could not get a license to operate a shop. The old nightmare of Russian times returned—pogroms, those sudden unexplainable violent attacks against whole Jewish communities. Shortly before he left Poland, Kielce, the town of his girlfriend, Dwojra Zylbersztajn, had a pogrom.
Icchok was a small sturdy man, with black hair that was combed back from his square forehead and handsome Semitic features that made him look almost debonair, despite his thick worker’s build. Dwojra had a soft fleshy look, a kind of generous maternal bearing, and a warm melon-shaped face and thick hair that strained in waves and frizzes against the pulled-back style of the period. They decided that before they got married, they would leave Poland, The Hasidim were offering vocational training in preparation for
aliyah
—the return to Israel—and many were moving to Palestine. David Ben-Gurion had visited Poland—under heavy armed guard—in 1933. But Palestine was not for Icchok and Dwojra. They had come from a leftist tradition that considered France the home of liberty. True, France had also been the home of Dreyfus; all Jews knew that. But they also knew that in the end Dreyfus had won, had been returned from Devil’s Island and reinstated in the French army.
The plan was for Icchok to go to France first and for Dwojra to follow once he had secured an income. Icchok’s sister, Leah, had already moved to Paris and was married to a baker, Korcarz, who was also from Poland. In 1932 the Korcarzes had opened their own bakery. But Icchok rejoiced in hard physical work, fresh air—and light. He did not want to be cooped up in a bakery.
He decided to leave Paris, this dark “city of light,” and went south to the Alps region of France, where there was work even during the Depression. He got a job in an aluminum foundry, applied for his work papers, and thrived on hard labor in the mountain air. He liked the French workers, not only for their way of smoking and their lunch breaks of sour red wine and crusty bread, but also for their camaraderie. If you were a worker, you were one of them and you could talk and joke with them and feel that you belonged. It was the kind of working-class life he believed in.
But after three months, the foundry management told him he could not work there anymore because the French government had rejected his application for working papers. Reluctantly, he returned to Paris and learned to be a baker in Korcarz’s shop, mixing huge vats of dough and kneading and braiding the challah for Friday night. What he most hated was having to be in a basement. Bakers stripped nearly naked to bear the heat, working with coal- or wood-burning ovens in closed basements. After a few hours’ work, the entire room would feel like an oven—with no light, no scenery, no jovial French comrades.
The bakery was located in the Pletzl, a Yiddish word meaning “settlement” that was also the local name for most of Paris’s fourth arrondissement, in the center of the city. The buildings there looked even worse than the sooty nineteenth-century facades that had so depressed Icchok at the Gare du Nord. They were smaller and several centuries old, cracked, sometimes even tilting, and the apartments inside were small and getting smaller as they were subdivided to make room for more and more immigrants. Theneighborhood had been dominated by Alsatian Jews, who had moved to Paris in the 1870s after the Germans took Alsace. The Alsatians of the Pletzl were working-class Jews in sturdy crude clothing, but they were noticeably better off than the new arrivals—strange, bearded, scruffy-looking Yiddish-speakers without education or even hygiene. Finkelsztajn was one of thousands of Polish Jews who had turned up in the Pletzl in the past ten years. Entire families had arrived, carrying their belongings, looking for a room. Many were leftists like Finkelsztajn. The ones who were religious would have nothing to do with the Grand Rabbi of Paris; they
Icchok was a small sturdy man, with black hair that was combed back from his square forehead and handsome Semitic features that made him look almost debonair, despite his thick worker’s build. Dwojra had a soft fleshy look, a kind of generous maternal bearing, and a warm melon-shaped face and thick hair that strained in waves and frizzes against the pulled-back style of the period. They decided that before they got married, they would leave Poland, The Hasidim were offering vocational training in preparation for
aliyah
—the return to Israel—and many were moving to Palestine. David Ben-Gurion had visited Poland—under heavy armed guard—in 1933. But Palestine was not for Icchok and Dwojra. They had come from a leftist tradition that considered France the home of liberty. True, France had also been the home of Dreyfus; all Jews knew that. But they also knew that in the end Dreyfus had won, had been returned from Devil’s Island and reinstated in the French army.
The plan was for Icchok to go to France first and for Dwojra to follow once he had secured an income. Icchok’s sister, Leah, had already moved to Paris and was married to a baker, Korcarz, who was also from Poland. In 1932 the Korcarzes had opened their own bakery. But Icchok rejoiced in hard physical work, fresh air—and light. He did not want to be cooped up in a bakery.
He decided to leave Paris, this dark “city of light,” and went south to the Alps region of France, where there was work even during the Depression. He got a job in an aluminum foundry, applied for his work papers, and thrived on hard labor in the mountain air. He liked the French workers, not only for their way of smoking and their lunch breaks of sour red wine and crusty bread, but also for their camaraderie. If you were a worker, you were one of them and you could talk and joke with them and feel that you belonged. It was the kind of working-class life he believed in.
But after three months, the foundry management told him he could not work there anymore because the French government had rejected his application for working papers. Reluctantly, he returned to Paris and learned to be a baker in Korcarz’s shop, mixing huge vats of dough and kneading and braiding the challah for Friday night. What he most hated was having to be in a basement. Bakers stripped nearly naked to bear the heat, working with coal- or wood-burning ovens in closed basements. After a few hours’ work, the entire room would feel like an oven—with no light, no scenery, no jovial French comrades.
The bakery was located in the Pletzl, a Yiddish word meaning “settlement” that was also the local name for most of Paris’s fourth arrondissement, in the center of the city. The buildings there looked even worse than the sooty nineteenth-century facades that had so depressed Icchok at the Gare du Nord. They were smaller and several centuries old, cracked, sometimes even tilting, and the apartments inside were small and getting smaller as they were subdivided to make room for more and more immigrants. Theneighborhood had been dominated by Alsatian Jews, who had moved to Paris in the 1870s after the Germans took Alsace. The Alsatians of the Pletzl were working-class Jews in sturdy crude clothing, but they were noticeably better off than the new arrivals—strange, bearded, scruffy-looking Yiddish-speakers without education or even hygiene. Finkelsztajn was one of thousands of Polish Jews who had turned up in the Pletzl in the past ten years. Entire families had arrived, carrying their belongings, looking for a room. Many were leftists like Finkelsztajn. The ones who were religious would have nothing to do with the Grand Rabbi of Paris; they
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