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August 2010
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Compiled by Joy Kestenbaum
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Narewka

Narevker Landmanshaftn


NAREWKA - NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH NAREW!

Lintel
                          from Narevker Gate at Mt. Zion Cemetery
Photo: Lintel from Gate of
Narevker Untershtitsungs Verein

at Mount Zion Cemetery,
Maspeth, New York.



Narevker Untershtitsungs Verein
Gate at Mount Zion Cemetery

Mount
                          Zion Gate
Photographs © Joy Kestenbaum
Morris Levitzky (1874-1940) and Abraham Greenberg (1886-1967), former secretaries of the Narevker UV, are both buried in the society plot at Mount Hebron Cemetery.


Mount Hebron
                            Narevker UV

Photo: 
Narevker UV,
Mount Hebron Cemetery,
Flushing, New York.


For  additional images of the Landsman Society's Gates and a transcription of the names of the officers and committee members found on the posts, see the Museum of Family History, which also has a list of surnames of those buried in these plots.  Names are searchable on the websites of Mount Zion Cemetery and Mount Hebron Cemetery.

In World of Our Fathers (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976), his classic account of Eastern European Jewish immigrants, Irving Howe, discussing the "Inner World of the Landsmanshaft," wrote, "While the Jews had seldom felt much loyalty to Russia or Poland, as nations, they brought with them fierce affections for the little places they had lived in, the muddy streets, battered synagogues, remembered fields from which they had fled. The landsmanshaft, a lodge made up of persons coming from the same town or district in the old country, was their ambiguous testimony to a past they knew to be wretched yet often felt to be sweet .. Coming together, they formed modest little organizations that kept alive memories and helped them fit into the new world." Much of the material in this section of Howe's book is excerpted from the major Yiddish work noted below. He gives a brief quote from the oath from the Narevker Untershtitsungs Verein constitution; the full Yiddish text is below:

"The Narevker [constitution] declares that if a member marries, a committee of seven will be chosen to grace the wedding, with 'hat check ... on the account of the organization.' ... With the Narvker Untershtitsung Fareyn, a member who marries is to receive a five-dollar gift, but only if he has belonged a full year; and the present must be given personally by the vice-president at the wedding."

From Di Idishe landsmanshaften fun Nyu York [The Jewish Landsmanschaften of New York] (NY: I.L. Peretz Yiddish Writers’ Union, 1938) prepared by the Yiddish Writer's Group of the Federal Writers' Project, Works Progress Administration in the City of New York; Oath from Constitution of Narevker Untershtitsungs Verein:



Recently, I located a copy of the actual Nareṿḳer Unṭershṭitsungs Ferayn: Ḳonsṭiṭushon (New York: 1900) in the library collection of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. Included is a list of all the members of the society. Digitized images of some pages from this publication will soon be added to this Narewka KehilaLinks website. A copy of this publication was also located at the Dorot Jewish Division of the New York Public Library.

Narevker Untershtitsungs Ferayn: Ḳonsṭiṭushon
                      Cover

Courtesy YIVO Institute for Jewish Research