Zmigrod

The Zmigrod Synagogue

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 Naftali and he frequently described the imposing ancient structure.  

To enter the shul, you descended seven steps, one for each of the verses of the 130th chapter of Tehillim/Psalms, Mima'amakim Kerosicha Hashem (skipping the first introductory verse).

The Bima, (where the Torah was read) was a raised platform, the height of a man, in the middle of the building, surrounded by four huge pillars which supported the arched roof.   The Aron Kodesh (Torah Ark) was at the same hight as the Bima and you reached it by climbing a staircase.  

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 apparently had been used in the past as the "Chair of Elijah" when there would be bris (cirumcision) in shul.

The shul was located in a complex that included a Bais Medrash, a newer building, used for both prayer and Torah study.  This building had a fireplace, unlike the grand shul which was totally unheated.  In winter, people wore their coats during the services in the shul.  

See here for photos and more description.

The women prayed in a separate building that had a window that opened up to the main shul.

The blessing of the Kohanim (priests), done on holidays, was performed a little differently in Zmigrod.  The Kohanim face the congregation enveloped in the Taliesim (prayer shawls) with their arms raised in front of them as they recite the blessing.  In American shuls, the Talis (prayer shawl) covers the entire body including the hands.  Naftali was brought up to leave his hands uncovered, which looked bizarre to his son Dovid, who was praying with the rest of the congregation.  Another difference is that Kohanim would only be allowed to participate in the blessing after turning Bar Mitzvah.  In American shuls, boys often join their father to participate in the blessing ceremony.

One of Naftali's friends was the son of the Shames, the man in charge with maintaining the shul building.  This boy told Naftali that each morning, when his father comes to unlock and open the shul, he first raps on the door with the giant iron key.  This is the signal to warn the dead, who use the shul at night, to vacate the premises.  The friend told Naftali that one day forgot to knock and he saw the dead flying out of the windows.

Shabbos in Zmigrod

Shabbos was very much the day that all the Jews looked forward to.  This was a day of rest, relaxation, and 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 Naftali as a young child would take care of Aunt Miriam’s blind husband.   Naftali 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.  Naftali's father was given the best portion, followed by Naftali, 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.  Naftali 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 (meaty), 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 Naftali 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, Naftali'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 Laks's 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.

Shabbos afternoon was nap time for the adults.  Children would roam unsupervised.  Naftali remembers boys going to the forest and picking strawberries with their teeth--presumably permitted on Shabbos since it's not the normal way to pick fruit.  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.  Naftali was pressured to do this too, but he hated the custom since he was shy.

For the long summer Shabbos afternoons, Naftali's  mother would serve dairy: soured milk with other foods.  While his father was alive, he used to bring Naftali with him to the shul, along with a little challah, to finish Seuda Shlishis (the third meal, late on Shabbos afternoon) with other men in town.  They would sit around a table singing Mizmor L'Dovid in a dark room (no lighting was available) in a mystical atmosphere.

Naftali's memories of Shabbos were so positive that they motivated him to make sure that his children would also have Shabbos.  This was one of his reasons for choosing Yeshiva when they started school.

Yomim Noraim (High Holidays) in Zmigrod 

The weeks leading up to the High Holidays (Rosh Hashana/Yom Kippur) were a time of general seriousness and worry in Zmigrod.  The Laks parents were very pious and imbued their children with a profound fear of the Days of Judgement.  Every child was desperate to be inscribed in the Book of Life; everyone want to be one hundred percent good.  Cousin Rivka, the daughter of Naftali's sister Bertha, remembers her mother telling that their mother and sisters would clean the entire house thoroughly before Rosh Hashana.  Rivka used to bake round challah with raisins for the season.

The girls walked on tip-toe along the sides of the rooms in the house, trying not to make noise.  A sense of awe or dread pervaded the home.  

The Laks family used to receive Rosh Hashana cards from relatives in other cities in Poland.  There were lots of relatives, since ten children in a family was common.  Sadly, most of the extended family was wiped out by the Nazis.

Naftali's aunts, Miriam and Fradl, would visit their brother, Duvid, during Yomim Noraim.  Naftali remembers finding it odd that the siblings didn't talk.  They would just sit together and cry.

Slichos in Zmigrod were always early in the morning.  They did not have the custom of midnight slichos even on the first night.  The shamash would knock on some doors with his stick to remind householders to attend.

During the High Holidays, Jews from the villages surrounding Zmigrod would come to stay in Zmigrod and pray in the grand synagogue.  They brought their own chairs, positioning them in the empty area in the middle of the shul.

The entire family went to shul for Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, including the women who didn't go to shul on Shabbos.  Mother and daughters dressed in white.  Women cried freely during the davening and could be heard all the way to the men's section.  

Cousin Rivka does not remember her mother mentioning dipping apple in honey.  Aunt Molly, Naftali's sister, claimed it was an American custom, but Naftali disagreed.  It would have made sense to dip apple in honey since it's an ancient custom that could have been practiced in Zmigrod, unlike the other Simanim (ritual signs) that involve dates, figs, and pomegranates which would been unavailable in Poland.

The custom of Kapporos was observed in Zmigrod on the day before Yom Kippur.  This involves holding a live chicken over the head, swinging it around three times while imploring that one's sins be "placed on the chicken".  The chicken would be slaughtered and eaten to prepare for the Yom Kippur Fast (this custom continues to be followed in Orthodox communities).

Another Erev (day before) Yom Kippur custom was to be beaten ceremonially in case one had sinned and deserved the punishment of beating.  You needed to pay the Shamash of the shul (beadle) in order to be beaten with a leather strap.  Naftali remembers that his father used to undergo this procedure.

On Yom Kippur night, all the Torah scrolls would be taken out of the Torah ark following the European practice.  The local non-Jews would come to watch this imposing ceremony.  

The Rav of Zmigrod, Rabbi Sinai Halberstam, spoke once a year at the shul: on Yom Kippur.  He was a grandson of the Divrei Chaim, the founder of the Sanz Chassidic dynasty.  His voice was unusually deep, sounding, Naftali said, like he was speaking from the bottom of a barrel.  Each year, he would preface a thought with the phrase "My heilig Sanzer zeide zut gezukt", "My holy Sanzer grandfather used to say..."  It came across as very solemn.  

After Yom Kippur came Sukkos.  Immediately after making Havdallah at the close of Yom Kippur, Naftali's father, Duvid, would drink a cup of coffee and go out to the market to buy pine branches from the peasants for their backyard Sukkah.  The girls decorated the Sukkah.  

When the weather was not snowy or rainy, everyone ate together in the Sukkah, despite the cold typical of late autumn in Poland.   Pine needles would drop into the soup.  The men slept in the Sukkah unless there was rain or snow.  Everyone enjoyed Sukkos.  The family would sing in the Sukkah--one of the sisters, Golda had an exceptionally beautiful voice.

Burial Customs in Zmigrod

According to Jewish law, a dead person must be washed, prepared, and dressed following a specific procedure before he or she can be buried.  Each community had (and continues to have to this day) a Chevra Kadisha (holy society): a group of men and a group of women who volunteer for the sacred task of preparing the dead for burial.

Naftali used to say that the most powerful institution in Zmigrod was the local Chevra Kadisha.  They had a monopoly on burying Jews in the town.  It was their practice to refuse to bury someone whom they felt had not contributed fairly to the community until a "ransom" was paid, presumably to the Kehillah.  Naftali told us that someone who had lived across the street from the Lakses sat without burial for three days, while the Chevra waited for payment.  A cousin from America (son of a sister of Duvid who had emigrated to America) was visiting and heard about the situation.  He took $100 from his pocket and paid so that the burial could take place.

The Chevra had an annual feast on Simchas Torah, possibly in the shul.

The Jewish cemetary was about a kilometer from the town.  It was customary for women not to go there.  Coffins were not used in Zmigrod.  At the shul, there was a special board used to carry the dead body wrapped in a special white garment (Tachrichim).

The Zmigrod Winter

Polish winters are harsh.  The streets of Zmigrod were covered in ice and snow all winter, since snow clearing equipment did not exist and no one was going to repeatedly shovel out the streets.  Instead of pulling wagons with wheels, the horses were hitched to sleds.  Winter was when pine trees were dragged from the forests near Zmigrod to slide over the ice to the town's lumber mill to be cut into boards.  This was the only industry and source of jobs in Zmigrod.  Winter was also the time to slaughter geese and render (boil up) their fat since this was when the geese were at their fattest.

The townspeople got their water from pumps on the street.  These pumps were surrounded by sheets of ice through the winter as water from the pump accumulated and froze.  People did not have slip proof boots.  They did their best by wrapping their shoes, which were not watertight, in rags, to improve traction.  Nevertheless, they were prone to slipping.

At the Laks home, water was kept in a wooden barrel in the hallway.  Naftali's job was to fill it.  Everyone's toes froze during the winter.  When the spring came, the toes would gradually thaw, causing a painful itch.  Rivka used to heat a tub of hot water for the family to soak their feet in order to relieve the pain.

Sayings from Zmigrod

"Like a shmadnik in the Other World" -- describing someone looking like they're in bad shape.  A Jew who converted was expected to get bad treatment after death upon entering the next world.

"My enemies should never eat this food" -- Naftali said this when he had a chocolate/meringue dessert.

"He cries like an Egla Arufa" -- To cry loudly

"An Alte Terach" -- a bad old man.  Naftali often used this term about himself in his later years.

"Letters for Kiddush Levana" -- large print that you can read by the light of a waxing moon.  Naftali said this when he was given a large print Pesach Haggada.

"Asher Yotzerlich" -- toilet paper.  They used to use torn pieces of newsprint for toilet paper, and then would recite the blessing "Asher Yatzar" thanking G-d for the proper functioning of the body.