1
Words4546
Pages16
Purely Personal
Part One: My Jewish Carlton
By Esther Rafaeli
After I finished writing my story about The Golden Age, I began looking at my own life and reassessing it in a different way. I wanted to remember events I had actually felt and experienced. What had it all been about and how did it unfold itself? What were the things I remembered and why? How did they influence me? Some of these events have already been described in my other family stories, so may be familiar to some readers.
Somehow, I see my life in terms of the houses we lived in. Of course I don’t remember the very earliest years, but I know about them from my parents. There was a lot of movement, change, and adventure.
I was born in HadassahHospital in Tel Aviv in 1926, but we lived in Herzlya,in a newly developing area called “The Third Zone,” (in Yiddish, De Dritter Zona). My father had come from Poland in 1921 and my mother and brotherAlec (Yehiel), followed him within the year, but sometime later, we moved to Jerusalem where father found a job as a construction worker on the sites of Bikur Holim hospitaland the HebrewUniversity. But times were hard and we returned to Tel Aviv. In 1927, they decided to emigrate to Melbourne, Australia, where many of father’schildhood friends from Lentshitz, a country town near Lodz, Poland, were already established. My parents went first to a town called Shepparton, nearMelbourne, where the legendary Feiglin family, whose first members had arrived in 1913, was established. They were in the fruit-growing industry. They were very hospitable and helpful to newcomers.
The Feiglin family originated in Russia and came to Ottoman Palestine at the turn of the 19th/20th century. They left Palestine in 1911 to avoid serving in the Turkish army. They considered other countries in the area and eventually decided to go to Australia, taking advantage of that government’s assisted migration scheme. Two of the brothers, Moshe Zalman and his wife Leah, and Bere (wife unknown), arrived in Melbourne at the end of 1913. Between them the two families had fourteen children. They tried to settle in Melbourne, but because their jobs would have involved working on Shabbat, they decided to move to the country and become independent. They settled in the small town of Shepparton. They planted orchards and were successful in the canned fruit business.
The Feiglins were the first Chabadniks to settle in Australia, not as shlichim, but simply as Jews following the Chabad way. They were joined by a few other families, more or less observant, and formed a small community with a synagogue, study hall, and yeshiva. They grew into a veritable tribe. Many of the following generations moved into other professions such as law, education, and medicine. When MountScopusSchool was founded in 1947, the first Jewish Day School, Abe Feiglin, served as the founding principal for many years. Shepparton remained the ancestral home for many years, and the family was known for it’s hospitality, philanthropy, and assistance to new immigrants.
My parents were not looking for an agricultural life and they decided to settle in Melbourne.They rented a house next to the Carlton Shul on Palmerston Street, then the heart of the Jewish community. My earliest memories start with this house. I spent a lot of time at the synagogue with my father, and on Succot we ate in the Succah by the light of candles. It was very, very spooky. Tisha B’Av was observed by candlelight with the congregation sitting on the floor, but Simchat Torah was a very happy festival with flags and toffee apples, singing and dancing.
The house on the other side of the shul was occupied by a non-Jewish family, who had a little girl around my age, three or four, by the name of Dawn.Perhaps her father was the caretaker of the synagogue. We often played together in each other’s homes, but once we had a terrible fight and I bit her on her arm. She screamed. Her parents were outraged, and I knew I was in for a spanking. I ran away and hid somewhere till my parents found me. I don’t remember the actual spanking, but when my father lost his temper, I was really afraid.
We moved shortly after (I don’t know if there was a direct connection between the two events) to a house nearby on Princes Street which had a shop front but this was not used by us for commercial purposes. During this period, my brother Alec and his friend Dov climbed one day onto the roof which covered part of the yard. Dov was a chubby boy and sat on the skylight and fell through. Neighbors heard the commotion and rushed Dov to the Hospital, but he suffered no serious damage. Broken glass and blood on the ground was the sight that greeted my mother and me when we returned home from an outing. Dov’s parents were informed and they hurried to the hospital. However, this incident remained one of our best, most memorable stories which was repeated time and again over the years.
Dov’s parents lived on the same street. They had come to Australia before us and were now well established. They were the first people amongst our acquaintances who had a console radio. My brother, at that time, was very busy trying to build a crystal radio and was always excited when he got somebody’s voice out of the air. He took me one day to see the real radio at Dov’s place, which looked like a piece of furniture. I remember that I stood at the door,when Alec turned the radio on and I heard a voice, I was frightened. I asked who was talking, and he said, “There’s a little man inside who talks.” I panicked and ran away.It took me quite a while to accept this new invention.
At that time my brother already had a bicycle and when he took me for rides I had to sitside saddle on the crossbar. “Don’t put your feet in the spokes,” he kept telling me which almost made me do just that, but I managed not to.
From 1931 to November 1935, we lived at 92 Elgin Street in a small terrace of three two-story houses. Here my memories are more clear and some of them were quite traumatic. We seem to have been very busy. I should mention here that Melbourne was a well laid out city of small houses, some two-story, with backyards. The residential blockswere divided in half by alleys where the garbage stood and was collected. Therefore the streets of Melbourne were always very clean. Garages were also entered from this alley. There were beautiful gardens and in the richer suburbs, the houses were larger and more elegant.The city covered a large area, the suburbs well-connected by bus and electric trams. “Under the Clocks” at the main railway station was a popular meeting place.
In the 1930’s Jewish life in Carlton centered on the intersection of Lygon and Elgin streets. Here we would shop on Sunday mornings at Smorgon’s butcher shop, at Bolton’s grocery, at Liebe’s shoe store. There was also a Jewish barbershop, shoe repair (Mr.Miletzky) and tailoring services. The Markov pharmacy was nearby in Elgin Street, opposite the law offices of the late Aleck Sacks, which were close to the Court House on Drummond Street. Mr. Altshuler’s Jewish Book Shop was on Rathdowne Streetnear the corner of Elgin St., and the Carlton synagogue was just a block away on Palmerston Street. Mr. Kantor had a Jewish bookshop in town.
Further along, going north, in the next group of shops, there were a Jewish bakery (I think by the name of Glick), Lachman’s Greengrocery,and Berenholz’s shoe repair. The shul built by the Stone family was on Pitt Street, a short side street linking Rathdowne with the parallel Canning Street. The Gabbai of this synagogue would distribute pre-paid bus tickets at the end of Yom Kippur to help the congregation get home more quickly.
Rabbi Gurewitz and his family lived in this area, and he made an impressive figure with his full black beard, as he walked with his three sons along Rathdowne Street, to and from the synagogue, on Shabbat. And how could anyone forget the sight of Rev. Adler during Succoth, marching along on his way to shul with his lulav and Four Species held high, and a train of small urchins following behind.
Needless to say all these commercial and social dealings were conducted in Yiddish, which perforce became the mother tongue of the children of the immigrants, though here and there, were also families who continued to speak Polish, Russian or Hebrew. These families had come from Palestine – Safed, Rosh Pina, Yesod haMaala, Metulla and other moshavim– who left, like my parents, because of the difficult conditions there in the late 1920’s. It was they who formed the nucleus of the Zionist movement in Melbourne, which started with the Ivriah Club in the early 1930s, when it was situated in Neil Street. I have photos of some of those gatherings. Also in Neil Street,near the corner of Lygon Street, was the Kanatopsky grocery, where the tall, cheerful son, Abe,made home deliveries on Sunday mornings.
The Ivriah had an active program for the young and old, and the redoubtable Anya Ginsberg used to organise concerts and events for the Jewish national days. I remember myself appearing in one of these concerts, at the age of three or four, with a doll in my arms, singing in Hebrew, ‘Yesh li buba, v’hi yaffa, enayim yafot, lehayayim adumot...’(I have a beautiful doll, with lovely eyes and red cheeks.) Mrs. Ginsberg continued these activities well into the 1940s, including street parades on the occasion of the establishment of the State of Israel. As I left Melbourne in August 1948 to make Aliya, I don’t know how long she carried on this work. At all events which she organised, there were Israeli products for sale, Totzeret HaAretz, the most popular items at that time being made of olive wood. Of course she was not the only person, who activated the Ivriah; there were several members of the large Saks family as well, but I cannot recall them all.
After a short time the Ivriah moved to larger quarters in Drummond Street, in the area mentioned above, near the Courthouse and opposite Cohen’s kosher restaurant. These clubrooms became a hive of activity. Zionist functions such as lectures, discussions and meetings were carried on there and I recall being taken for a memorial evening dedicated to Yosef Trumpeldor. This was under the auspices of the New Zionist Organisation, (Revisionists, followers of Jabotinsky including my father) which was headed by Mr.Yehuda Honig, who was a Hebrew teacher and prepared my brother for his Bar Mitzva.
This happy occasion took place in 1933 at the home of Mrs. Segal, the caterer. I learned the chanting of the prayers along with my brother and until today, when I hear them, they remind me of that event.Mrs. Segal had built a hall in her home which held sixty people. She later moved to St. Kilda, and my 21st birthday was celebrated there.The Bat Mitzva for girls was hardlyacknowledged, certainly not the way it is celebrated by some today, and birthdays generally were no big deal.
The WIZO was also situated there, carrying on various fund-raising activitiessuch as Bring and Buy teas, Bazaars, Popular Child competitions, raffles, etc. My mother belonged to the Kinneret group. The JNF also worked out of these rooms, and carried out door-to-door campaigns to empty the little blue ‘pushkes’ usually on Sunday mornings when most people were at home. They organised picnics and their annual Purim ball was a great occasion for which people made an effort to dress in original homemade costumes. I recall that the printing press of the Australian Jewish News, owned at that time by the Rubinstein family, and published in Yiddish and English, was in this area. There was also the only English language Jewish Herald owned by Reuben Haven, where I started my journalistic careerwhile at the university. My parents read the American Yiddish weekly, Der Forvards, which was passed round in their circle of friends.
The Mikveh which served the community was situated in the City Baths, which lay between Carlton and the city, I think on Swanston Street opposite the Carlton brewery, the sickly smell of which permeated the area.
Hebrew classes were held at the Ivriah Club on Sunday mornings, as well as at the FaradayStreetSchool, on weekday afternoons. This school was situated on the corner of Faraday and Rathdowne Sts., opposite the gardens of the Exhibition Hall. The classes were under the auspices of the United Jewish Board of Education, whose principal was Neuman Rosenthal, with Rabbi Israel Brodie taking an active part. There were annual prize-giving ceremonies at the grand Toorak Shul and once in 1934, I received a Tanach with an olive-wood cover, for an essay I had written. Special children’s events were also held for the Festivals.
Rabbi Brodie, who went on to London to become the Chief Rabbi of the British Commonwealth, was the first president of the Zionist Federation of Australia, founded in 1927. Sir John Monash was the honorary president. There were no Jewish day schools before the founding of Mt.ScopusCollege in 1948, so the network of the Board of Education was very important. I well remember the arguments for and against the idea of the school which were voiced at that time. Fortunately the ‘pros’ won the day, and eventually Mt.Scopus became one of the leading schools in the state of Victoria. The first founding principal was Abe Feiglin. Other Hebrew and Yiddish-speaking schoolsand kindergartens began to appear on the scene.
The Ivriah was also home to Habonim which was founded in the early 1940s by Dr. David Tabor, a young physicist from Cambridge. Several age groups were formed andstudy camps were held. They alsohad a Hachshara farm for agricultural training purposes.
Another social centre in Carlton was Monash House, on the corner of Kay and Canning Streets, opposite the home of the shochet Rev.Yoffe.It was the centre for the more secular activities.
Sir John Monash, civil engineer and soldier, was born in 1865, a year after his parents came to Australia from Vienna where they had been printers of Hebrew books. He was an exceptional student and took his Doctorate in Engineering, graduated Arts and Law, and studied Medicine. In his career as a civil engineer, he was in charge of large government projects. He was never a professional soldier but volunteered for the Victorian Militia in 1884, and was commissioned three years later. He commanded the Australian forces at Gallipoli and although that mission failed, was appointed in 1918 to lead the entire Anzac forces on the West European Front with the rank of Lieutenant General. This was the result of his being known as a resourceful and excellent planner and organizer. He received many honours after the war including the rank of General. He was a practicing Jew all his life, active in Jewish affairs in Australia and President of the Zionist Federation in 1928. He died in 1931. A new University in Victoria was named in his honour and in Israel Kfar Monash was established.
Amongst the good things that happened was that I started school at Lee Street, Carlton and used to walk to school in the morning with my brother who was six years older than I, a walk of some half hour. The school consisted of two buildings, the Little School, a fairly new building containing grades 1 – 4, and The Big School, a gloomy Gothic style building, housing grades 5 – 8. The school janitor had a small house on the grounds with two fierce-looking Airedale dogs, always kept behind the fence. School was from 9 – 4, with an hour’s break for lunch and a short recess around 10:30. I don’t remember how long Alec kept a brotherly eye on me, but I think I quite soon came and went myself. This resulted in an unfortunate incident when one afternoon a little boy stole my overcoat which I was carrying over my arm. He refused to return it, and my mother went with me to the police station to complain. They did not take the matter seriously and the coat remained with the little boy’s family.
I did well at school, especially in language and composition, and the day always started with spelling tests. On Monday assemblies of the Little School, Iwas occasionally asked to read a poem or a little story I had written. I also learnt a lot of Christian songs such as “All Things Bright and Beautiful” and “Onward Christian Soldiers.” My parents weren’t crazy about my singing these songs.
We spoke Yiddish at home but Idon’t remember a time when I didn’t know English. Perhaps I had gone to some crèche or kindergarten which I don’t remember, or perhaps children learn by osmosis. When my father returned from one of his trips, I would run to my mother shouting, “Ima, Abba is gekimen, Abba is gekimen.”We spoke Yiddish at home but I don’t remember a period when I didn’t know English.