Kletsk Yizkor Book

Superstitions

pp.140-150

An image formed by a young boy of dead people standing in the synagogue praying gives us an opportunity to learn some details of the Great "Cold Shul" of Kletsk and its immediate vicinity.

In the geographical and emotional center of Jewish Kletsk stood the Kalte Shul –The Cold Synagogue– so-called because it was near-impossible to heat sufficiently in the winter.

The Cold Synagogue rose up higher than all stone houses in the shtetl.

(Other sources tell us that most of the Jewish houses in the town were made of wood. This may be the only mention of stone –probably masonry– Jewish houses in Kletsk. It may in fact refer to two-story houses of non-Jews, which apparently existed, as shown by period photos, on the north side of the market square.)

A low building was adjacent to the synagogue on its left side. It was intended to serve as a Talmud Torah. However for obscure reasons was not completed and its windows were bare. This low house was a shed for the keilim [tools, appliances, facilities, utensils; instruments] of the Khevra Kadisha.

The building housing the burial society in the imagination of a young boy would easily contain dead bodies.

I tried to bypass it at night. I was sure that the dead were praying there.

What was the young Itzkovitz doing in the area at night?

My older brother had a shoe workshop with two big lanterns. I was then 12 years old and I slept in the workshop with my brother.

At a particularly reflective time, on Eruv Yom Kippur:

On the Eve of Yom Kippur the gabbai fetched the lanterns for the women’s gallery in the synagogue.

When Yom Kippur was over, one of the customers, a non-Jew, was at the door for a pair of shoes which he promised to the Paritz’s wife. This was urgent so my brother would have to work the whole night. My brother agreed and sent me to the synagogue to retrieve the lanterns. I was afraid to go there on my own so we went together. I took with me a box of matches. We found the synagogue closed and locked. My brother tried to enter through the low building on the south side.

(It apppears that this low building was a kind of shed that was built against the south wall of the Kalte Shul. As it was unfinished, it offered opportunities for entrance.)

The doors were closed there as well. My brother lifted himself up with my help to one of the windows and went through it inside.

Goats had found shelter in that building! They were startled by us and started jumping out of the [unfinished] windows.

An unnerving experience for the young Itzkovitz! Now the two went through a connecting door between the unfinished shed and the interior of the much larger Kalte Shul.

My brother lifted the latch on the door to open it and I walked behind my brother to light matches to show the way.

They found the lanterns they were seeking upstairs in the women's gallery.

We went up the stairway to the women’s gallery. My brother lit one of the lanterns and there was light. Birds asleep in the glass dome above awoke and their chirping echoed in the silence of the synagogue. I was thrilled and it seemed to me that all the standers [Yiddish: book holders] were standing up straight, with awe, listening to the singing – the praying of the birds … My brother woke me up from my reverie and told me to get the other lantern.

All in all, I did not see any dead praying!..

In the end, we see that Yerakhmiel Itzkovitz was far from captivated by his superstitious thought; instead he found inspiration in his foray into a dark synagogue.

Notes: standers: generally, tilted bookholders sitting atop tables, but could apply to slanted surfaces on the back of synagogue pews for use of people sitting behind.

Original: Superstitions, by Yerakhmiel Itzkovitz, on page 140, NYPL image no. 150

Page Last Updated: 06-Dec-2018