Shabbos in Zmigrod

Shabbos in Zmigrod

Chana Laks
Debi Reece

My father-in-law, Mr. Naftali Laks z”l, was born in 1922 in the town of Nowy Zmigrod which is part of the Galicia area of Poland.  He survived several concentration camps, emigrated to Palestine/Israel after the war, and eventually settled in the United States.  He spent his last years with my husband and myself in Passaic and was niftar November 2024.

Shabbos was very much the day of the week that all the Jews in Zmigrod looked forward to: a day to rest, socialize, and enjoy good food. 

There was little time to prepare for Shabbos during the winter Fridays, with sunset occurring at 3:30 PM.   Mr. Laks’s mother, Rivka, would rise at 4:00 AM on those short Fridays in order to bake Challah and prepare Shabbos.  Aunt Miriam traveled each Friday to the neighboring town’s market and Mr. Laks as a young child would take care of Aunt Miriam’s blind husband.   Mr. Laks remembers the "pachad", intense fear, that his aunt would have on returning late Erev Shabbos afternoon to be ready for Shabbos in time. 

Chicken and chicken soup were the stars of the Shabbos meal.  Beef was cheaper but only old, scrawny animals were slaughtered.  On the other hand, the organic free-range chickens in Zmigrod were bigger and tastier than ours.  However, there were a few tasks that needed to be accomplished before one could eat a chicken in Zmigrod.    First, you had to pay a fee to the Kehillah to support the Kehillah’s services.  They gave you a metal token that you presented to the local shochet to authorize him to slaughter your chicken.  You also had to purchase the chicken at the local open-air market.  Mr. Laks explained to us that you checked the skin under the feathers in the back of the bird, to see that it was yellow, proof that this was a fat chicken.

Clutching the struggling chicken, you went to the shochet and either waited patiently until everyone else's chickens were slaughtered or you pushed and shoved your way to the front.  Waiting in line was unknown in Zmigrod.  After the chicken was slaughtered, the feathers needed to be removed by singeing.  Next step was kashering the chicken.  A few hours later, the chicken was ready to be cooked.

In the Laks household, one chicken would be split 16 ways, serving a family of eight for both Friday night and Shabbos lunch.  The legs with the scales on them were considered to be portions.  Mr. Laks’s father was given the best portion, followed by Mr. Laks, as the family’s only son.  I was told by a cousin that if there wasn’t enough chicken, Rivka, the mother, went without.

Kishke, made from the intestines of a cow, was another dish accessible to poorer households.  Mr. Laks remembered his sisters patiently turning the hollow, squishy tube inside out in order to clean it properly.  It was a messy and unpleasant job.  Once it was cleaned, the intestines could be stuffed with an inexpensive filling, giving a family something cheap and fleishig, but labor intensive.  For years, we avoided referring to the American vegetarian version as “kishke” to avoid getting a lecture on the difference between this and the real thing.

When Mr. Laks was a young child, the family never had meat during the week: just potatoes, bread, and seasonal vegetables.  In general, food was a very important topic in the shtetl because there was so little available.  Most families were as poor as or had even less than the Laks’s.  However, despite the poverty, everyone in the family had special Shabbos clothes.  Moreover, Rivka carefully managed the money that came their way, so that the family never went hungry even when times were difficult.

Challah was another Shabbos treat.  During the week, most people ate a sourdough, white rye bread, since the soil and climate in this part of Poland was not suited for wheat.  For Shabbos, the challah was made from white wheat flour using yeast to make it rise.  This was such a delicacy that you paid the Shabbos goy with a piece of challah to come each week to light the oven on Shabbos morning to heat the house.  Given the intense cold in Poland, having a Shabbos goy perform this service was essential.

Preparation for Shabbos included cleaning the wooden flooring.  The boards were not protected by a finish.  Each week, Mr. Laks’s sisters would put on shoes with a kind of steel wool on the bottom and rub their feet all over the floor to scrape off the dirt.  The surface was then covered with rags to protect it.  On Shabbos morning, the rags were lifted to display the renewed flooring.

Showering or bathing has always been part of preparing for Shabbos.  This was much more difficult in Zmigrod, especially in the winter.  There was no running water, no real bathroom, and no bathtub.  In the backyard, there was a small wooden structure attached to the house.  This is where the Laks family members washed up for Shabbos.  The process involved filling buckets from the pump on the street, heating the water, and bringing it to this cabin.  They used a washcloth and soap from a local store to wash themselves once a week in honor of the Shabbos.

Zmigrod had one of the three oldest shul buildings in Poland, circa 1600 when the town was wealthy.  The shul made a tremendous impression on the young Mr. Laks and in later years, he frequently described the imposing ancient structure.  

The Bima was a raised platform in the middle of the building, surrounded by four huge pillars which supported the arched roof.  The ceiling had paintings of the 12 signs of Zodiac.   Built-in benches surrounded the Bima and lined the walls.  There were also bleachers which had not been used for years and on the top row was a very ornate chair which had been used in the past as the "Chair of Elijah" for a bris in shul. We do not know why they stopped using this chair, but my impression is that it was very fragile.  Mr. Laks davened in this beautiful building each Shabbos.  There was no provision for heating, not even a fireplace, and you davened in your coat when it was cold.  

On interviewing my father-in-law’s niece, I was told that going to shul at night was dangerous There were real concerns about potential attacks from the local populace.  Interestingly enough, my father-in-law never mentioned this aspect of shul going.

When davening was over, poor itinerants would line up at the entrance of the shul, waiting for people to invite them for the upcoming Shabbos meal.

Friday night, after the meal was done, my father-in-law’s father, Duvid Laks, would sit at the table going over the parsha, (Shtayim Mikra v’Echod Targum/  שנים מקרא ואחד תרגום) eventually falling asleep over his chumash.

The Laks women did not go to shul on Shabbos.  Rivka and her daughters davened at home in the morning from siddurim.   I was told by a cousin that the daughters knew Hebrew and were able to understand the Tefillos.  Years later, one of these daughters would tell her child how she sensed the Kedushah of Shabbos growing up in Zmigrod.  It wasn’t just about the food.

Shabbos afternoon was nap time for the adults.  Children would roam unsupervised.  Naftali remembered boys playing in the forest.  There was a custom for boys to visit Baalebatim (householders) on Shabbos afternoon to show off their Torah learning and hopefully be given a treat.  Mr. Laks was pressured to do this too, but he hated the custom since he was shy.  The sisters spent the day reading, getting together with family and friends, and when the weather suited, taking walks in the countryside surrounding Zmigrod.

For the long summer Shabbos afternoons, Mr. Laks’s mother would serve dairy: soured milk to go with other foods. Towards the end of Shabbos, the ladies would sit outside on the stoops of their houses and socialize.   As the children got older, they joined youth clubs of varying hashkafos, including Zionist and Poalei Agudas Yisroel.

When his father was alive, he brought Mr. Laks with him to the shul, at the end of Seuda Shlishis.  They would each take a piece of challah to finish Seuda Shlishis with other men in town so that they could bench with a zimun.  There was no problem with carrying on Shabbos in Zmigrod since the community had an Eruv.  The town Eruv was a simple affair.  All the houses were attached to each other, forming the needed walls.  Only the intersections required the construction of Halachic boundaries.

During their communal seuda shlishis, the men would sit around a table singing Mizmor l'Dovid to a time-honored Chassidic tune.  Interestingly, they only sang Mizmor l”Dovid one time, not three times as is the common practice now.  The atmosphere was mystical and intense, as the room darkened (no lighting was available).  This made a powerful impression on the child.

Years later, on a Friday night in one of the labor camps in which Mr. Laks was interned, the weather was freezing, snow was falling, and the crew had to unload a very heavy train car.  The cruel Polish overseer taunted the Jews, reminding them of the Friday nights they used to enjoy with chicken soup and gefilte fish.  The words cut through Mr. Laks like a knife, adding tremendously to his misery.  Perhaps another way to look at it, though, is how the Polish non-Jews must have envied their Jewish neighbors for the precious gift of the Shabbos.

Many years later, when Mr. Laks married and had children, his decision to send them to Yeshiva, rather than the cheaper option of public school used by many of his peers, was based on his desire to make sure that his children too would have the gift of the Shabbos.