The Diary of Yitzhak Lamdan

(Concise Summaries)

The concise summaries of Lamdan's diary entries from 1919 and later follow below or you can return to earlier concise summaries, the overview, translations, or interpretive summaries of the diary entries.

Diary 4

January 1919 | February 1919

Diary 4

January 1919

Early January 1919

In a fragmentary diary entry, Yitzhak rails against Jews debating Marxist doctrine and the perilous impact that socialist debates and ideas have on the cohesion of the Jewish community in the face of its attackers.

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Sunday night, January 19, 1919, Lutsk

Yitzhak stayed in his room all day for safety after reports reached him that soldiers were grabbing Jews off the street for labor. Troops also threatened to kill leaders of the Jewish community if a substantial military tax was not raised. Shops were closed that day and the city seemed dead.

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Saturday night, January 25, 1919, Lutsk

Yitzhak describes his own terror living as a Jew in Lutsk, which seems ready to erupt, and he has sharp words of criticism for the fragmented Jewish community, which has failed to organize. In the meantime, he tries to distract himself while he worries about the fate of his brother Moshe and learns of the fighting in Ekaterinoslav where his sister Heni and her family are currently living.

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February 1919

Sunday night, February 2, 1919, Lutsk

Echoing Job, Yitzhak describes himself as “a trembling leaf before a storm” in his current circumstances. Thankfully, a letter arrived from Mlynov indicating that his brother, Moshe, and sister Heni and her family are still safe and sound after the attacks on Ekaterinoslav.

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Sunday night, February 9, 1919, Lutsk

Miserable in his current situation, Yitzhak describes himself as living in a thick fog of despair in which the external winds stir up suffocation and stench and his inner life has been overwhelmed.

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Wednesday night, February 12, 1919, Lutsk

The present events which are “rushing full speed” around Yitzhak occupy his thoughts in this diary entry in which he shifts subjects from the Jewish community’s inadequate response to the current events to his own creative efforts to write a poem about those same events, which normally do not inspire his poetry. Recently, he has succeeded in writing one such poem called “Vision of the Days” which he has sent off to the editor of the literary journal HaShiloah to be considered for publication.

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Saturday night, February 15, 1919, Lutsk

In a short entry, Yitzhak reports that current authorities announced a mobilization, and he is unsure what to do. A visit by some friends to his room does nothing to alleviate his general angst and lack of motivation.

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Sunday night, February 17 [16th?], 1919, Lutsk

In an entry that is mostly introspective, despairing, and philosophical, Yitzhak attempts but ultimately fails to conceptualize his emotional state. A letter arrived from family in Mlynov reporting on his Auntie’s critical illness and unexpected improvement. No letters have arrived from Moshe, who is still in Ekaterinoslav, now under Bolshevik control.

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Monday night, February 17, 1919, Lutsk

Yitzhak describes a troubled state of mind that leaves him exhausted and broken. A new call for mobilization that includes him adds to his already agitated and worried state and intensifies his uncertainty about whether to remain in Lutsk or return to his hometown of Mlynov.

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