The Diary of Yitzhak Lamdan
(Interpretive Summaries of Each Entry)

Interpretive Summary – June 29, 1914

Two days have passed since Yitzhak last wrote in his journal. He now reports that Abraham Weitz’s son, David, came to Mlynov and stopped by in Yitzhak’s home. When he saw him, he thought that at last he would get an update about his ambition to immigrate. But David indicated that matters were on hold; they were waiting to see if a relative named Abraham Lender was going to make aliyah. If Lender was going, they would go. If not, they wouldn’t go. Yitzhak does not report why the Weitz decision depended on Lender. While there was no decision yet about traveling, David did confirm their plans to add Yitzhak to their certificate of immigration as soon as it was feasible. While the update made Yitzhak feel a bit better knowing he was not forgotten, he was still worried and remained in a “crisis state” remained. He knew that if Mr. Weitz didn’t make aliyah Yitzhak’s father would not allow him to go either.

July 1914

Interpretive Summary – July 2, 1914

Nothing has happened or changed for the last two days since Yitzhak last journaled, but he feels that he should write more frequently. He has no new information and continues to fret about whether his plans to make aliyah will come to fruition. Yitzhak expresses his turmoil, not wanting to think about it, but not being able to stop.

He mentions writing a poem called "Sinking Feelings," (a poem that has not been recovered). Meanwhile, he is still waiting for a response to a postcard he sent to the editorial staff of the magazine, Shaharit, complaining that he has still not received the third issue. And he is eager to receive an issue of Perahim that was going to publish a poem he wrote called “Spring Rain.”

Interpretive Summary – July 6, 1914

Writing on Tuesday, July 6, Yitzhak mentions having a response on the Sabbath from the principal of the agricultural school in Petah-Tikvah, a man named Dr. Pikhulitz. Whether it was a letter or postcard is not clear. The response was to a postcard Yitzhak sent inquiring about the requirements to enter the school and the life of students. Yitzhak specifically mentions receiving the response on the Sabbath and one naturally wonders what this means since he lives in a religious household. Did someone deliver a letter or postcard to his home, or did he go to the local post office in Mlynov? Did he open it and read it on the Sabbath? He doesn’t say.

In any case the principal, Dr. Pikhulitz, did not fully understand what Yitzhak was initially asking in his postcard. Yitzhak was trying to understand how students at the school make a living in the Land of Israel and any qualification barriers to entering the agricultural school. From the response, Yitzhak gleaned that he could not make a living working for others, but the principal didn’t seem to understand what he was asking about requirements. Yitzhak decides it is not worth writing again because he hopes he will be making aliyah in the near future.

But the situation is still unclear. He is still in the dark about Abraham Weitz’s plans and he ponders going to the town of Bokiima to speak to him. As noted earlier, Bokiima is about a seven mile walk from Mlynov so to go and return in one day is a hefty hike. Even though a wagon appeared at Yitzhak’s home, that the Weitz family sent to purchase household goods, he hesitates to get on the wagon heading back lest he bother them by showing up unannounced. Yitzhak decides instead to wait hoping that Abraham Weitz’s son David will come during the week and if that doesn’t happen Yitzhak will send a message asking when he can visit them.

Meanwhile a day after Yitzhak sent another postcard to the staff of Shaharit complaining that he didn’t get his copy of the recent issue, the edition arrived. “Such is life, ” Yitzhak thinks, realizing that he wasted a post card.

Interpretive Summary – July 8, 1914

It has been two days since Yitzhak has written in his diary and he indicates nothing has happened. There has been no update about the pending opportunity to travel to the Land of Israel. He is in turmoil whether he should wait for Abraham Weitz’s son David to visit again or to wait for the Weitzes to send a courier for supplies at Yitzhak’s family store and to send a letter to them asking when he can visit and discuss the situation. He thinks such a letter might prompt a reply in writing. But he admits that all his earlier letters were met with silence. He is not sure what he will decide to do and feels that pessimistic about his prospects and his “crisis period” is filled with self-doubts. In the meantime, he wrote a poem in one sitting but needs to make corrections before putting it in his own book of poetry.

Interpretive summary – July 9

Yitzhak reports that Abraham Weitz got a postcard from his son Yosef who was living in the Land of Israel. One wonders how Yitzhak knew about the postcard and what it said? Did the Weitz family tell him or perhaps did the postcard arrive in Mlynov get held for pickup by the Weitz family at the Lamdan store? In any case, Yitzhak quotes from the postcard. Yosef reports that he is involved with others in buying land near Rehovot and is hopeful the acquisition will be done by the end of summer and that a portion of the land is retained for their relative Mr. Lender. He goes on to write that his family that in making their plans they should consider coming earlier.

Needless to say, Yitzhak gets excited and can’t restrain himself from thinking about the fulfilment of his dreams. Using gardening/ agricultural metaphors he describes his dreams: “Hope blossoms in me, deep, deep are its roots in my heart and soul. My blood waters and irrigates her and she nourishes it…and if this hope of mine is uprooted, God forbid, (how terrible!).”

Interpretive summary – July 12, 1914

It is July 12, 1914, three days since Yitzhak wrote in his journal. It is a fast day on the Jewish calendar that recalls the day the walls of the Jerusalem were breeched before the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. Normally this fast would place on the 17th of Tammuz and not on the 18th, but this year the 17th fell on a Sabbath when fasting is forbidden. So the fast day takes place on a Sunday instead.

Yitzhak makes no mention of fasting and thus we do not know whether he was observing the fast. Instead, Yitzhak is surprised by his feelings at some difficult news that just arrived that day. “I don’t know whether to be happy or sad” he writes.

While he was composing a letter to send to David Weitz [Abraham’s son], a wagon appeared at his home carrying Abraham Weitz. Weitz informed him that he would not travel during the present summer for a number of reasons but that his daughter Hinda and his relative Abraham Lender might go in the month of Elul (two months hence). Yitzhak remarks in his journal that he is not sure if his situation is better or worse. His parents told him that his plans were no longer viable. But Yithak pushed back and told them it didn’t matter if they went or not since he would try to pursue getting his own immigration documentation.

Though he still feels like he is in a crisis state, he is surprised by his internal state and perhaps that he is taking the difficult news in stride. “I am not happy and I am not forlorn, I am ready,” he writes drawing on a quote from the writer Z. Shneour with which he begins his journal entry.

Interpretive Summary – July 16, 1914

Yitzhak is writing in an alley behind his house and is acutely aware of the natural beauty around him. He sits in the shade of a willow and hears insects pleasantly buzzing around him while golden sunlight scatters around him. And though the natural beauty arrests his attention, he catches himself. Physically he enjoys the sights and sounds, but his soul and heart are elsewhere longing for the Land of Israel.

In language that is partially poetic, Yitzhak draws the ironic contrast between life in exile (galut), which abounds in natural beauty, and the reality of life as it would be in the Land of Israel, which he knows is difficult. But this contrast is superficial. Naysayers tell him his aspirations are vapid hallucinations. Is not everything in the Land of Israel wilderness and broken earthenware fragments, isolated shrubs, and gloomy rock”? Lamdan acknowledges the reality. But if you rub your eyes the dreams will come alive and everything will be beautiful. In answering “naysayers,” Yitzhak here anticipates one of his literary devices in his later poem Masada.

Outward reality is misleading. Though everything appears beautiful around him, he is in exile, his birthplace is a “stepmother who tortures him.” Yitzhak desires to reach the Land of Israel like “a son who has not seen his mother in many days.” “Who will make me a shepherd under the azure skies of our land?” he asks. While he has golden rays of sun around him while he writes, his “soul thirsts for sunlight in our father’s land.” Yitzhak longs to stand among the many Hebrew workers and hold a hoe, a spade and a plough, and to work and to sing from the joy of building, raising the ruins, singing the song of rebirth of cultivated fields and vineyards of our land. “Alas how strong are the longings for our homeland!

Interpretive Summary – July 19, 1914

Three days have passed since Yitzhak last made a diary entry. He continues his diary on Sunday July 19th. The entry is a mix of philosophical reflection, despair and hope, and a mundane but interesting account of how he injured his foot. He also recounts an interesting story he heard from Abraham Weitz during his earlier visit on July 12th.

The day before Yitzhak made his entry, prayers were said on the Sabbath for the new month of Menachem Av. The name of the month is Av (which means father) but it is customary to call the month Menachem Av (consoling father) to acknowledge that the month is a low point of the Jewish calendar commemorating the destruction of the first and second Temple in Jerusalem.

Yitzhak is both philosophical and morose in this diary entry. The Yiddish folk saying which he quotes, “A man plans and God laughs” captures his mood. He has been planning to go to the Land of Israel, but at the moment his plans are not materializing. Yitzhak ponders whether all human plans are in vain given that the end of life is ultimately death. Even if one realizes one’s goal, is all in vain? “What is the profit in all this if death will in the end take him from the land of the living?”

It is not surprising that given thoughts of mortality and the fleeting nature of human endeavors, Yitzhak quotes from the biblical Book of Ecclesiastes, which wonders about the meaning of life admist the transient nature of human experience. Yitzhak’s writing about futility is powerful and convincing, leading one to wonder whether he is disingenuous when he goes on to say that such thoughts only intrude momentarily and do not undermine his dream of making aliyah.

To that end, Yitzhak shifts the focus of his entry to his latest attempt to get an update from the Weitz family about plans for the journey to the Land of Israel. Yithak’s impatience is evident in this and earlier entries. He received an update a week ago, on July 12th, when Abraham Weitz paid a visit to his family home. He learned then that Weitz wouldn’t be making the journey himself but that his daughter Hinda and their relative Abraham Lender might go in another month.

Now a week later, Yitzhak indicates he hoped to visit Weitz at his home in Bokiima the day before, on the Sabbath day, “but there was no wagon.” The surprising implication appears to be that Yitzhak would have traveled on a wagon on the Sabbath day had one been available, an activity that is forbidden by Jewish law on the Sabbath. One is left wondering whether Yitzhak is already disregarding religious practice or just thinking about it.

Even apart from the religious question, Yitzhak acknowledges he would not have been able to take a wagon anyway, even if it had appeared, because of an injury to his foot. A footnote Yitzhak adds opens a window into everyday life in Mlynov: The injury took place nine days earlier (July 10th). Yitzhak’s brother Moshe asked him to get him some cold water from the well behind their house and a piece of the well’s drawing mechanism fell on Yitzhak’s foot. Although nine days have passed, his foot is still in pain and he still can’t walk very easily.

Yitzhak’s train of thought leads him next to recount a story he heard from Mr. Weitz when he was previously visiting, possibly on July 12th when Weitz last appeared at their home on a wagon. Weitz apparently told the story of a young man named Shmuel from the small town of Hubyn Pershyi, whose journey to the Land of Israel was cancelled at the last minute by his sponsors from his hometown. The young man’s name was Shmuel Bortnik. Yitzhak was friendly with him as we shall see in a subsequent entry. And the town of Hubyn Pershyi, which was 54 km east of Mlynov, was where Yitzhak’s brother, Moshe, worked in some sort of senior position.

Apparently, the residents of Shmuel’s town had agreed to sponsor his journey to the Land of Israel. Shmuel headed to the nearby town of Radzivilov [Radyvyliv, Ukraine] to leave for his journey when the residents of his hometown suddenly retracted their decision to send him to the Land of Israel. Shmuel was naturally devastated and Weitz expressed sympathy for how distraught Shmuel was by the loss of his opportunity. And Yitzhak naturally identified with the anguish of his friend. “Alas, how difficult is this situation and what a great inner tragedy for this young man. Ha! Overwhelming sorrow upon you, my dear friend, my soul is also silent crying out of sight, from fear that its hope will be in vain.”

Interpretive summary – July 21, 1914

In this entry on this day, Yitzhak indicates he is writing in his journal to organize his thoughts, not because something noteworthy had happened. Yitzhak discusses an interesting visit by a friend with a business proposition and the discussion triggers Yitzhak thoughts about making aliyah and reveals just how isolated and misunderstood Yitzhak feels in this aspiration.

A young man named Shimon Berger came to Yitzhak’s home. He is a friend who Yitzhak mentions again later in his diary. Shimon had just returned from Dubno where he has been for a week and is excited about a business opportunity purchasing hops. But he needs to rent an office and hire a bookkeeper, and he hopes Yitzhak’s brother Moshe will be the bookkeeper. Then Shimon turns his attention on Yitzhak and prods him and suggests that he too should take a role in the business and thereby prepare himself to be a man and for the tough working life in Palestine. It is interesting to note that this is the first time in Yitzhak’s diary the term “Palestine” is used and only when quoting the words of a third person. Yitzhak never uses the term himself but always refers to the place as Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel, or the land of my ancestors and with other similar descriptions.

Though Yitzhak doesn’t take Shimon Berger seriously, his suggestion still triggers Yitzhak’s own self reflections on his aspirations. Yitzhak acknowledges that neither strangers nor those close to him can understand his dreams. And he knows he can’t work in a warehouse because “haggling is totally strange to me and I am not patient by nature.”

Yitzhak goes on to describe his aspirations again to leave exile and make aliyah in now familiar terms, “to the land of revival, the land of the ancestors and offspring; to work there on the people’s field and its literature, to drive a post in the soil of our land and dwell among her mountains [35] to enjoy oneself in the radiance of her sun, the blue of her heavens, and see with my eyes the rebirth of my people and the development of her name.”

What is new for the first time is Yitzhak’s revelation that he hopes to work not just on the land but in “the field of literature and the people.” Previously when he refers to the fields in the Land of Israel, he appeared to be speaking about matters of the soil, agricultural revival, and physical rebuilding of the land. But here he apparently alludes to a hope that he can work in the field of literature and be a writer in the Land of Israel.

He ends his journal entry with a fervent prayer that the God who brought the first Zionists of Bilu to the land not let him “down in exile.” And indeed, the budding young writer is struggling, as he admits in the conclusion to this entry. He hopes to be a writer in the Land of Israel, but he is having a hard time expressing his feeling in poems. He has tried a number of times already but not had success. Yitzhak compares himself to a person who becomes dumbstruck while in the middle of speaking and is filled with so many ideas and feelings that he wants to express but cannot say. By evoking this powerful metaphor about his poetic impotence, Yitzhak belies his failure. He doesn’t know it yet obviously, but one day he will find the words to express his feeling of being alone and out on a limb by himself.

Interpretive Summary – July 22, 1914

Yitzhak indicates ;that a courier from the Weitz family arrived at his home today. The courier brought a note from David Weitz requesting that Yitzhak renew their subscription to the newspaper, HaZeman, which he had not received for a while and assumed the subscription lapsed. The request indicates that the Lamdan convenience store in their home functioned as a nexus for letters and communications and Yitzhak’s administrative role in this activity. It is evident that David Weitz couldn’t resubscribe himself from his smaller town of Bokiima and he relied on the Lamdan store to do this. Whether the Lamdan store was involved in sending and receiving mail or whether it had something to do with guaranteeing the payment is not clear. In any case, Yitzhak himself was responsible for orchestrating the subscription.

Yitzhak realizes that David Weitz has made a mistake. The subscription had not in fact lapsed. Yitzhak had created the subscription two months earlier and subscribed the Weitz family for a six month period. David apparently did not remember. The newspaper has not arrived for some other reason. Yitzhak suspected a foul-up by the administrative offices rather than an end of the newspaper’s life, which he felt would be a real shame.

In responding to David’s request, Yitzhak took the opportunity to request any news about David’s sister’s plans to go to the Land of Israel.

Interpretive Summary – July 23, 1914

Yitzhak’s entry for July 23rd is dispirited by his inability to get clarity on the status of the Weitz family journey to the Land of Israel. He was hoping to visit Abraham Weitz in the forest by hitching a ride with one of the wagons that came to the Mlynov market. But sadly no wagon came from the forest near the Weitz home. He knows that someone will come pick up meat tomorrow but that person will come by foot and Yitzhak won’t be able to ride to Weitz’s home for the Sabbath. And then he won't be able to go the following Sabbath,since it will be during the first nine days of the month of Av, a period of mourning, when it is not customary to go visiting.

Yitzhak then mentions that his brother has not yet left for Hubyn Pershyi with Abraham Borshtak and his sister who were staying with Moshe. He apparently received a letter written by the sister of Shmuel Borshtak on her brother’s behalf. Shmuel Borshtak was the young man whose aliyah was abruptly canceled by his sponsors (see July 19th). The letter indicates Shmuel wants Yitzhak to come visit. Yitzhak responds with a letter of his own explaining he is in a crisis moment with regards to his journey and must stand guard to ensure he doesn’t miss any news. He also expresses words of empathy to his friend over his cancelled trip and offers him advice that if he still hopes to make aliyah, he should join an agricultural school.

Yitzhak then turns to the grief he feels not knowing his situation and the questions swirling around in his head. Was Abraham Weitz’s journey cancelled for good? Would Weitz’s daughter Hinda go? Yitzhak is afraid if he does not gain clarity soon, it will be too late to make the necessary preparations like getting his immigration documentation and allaying his parents’s concerns. He ends with a prayer that “bursts” from his heart.

Interpretive Summary – July 27, 1914

On this day, just a day before the assassination that triggers WWI, Yitzhak’s diary entry gives us a window into the active mind of a sixteen-year-old boy who is extremely well read and well-aware of political debates in the wider Jewish community.

Yitzhak begins his entry by mentioning a note he received from David Weitz, the son of Abraham Weitz. David was responding to Yitzhak’s previous note (see July 22nd) in which Yitzhak explained that their subscription to the newspaper HaZeman had not lapsed even though it had not arrived recently. David wanted to know whether Yitzhak had any update on the status of the newspaper, HaZeman, since he still had not received it. “Is it still publishing?” he asked. If not, could Yitzhak subscribe him to Sephira, the Hebrew daily that in the 1880s had shifted its focus to Zionist matters. As previously noted, Yitzhak is playing a role in managing communication and subscriptions for the Weitz family who live in the smaller community of Bokiima. We can assume that Yitzhak has this role because he works in his family’s store, reads Hebrew, and perhaps performs a similar role for other families who live in the area.

David Weitz also responded to Yitzhak’s request for an update on the plans of David’s sister, Hinda, to journey to the Land of Israel. Yitzhak’s own plans are tied to her plans. If she goes, Yitzhak has a good chance of going too. However, David indicates her plans are still up in the air.

Yitzhak transcribes David’s words verbatim in his diary entry and then laments about the uncertainty that still plagues his aspirations to make aliyah. Yitzhak feels a growing urgency now to visit the Weitz family “in the forest” and get the real story. But Yitzhak knows he’ll have to wait longer. The first nine days of the month of Av, which precede the fast of Tisha B'Av, observant Jews gradually intensify mourning by reducing sources of joy. In this period, Yitzhak knows he cannot go visit the Weitz family.

After reacting to the update from David Weitz, Yitzhak shift gears and comments on some of his recent reading, making clear just how broad are his interests and how well-versed he is in Hebrew Literature and the current political discussions of the Jewish community in the Diaspora. Though only sixteen and living in a small town, he is reading daily Hebrew newspapers and periodicals with stories written by future award-winning Hebrew writers. And he is also aware of ideological debates between Zionists and non-Zionist organizations.

Yitzhak explains how he loves the reading he is doing.

I so enjoyed reading such things because, is it not obvious, it strengthens my idea to make aliyah in the near future to the Land of Israel. I yearn to read about the new lives unfolding in the Land of Israel, until I can’t stand to read very often about lives in exile (galut)…ha! How I love our land and all that is being realized there.

Yitzhak gives us a glimpse into how he obtains some of his reading material. A day earlier, he sent a postcard to his brother, Moshe, who is now in the town of Hubyn Pershyi where he works. Yitzhak asks him to bring back a few books he wants to read. Books, evidently, were circulating via travelers from larger to smaller towns.

One of the books Yitzhak wanted to read was written by Moshe Smilansky (1874-1953), a pioneer of the First Aliyah. Smilansky was born in Telpino, Ukraine, influenced by the Bilu movement and by disciples of Leo Tolstoy. He was also a disciple of Ahad Haam. Smilansky went to Ottoman Palestine in 1890, at the age of 16, the age Yitzhak was when he made this diary entry. Yitzhak also asked his brother to bring a book called, Our New Literature, written by Mordechai Rabinson (1877-1953) which was an innovative history of Hebrew writers and is considered the first textbook of modern Hebrew literature. The budding literary Zionist was already well-aware of the Jewish literary currents of his day.

After mentioning the books he hoped to get from his brother, Yitzhak summarizes his reading from earlier this same day. First, he mentions reading an inspiring announcement in the margins of HaZeman (the Hebrew newspaper David Weitz was inquiring about in his note). HaZeman was published in Russia and Lithuania between 1903-1915. In 1914, when Yitzhak read it, HaZeman was a daily paper published in Vilna in Lithuania.

Yitzhak is moved by a proclamation he saw published there from former members of an aid organization called “Ezra.” They apparently switched sides in a public uproar now known in the history of Zionism as the “Language War.” In the proclamation in HaZeman they came out supporting the Zionist position that Hebrew should be the language of instruction in the professional technical school that the aid organization was funding in the Land of Israel. The debate originally broke out in 1913. For practical reasons, the head of the school had decided that German would be the language of instruction: Hebrew was a language that had only recently begun to be spoken, and there was still a great dearth of technical and scientific vocabulary in the language. After the debate roiled the Jewish community, a definitive meeting in October 1913 in Berlin decided that, indeed, German would be the language of instruction. Then in February 1914, six months before Yitzhak wrote this diary entry, the organization Ezra had finally given in to pressure from donors and supporters and agreed that instruction would be in Hebrew. It was a decisive victory for Zionists favoring the growth of the Hebrew language. Yitzhak was clearly aware of the debate and wrote approvingly of the proclamation in HaZeman by the former members of the aid organization.

After alluding to the language debate, Yitzhak mentions reading a story from a magazine called HaShiloach (“The Dispatch”) which arrived earlier the same day. “The Dispatch” was a Hebrew monthly magazine, founded in 1896 in Odessa by the Zionist thinker, Ahad Ha’am, and focused on literature, science and life issues. Yitzhak remarks in his diary that he really likes reading about the lives of "Israeli-land" settlers like the essay written Aharon Avraham Kabak in the current issue he just received and by A. Talush in the previous issue. It is worth knowing a bit about the two writers he was reading:

Aaron Abrahm Kabak (1880–1944) was a Lithuanian-born Hebrew language author. His father was a rabbi and he had a traditional education in Heder and yeshiva. He wrote for several Hebrew newspapers and magazines under the pen name “A. Bar-Natan” and immigrated to the Land of Israel in 1911. When Yitzhak read his story in the magazine, Kabak was back in Europe studying at the University of Berlin. After an advanced degree in Switzerland, Kabak returned to the Mandatory Palestine in 1921. He was later recipient of the Bialik Prize for Literature in 1943.

A. Talush, for his part, was the pen name of Issar Moskovitz (1887–1962) a Russian Jewish writer who lived in the Land of Israel in 1908. After a year there he returned to Europe and eventually migrated to the US. Yitzhak was reading a novella Talus wrote called “The Insult,” which was published in 1914 in four parts.

From this one day in the life of Yitzhak Lamdan, we see just how well-read and politically-aware already was this sixteen-year-old young man living in the small town of Mlynov.

Interpretive Summary – July 29, 1914

Yitzhak is writing on July 29th, 1914, just a day after Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, the day typically thought of as the start of WW1. Yitzhak does not mention the event and may not be aware of the situation yet, though he will be by the time of his next entry on Aug. 2nd. Yitzhak begins this entry focused on how insufferable the uncertainty has become related to his efforts to go to the Land of Israel.

Yitzhak then turns to what began as a mundane experience that day but became a significant experience worthy of writing about in his diary, one that underscored his dedication to aliyah. Specifically, he walked to Mervits to deliver some butter, likely part of his responsibilities for his family store. On the way back, he was accompanied by a friend Ben-Tzion Gruber, a friend of Yitzhak’s who according to later memories of him had literary talents. Along the way some Christian and Jewish laborers were repairing the road. The Christian workers began ridiculing the young men. Yitzhak is infuriated and comments that they probably would have attacked them physically if there were not Jewish workers with them. Yitzhak doesn’t say what the insults were or what the reaction of the Jewish workers was. But he did bend his friend’s ear about the experience. It is worth quoting the words Yitzhak used to describe his feelings, which illustrate one of the reasons underlying his feelings of living in exile (galut).

My blood boiled inside, and I was entirely consumed with vengeance; if I could, I would have torn the attackers of our honor to bits [literally, ripped up like fish], why? Are we dogs? It is impossible to resist insulting us? And who are these abusers? Are we despicable and worthless or like they who insult us? [49] Why doesn’t their impure blood relax when they see Jews pass and why do they feel an obligation to insult us? But all of [the reactions] have to be kept confined inside. It is forbidden to protest– in the “diaspora” [galut] we are in exile [galut]. How terrible.

Yitzhak concludes his reflection explaining one of the reasons he wants to live in the Land of Israel. “There we can rebel, we can protest, we can fight and protect our soil and our freedom.”

August 1914

Interpretive Summary – August 2, 1914

On Sunday, Aug. 2, 1914, Yitzhak entered his first comment about the beginning of WWI. It was just 5 days after Austria declared War on Serbia, and a day after Germany declared War on Austria. In an irony not lost on Yitzhak, his first entry about the war was on a fast day, Tisha B’Av, the day commemorating the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem and in Yitzhak’s mind the day Jewish nationality ended. Normally, Tisha B’Av takes place on the 9th of Av. But because the 9th of Av this year fell on a Sabbath, the fast day was pushed to the 10th, since fasting is not permitted on the Sabbath according to Jewish ritual law.

It is only on Aug. 2nd that Yitzhak begins to realize the magnitude of the events taking place, though he initially thought that the events were not relevant to him personally. He writes about them he says so he can enjoy their memory in the future. As he writes, however, it becomes clear even to himself that the events may be more impactful than he initially thought.

It is extraordinary that a sixteen year old boy, living in a shtetl with the population size of a large American high school, knew and understood as much as he evidently did. He knows that the conflict between Austria and Serbia was triggered by the murder of the Austrian Crown Prince. He knows that Russia is compelled by treaty to support Serbia. And he knows that Germany and Italy are compelled to help Austria. Even though Germany didn’t declare War on France until a day later (Aug. 3rd) Yitzhak already anticipates that France and Great Britain will enter the War. And he forsees already that the conflict may encompass the whole world.

Already Yitzhak can see the visible effects of the War preparation in Mlynov. Russia already called up the reserves. And there is a movement of people in town and a demand for horses and wagons. The fear among Mlynov residents is very great. Yitzhak describes how groups of people congregate every day in the streets and speak about the terrible situation. Rumors swirl and the “smell of war” is in the air. When the letter carrier leaves the post office, the whole town waits with bated breath for news reported in the newspapers. Everyone person who arrives from Dubno is surrounded by people who pepper him with questions. Already they have been told they may have to evacuate. An announcement was posted in town indicating they were in a “war zone.”

Given the difficult situation, Yitzhak admits that he can’t think about his personal aspirations to make aliyah. He realizes that he can’t think about leaving his parents now and getting immigration documentation would be even more difficult.

Meanwhile Yizhak’s older brother Moshe is still in Hubyn [Pershyi] where he worked. He sent a postcard saying that he would come home after the Sabbath but given the situation Yitzhak doesn’t have much hope he will come. Speaking of postcards, Yitzhak mentions getting a postcard today from Moshe Katz who was annoyed with Yitzhak for not responding to his letter for two months. Moshe Katz is probably the young man who was born in Mlynov and who migrated to the US with his mother and two siblings in 1913. He too was a poet like Yitzhak. In the US he later became a respected Yiddish poet in American where he took the pen name Aleph Katz.

Yitzhak ends the substance of his reflection with a quote from one of the lamentations said in synagogue on this commemoration day. “How long will there be crying in Israel and mourning in Jerusalem?” Yitzhak has more to say but he ends his entry by announcing that he has to go to the prayer house for afternoon prayers (Minhah).

Interpretive Summary – August 5, 19194

Yitzhak begins his entry describing how sad he was saying goodbye earlier the same morning to his sister Riba, her husband Mutil Litvak, and their likeable toddler, as they departed Mlynov. The War had already broken out and they are not sure they will see each other again. Military men are already in Mlynov and Yitzhak describes the confusion and fear that everyone is feeling.

As for his own dream of making aliyah, Yitzhak naturally feels it is inappropriate to think about his personal concerns at such times. “How is it possible,” he writes, “to think about one’s spiritual and normal physical existence, at a time when you worry about how to save one’s life from annihilation... yes everyone is experiencing this.”

Normally, Yitzhak would be thrilled to talk to Mr. Abraham Weitz. But when he saw Weitz earlier this week on Sunday and Tuesday, Weitz called out to him and chided him. "And what? Even now you are thinking about [going to] the Land of Israel?”… The contrast with Yitzhak’s earlier entries in June and July could not be greater. In those entries Yitzhak was focused, maybe even obsessed, trying to figure out a way to visit or see Mr. Abraham Weitz, to talk about the plans to make aliyah. Earlier this week he mentions seeing Abraham Weitz on Sunday and Tuesday and he didn’t even mention it in his diary on those days! That’s how much the War has disrupted Yitzhak’s life.

In the middle of writing, a thunderstorm arrived and rain began to fall. In a humorous aside, Yitzhak mentions interrupting his writing and heading inside. He entered the hallway of his home just as the house cat also tried to get inside out of the rain. Apparently, the cat with muddy legs ran across the pages of Yitzhak’s diary and left stains that are still visible on the pages.

Interpretive Summary – August 8, 1914

Yitzhak returns to his diary after two days hiatus. In the intervening time, he had things to write about, but the days were hard making writing difficult. This particular morning, he woke up to learn that military men would enter the town soon. He goes on to give an update on the War. His heart is breaking seeing many families who are fleeing from further West, along the Austrian border, coming to and passing through Mlynov on wagons with women and children and laden with their household goods. The traffic was intense today as military men entered town with officers riding by on horses and canons going back and forth. Noisy automobiles and benzene smoke filled the air. Yitzhak wonders what he and his family can possibly do and where can they flee. While he is writing in his diary, a telegram arrives from his older sister Heni (Genya) who was living in another town further east where everything was still okay. She invited her family to come join her…” Yitzhak does not say more and ends his writing because he needs to go eat dinner.

Interpretive Summary – Aug. 16, 1914

Yitzhak didn't write in his diary for eight days due to the chaos caused by the War. This is one of the longest breaks between entries since he started in June. He explains now that he sees no reason to write about the War in general in his diary but intends to focus on the ways in which the War impinges on them directly. To that end, he muses about how dramatically his own plans and aspirations to make aliyah have been set aside. “Before the chaos in the world and everything got thrown into confusion…I sat in the corner of my world and I spun a dream of the future for myself…(oy!).”

No one speaks about peace anymore and the presence of War is physically palpable in Mlynov. There are many Russian soldiers in town though they are “not doing anything bad to anyone, on the contrary, there are many decent men among them, the town prospers from them a lot, since their need for food and other needs are great.” The soldiers, in fact, dug a stronghold, opposite the marketplace, across from the home of Yitzhak’s uncle Yosef. Though people in town are still fearful they are somewhat more acclimated to the situation. But then four wounded soldiers were brought to town. Their appearance drove home the reality of the situation, and fear spiked intensely again.

Yitzhak next turns to the theme of peace. “During a moment of peace,” Yitzhak writes, “it is not possible to know and recognize how necessary it is for human beings,” but in facing war directly, we recognize the value of peace and the exalted ideal of the great Isaiah who said, “Nation shall not lift up sword against nation nor make war anymore.”

Yithak calls out the deep discrepancy he sees in human civilization since the prophet uttered his call for peace. On the one hand, humanity is constantly progressing and civilization advancing. Cries of progress define humanity’s vision. Yet civilization creates and improves tools of destruction including “canons which have the power to mow down thousands of soldiers.” It is evident that Yitzhak is already aware of one of the defining characteristics of WWI warfare. Artillery shells were now effective than ever before. New propellants increased their range, and they were filled with recently developed high explosive, multiple shrapnel balls which were deadly to troops in the open:

Hey you wretched civilization!” Yitzhak writes. “What is your power? Where is your glory? I spit in your face! I mock you, the great men of civilization, the builders of culture!”

Yitzhak ends his entry with what he knows is wishful thinking, with the hope that the Jewish people can realize the prophecy of Isaiah, and that the Jews “will generate world peace” that will go forth from the Land of Israel. “A wonderful dream…Is it not?”

Interpretive Summary – Aug. 17, 1914

Yitzhak intended to return to his diary entry yesterday in the nighttime hours, but he didn’t get back to it then. He was also delayed today in his writing because his friend Ben-Tzion Gruber came to visit and stayed until evening. This was the same friend that Yitzhak walked with on his return from delivering butter to Mervits on July 29th when they were accosted by gentiles repairing the road. Since it was already late in the day, Yitzhak says he won’t continue with the themes of peace and the nature of civilization that he was writing about yesterday.

Still, Yitzhak does have time to give an update on the present situation. “This evening everyone is full of worry. The atmosphere is saturated with the smell of blood.” Yitzhak appears to mean this metaphorically, though his last entry did mention the arrival of four injured soldiers, so he could also mean it literally. Apparently, a scandal broke out in town between Israel Halperin and one of the military men. The incident, was significant enough that everyone closed their stores and fled home, though Yitzhak says he doesn’t know what it was about. The sounds of War are present now and canons can now be heard in the distance.

Interpretive Summary – August 18, 1914

This is the third day in a row that Yitzhak wrote in his diary, somewhat atypical for Yitzhak. Since starting this diary in June, he has written three days in a row only once before in July (21-23). In this entry, he is mostly reflecting on the general impact of the War and on his personal dreams about the Land of Israel. He knows the present moment is just the quiet before the storm. He wonders whether it will be possible to flee and if so, where he or others could go.

In his personal life, he writes that “Obviously, I am not thinking about the Land of Israel now.” He knows it would be preposterous to do so. But he admits that in secret he still weaves a dream about aliyah. Yitzhak’s disgust for “the exile” (hagalut) continues to grow and he know how harmful it is for the Jewish people. He thus condemns those Jews who promote exile. He is quite eloquent describing the pernicious effects of the galut:

What future do they see for our people in this terrible exile (galut), even after various vigorous efforts on behalf of the people? Is it possible to build a solid foundation under our people’s feet in this terrible exile (galut)? Is it not a generation of eternal slaves, a Jewish generation that lives only for others, bitterness flows from their despicableness and [the people] stands in its contemptibility; one who plants fields of others and doesn’t benefit from its fruit, in short: in exile (galut) it is possible to raise only generations of slaves, and for all its cultural qualities it will remain in the eyes of the people like a dancing monkey fulfilling the desires of those who watch… No! Exile (galut) – for us is only a lengthy torture without end, and sometimes death is much better than that...

Towards the end of his entry, Yitzhak turns back to a more personal subject. He reflects on the purpose of his diary and admits it doesn’t fulfill one of its purposes. He is not being completely open in the diary due to prying eyes. Reading between the lines, it appears he has a love interest he doesn’t want anyone to know about. He is hopeful that he might start writing about the subject in the coming days if, God willing, life permits. In the meantime, he indicates he is expressing his feelings of love in his poems. Unfortunately, none of those poems have survived.

Interpretive Summary – August 19, 1914

This is the fourth day in a row that Yitzhak has written in his diary. He is sitting at his table inside his house and although it is quiet, there was a dramatic departure of army personnel that morning and grief hangs in the air. The military men from Kiev who were stationed in Mlynov and apparently eating frequently at Yitzhak’s home left for the front this morning. Only the night before, the soldiers were visiting at his home and had been optimistic that they would not have to go to the front. They even gave instructions to his mother to prepare a meal for them for today. But shortly after they left last evening, they returned. They were trembling and speaking with difficulty. They just received word that they would be heading out that night and needed to get ready. Needless to say, Yitzhak was saddened and moved to tears and the men themselves were beside themselves at the news. Yitzhak’s heart aches for them and everyone going to war and his thoughts lead him to wonder again where is civilization and progress? It was and remains a good question. Yitzhak’s eloquent painful reflection on war is exquisite and still resonates:

And where is culture? Where is civilization? Where is the man of progress? Human development¬–where is it? Where are you? – But is your reality not thrown in doubt!...

The situation is terrible, exceedingly terrible, men leave to fight with brothers, fellow human beings like them, against their will, blood touches blood... blood cries out about the terrible injustice taking place now under the sun: Where is integrity? The entire world is on the verge now of being destroyed on behalf of a conflict between rulers. And those same cruel rulers now decide to slaughter tens of thousands of people and they sit in their palaces and live lives of leisure – they will also be given the land!

Rise up God, how long will you be silent?!– – –

Interpretive Summary – August 23, 1917

Yitzhak hasn’t written in three days when he picks up his pen again on August 23rd. This is one of his longest and most complex entries filled with allusions to the War situation and political trends in Russian politics involving the Jews at the start of the War. Yitzhak’s entry exhibits his robust understanding of the ambiguity facing Jews at WWI’s outset and his distrust of those in Russia who are suddenly making positive overtures to the Jews. He knows that fighting is expected to break out anytime along the nearby Russian border with Austria, but he hasn’t heard yet whether in fact battles have begun. In fact, what is now known as the Great Battle of Galicia between Russia and Austria began on this very day.

Yitzhak is praying that Russia will win the battle against Austria so that the danger to them in Mlynov is reduced. But he also feels ambivalent about such a prayer knowing that there are Jews fighting and living on both sides of the border. He has heard rumors already in fact that when Russian Cossacks entered the Austrian town of Brody, the Jews in town suffered the most. He knows that even if Jews don’t suffer harm, they will have to become refugees. The Jews, Yitzhak says, are like a pitcher. They “break” whether the pitcher falls on a rock or the rock falls on the pitcher.

One of the tragedies that has caught Yitzhak’s attention is the large number of Jews in the Russian army. He cites a number of reasons for this. The mobilization called up young men who were 23 years of age and closed the borders so that Jews could not flee. Another factor was the way in which Jews were rallying behind Russia, declaring their patriotism, and volunteering for the army. Yitzhak is even aware of the speech in 1914 by Naphtali Friedman, a Jewish member of the Russian Duma, declaring the patriotism of the Russian Jews.

Yithak is skeptical of the sudden change in attitude by former right-wing agitators in Russia who were previously rabid antisemites, evening mentioning several by name. So too he is not taken in by the government’s relaxing of the legal restrictions on Jewish merchants. “Any smart person,” Yitzhak writes, "can discern that all of these things just mentioned are only for the duration of the War…"

Yitzhak is dismayed when he reads in the Hebrew newspaper, HaZeman, about a Jewish writer in the Jewish Russian newspaper, Novi Voshkod, who prophesied a bright future for Jews in Russia. “It impossible to know if the writer of the article is so naïve or is brain dead.”

It is notable how current Yitzhak is on this shift in attitude in Russia. He even knows that some Jews are placing hope in a change of attitude by Vladimir] Golubev, one of the key instigators in the 1913 blood libel accusation in the “Beilis Affair.” “He too has now become our friend,” Yitzhak writes sarcastically. He continues: A little patience my friends! Wait until the war ends, please let our accursed haters remove the veils from their faces, – and see what becomes of your hope? Naïve ones! Can a black person (kushi) change the color of his skin or a tiger its stripes? On the other hand, do these “progrom instigators,” and “blood suckers,” each and every one of them [85] want our well-being? They only abuse us! For what is this servile flattery? Why should we corrupt our form more than it is now?

In wrapping up this entry, Yitzhak remarks that the summer is coming to an end while the fourth part of his diary is ending. He prays that his diary will be favored with entries that he writes someday in the Land of Israel.

Interpretive Summary – August 26, 1914

Yitzhak wrote three days ago. He begins reluctantly due to a lack of material. “It is impossible for me to write now about the general situation,” he writes. This may be because Yitzhak was worried about the new Russian censorship laws. On July 20, 1914, Russia promulgated the “Provisional regulations on military censorship” which focused particularly on the front lines, but also included newspaper article, telegrams and private letters. The rules were intended to prevent information about the movement of troops from falling into the wrong hands and to limit news or criticism that would undermine morale. In addition, Yitzhak makes clear that the War situation is confusing and he can’t extract anything definitive from what is going on.

Personally speaking, Yitzhak indicates his longings for the Land of Israel returned intensely. “Yikes, how much the longings for the Land of Israel attack me.” Yitzhak recalls how before the War he felt so close to achieving his objective, which now seems like a pipe dream. He quotes Judah Halevi, the Sephardic Jewish poet, physician and philosopher, “My heart is in the East [i.e., the Land of Israel] and I – am in the end in the West.”

As twilight arrives and the darkness begins to deepen, Yitzhak ends his writing. But not before sharing this final thought about his current feelings: “Many feelings still bubble up now in my heart, my heart is overflowing its banks full of love for my people and my land, and with this it hurts about the destructive exile (galut) that deforms my people, and abuses it relentlessly…”

Interpretive Summary – August 31, 1914

Yitzhak hasn’t written for five days, and he now feels he must tackle an entry. He doesn’t recall the details of the last five days, and we soon find out why: Many wounded and dying Russian soldiers were brought to town from a recent attack. This number far exceeds the four wounded soldiers who were brought to Mlynov on August 16th. Yitzhak feels turmoil seeing this vision of “men who were recently healthy and whole, who recently had the shining fire of life in their eyes and now are lying wounded, some fatal and some not, and some of them thrown into the ground after falling slain on the battlefield.”

“…It is difficult to hear their moans from the intense pain of their wounds,” Yitzhak writes. “Lord of the World! This blood that spills like water, for what?”

The wounded who arrived in Mlynov during this time were from one of the battles on the Eastern Front between Russia and Austria-Hungary that took place in the first phase of the War known today as the “Battle of Galicia” (August 23rd – September 11th). Ultimately, the Astro-Hungarian armies were defeated in this series of battles and Russia occupied Lemberg (now Lviv) and Eastern Galicia. But in several of these first battles, the Austro-Hungary armies were holding their own. The wounded who were brought behind the front lines to Mlynov were probably from either the Battle of Kraśnik (Aug. 23rd-25th) or the Battle of Komarów (Aug. 26–Sept. 2nd), both in which the Astro-Hungarian forces were victorious.

The turmoil from the War undermines any thought Yitzhak has about his real ambition, to make aliyah to the land of Israel. Still a protest against living exile wells up in him even more intensely now. The atmosphere he says is filled with hate towards the Jew, and accusatory tales circulate among the boorish people about the Jews. Yitzhak cites one example: Christians are accusing Jews of supporting Austria by sending a barrel full of gold to Austria hidden under salted fish. “All the Christians plow evil on you,” Yitzhak writes, and if they were able, they would “put an end to your life in a second.”

September 1914

***

Interpretive Summary – Wednesday, September 2, 1914

Yesterday, when Yitzhak awakened, he heard a noise, some running back and forth in the house and a cry of sorrow. What prompted the disturbance was the arrival of two hundred wounded soldiers who were brought to Mlynov from the battlefield across the border. The wounded were distributed among the various homes in town: the doctor’s home, the pharmacist's, even the home of the Graf (the Count), among other homes. Everyone rushed to bring them food and drinks. Yitzhak hurried to see for himself and entered the doctor’s home. The moaning of the wounded depressed him and fired up his inner protest against war and the shedding of blood. He felt a bit better at noon today when the wounded were removed from Mlynov, though Yitzhak knows the respite is likely only temporary.

Information that appeared in the newspapers today also disheartened him. He read that Turkey (another name for the Ottoman Empire) was likely to declare War against Russia soon. In fact, Turkey signed a secret agreement with Germany a month earlier on August 3rd but had not yet engaged in hostilities.

The news immediately triggered Yitzhak’s realistic worries that the involvement of Turkey would have a detrimental impact on the efforts of the settlers in the Land of Israel. The Ottoman Empire still had control over Palestine and its entrance to the War would mean that Palestine too would be drawn into the hostilities and fighting. Yitzhak worries that Turkey’s involvement will destroy the progress made reviving the land of Israel and dash the hopes of those like himself who dream of going there. Turkey would not officially enter the War until October 29, 1914.

Interpretive Summary – September 4, 1914

In this entry, Yitzhak provides a short update on the War’s progress before turning his attention to his main focus, the devastating treatment of Jews in areas conquered by Russia areas and the second-class status of Jews in Russia itself.

Yitzhak notes that though Russia has been conquering place after place in Austria, Russia suffered a significant defeat against Germany and lost two military corps with thousands of men. Germany is also reportedly doing well against the other governments of France and Belgium. Surprisingly and incorrectly, Yitzhak also mentions Italy as one of the powers Germany was doing well against. At this stage of the War, Italy was still a member of the Triple Alliance with Germany and Austria and was still neutral in the War and hence not involved in the fighting. Yitzhak also reiterates the expectation first mentioned on September 2nd that Turkey will soon declare war on the side of the Central Powers. People expect Bulgaria, Romania and Greece to follow soon after.

After sharing that general update, Yitzhak lambasts Russia’s military for its devastating treatment of Jewish life and property in the conquered Austrian territories. Russia’s military were joined in their abuse by the local farmers who were provisioning Russian army with food: Yitzhak writes: “the Jewish soul is also surrounded on all sides,: they kill, beat our brethren without mercy, desecrate our holy things, scattering Torah scrolls in mud, or tearing and burning [them], houses of worship ruined and burned and with them all the invaluable books in all the terrible destruction and ruin.”

Yitzhak then turns his attention back home, to the hypocrisy in Russia itself, to Russia’s treatment of the Jews, and to the Jews who stupidly continue to volunteer for War and Russia. Jews have done much to support the War, Yitzhak notes. They have provided a great deal of gold already to the War effort and have built hospitals for the wounded, regardless of their nationality or religion. Yet discrimination against Russian Jews continues. As an example, Yitzhak cites the case of a Jewish lawyer (whose name he has forgotten) who is called up for military duty and wants to bid farewell to his family, who are living in a part of Russia (Kursk) where Jews need special permission to live. The authorities turn down his request and treat him no better than a dog. All of this makes Yitzhak seethe in frustration with Russia and with the Jews who still support the War effort and with exile itself. “My spirit is not calm even for a second. I can’t find rest in seeing the situation of my people in exile, and I feel a personal duty to get up and do something for its benefit…”

“How long?!” Yitzhak asks at the end of his entry, “Until When!?”

Interpretive Summary – Sunday, September 6th

Today, Yitzhak feels called upon to write before noon, a time he doesn’t normally write. As his entry for this day unfolds, it becomes clear why. He is angry and wants to express some of it. What triggers him are the stories reaching him from the combat zone, stories that make one’s hair stand on end about the needless blood shedding and misery that the War is producing. One story he heard just today agitates him no end and was likely the cause of his early morning writing.

A soldier was passing by and he could not stop crying. When they asked him what he was crying about, he told them how he was told to bury the dead and came across a fatally wounded Jewish soldier. The wounded man grabbed his hand and pleaded not to be buried with the dead. When the soldier reported the situation to his officer, the officer came over to the wounded man. The wounded man grabbed the officer’s hand, again pleading that he not be buried. But the officer refused, “taking you from here is impossible and if you are not buried the dogs will tear you apart.” So he gave the order to the soldier to bury the wounded man. As he was burying him, the man kept shaking his head and begging with signals to leave. The soldier who told the story couldn’t stop crying while he doing so.

The story totally depressed Yitzhak, realizing there are thousands of such moments and the vast pain that is the result. He then launches into an accusation of God for allowing War that has no purpose to continue. This is his most pointed criticism in his diary to date directed towards heaven. In Yitzhak’s own words:

Oh Heavens! These many portions of blood shed that are mostly in vain, why are they? And this general, terrible tragedy that comes now to the world, what is its benefit? What profit is there in these additional wretched lives that extend into the thousands? And since these battles whose consequences are only the following: [106] terrible shedding of blood; the death of thousands of people who are innocent of any crime, an increase of misery while living, a diminution of a nation and its inhabitants, and more and more, then why don’t you free [us] from it and cancel it from the world?! Is it true that this is how it needs to be? No! It is impossible, this law [that there needs to be war] needs to change. This spilling of bloods needs to be eliminated from the world. The alternative is impossible!

Yitzhak appears to have felt that he was on the verge of blasphemy for he abruptly breaks off his writing at this point, even though he acknowledges he has more to say on the subject: “In the meantime, I’m going to end my writing, the thoughts I’m having now about all that I am writing here – a bit of which was written here, and the rest of things that I have to write about the Jews and the War, about my personal situation, etc., etc.,…”

Interpretive Summary – Wednesday, September 9, 1914

When Yitzhak wrote last Wednesday, his mood was bleak and hopeless. Today, he is feeling more upbeat because he is expecting a visit from his friend Ben-Tzion Gruber, from Mervits, and he looks forward to conversing with a close friend with what matters to him most, the Land of Israel. Yitzhak has mentioned Ben-Tzion before on July 29th, just before the War broke out. He was the young man who accompanied Yitzhak on the road from Mervits back to Mlynov when they were accosted verbally by non-Jewish road repair workers (see July 29th). The pending visit of Ben-Tzion prompts Yitzhak to open up a bit emotionally about how isolated he has felt once the War began. The situation was so difficult that he felt that he couldn’t talk about his dreams to make aliyah- to do so he feels would be selfish on his part. But as a result he has had no one he can converse with about his hopes and dreams. He can’t even talk to his brother, Moshe:

I don’t know why I can’t talk to him about matters close to my heart, whether because of his unusual attitude towards me? Or perhaps because he closes everything inside and the words he utters are displeasing to me, for example, words in opposition to Zionism and related matters, etc. etc.

The arrival of the HaShiloach, also probably made Yitzhak a bit more hopeful. Yitzhak had thought the War would have at least temporarily halted its publication. But the editors announced that they would keep publishing anyway. Yitzhak got to read the continuation of the story written by A. A. Kabak which he started in the earlier issue, which he mentioned on July 27th. The opportunity to read about lives in the Land of Israel and talk with his friend Ben-Tzion restored some of Yitzhak’s hope. “my heart still believes that despite all this that this difficult moment will pass and all will return to the way it was before and among all those saved, I will be saved also.”

In conclusion, Yitzhak indicates that the material arrived today for the charity plates that are set out in the synagogue in preparation for the Day of Atonement, when people express their atonement by giving charity. It is not entirely clear what Yitzhak means in saying that “we received the material to organize the charity plates.” It seems that the “we” here may refer to his family who runs the store or to the community in general. Whether the material to make the plates or the plates themselves arrived is not entirely clear. Last year, Yitzhak indicates they raised over 59,000 rubles for the settlement in the Land of Israel but he expects the donations to be depressed this year because of the War situation.

Interpretive Summary – Friday, September 11, 1914

In his entry on this day, Yitzhak admits to feeling mentally and physically exhausted in part he suspects from the physical exertion digging a pit behind his house. The purpose of the pit was to bury a barrel of squash to “refrigerate” it for use later in winter. It seems probable this was one of his chores for his household or his family’s store. In addition, the current situation also continues to weigh on him, especially the situation facing the Jews. Only towards the end of his entry does he reveal that he went to see the new wounded who were brought into Mlynov yesterday as well as Austrian prisoners of War.

It is no wonder that Yitzhak feels that he has had trouble concentrating enough to write in his diary about some of the events going on. His comments this day about the situation of the Jews in Russia is very similar to what he wrote on August 23rd using similar language and the same metaphors: the Jews are a lamb being brought to slaughter and their fate is like that of a pitcher – it breaks whether it falls on a stone or the stone falls on it.

Yitzhak again points to Russian hypocrisy. Though Jews have contributed substantial blood and money to the War cause, their contribution is not valued. And the façade of the reactionary groups like the Black Hundreds that have been pretending to love the Jews during the War is starting wearing thin. Their true anti-Jewish colors are starting to appear through “the veil” they wear. As an example, Yitzhak cites a report in one of the Russian newspapers about Jews who were pretending to carry a coffin of someone who needed burial but in fact had money inside that they were trying to get to Germany.

The turmoil produced by War, Yitzhak writes, is preventing him from writing about other topics close to his heart, such as the beauty of the fall days, which he describes in beautiful language:

There were already several times that I had material to write about, but I was not able to write. Here now, for example, during the days of [the month] Elul, during the days of fall, I wanted to write but I postponed my writing from day to day. I wanted to write on fall days, some of my favorite days. I love these days and especially when they are beautiful and clear, how lovely the yellowish hue hovers over everything, everything is submerged in purple, I love the withered leaves that fall to the ground, I love to look at the appearance of gardens and buzzing fields, with pure and silent grief poured on them; I love [116] to look at the river and to the end that turns a fine gold. I love the days of fall. I want to write about them, but it is hard for me to write during these terrible days.

Interpretive Summary – Tuesday, September 15, 1914

In this entry, the final one in his first notebook, Yitzhak admits he is finding it hard to know where to begin. He wanted to write yesterday but kept postponing doing so, “through negligence,” he tells us. “There is much to write, but nevertheless it is hard to begin.”

The Jews are like an “atonement chicken,” he writes, invoking a powerful new metaphor he hasn’t used before. He has said earlier they are like “a lamb led to slaughter” and like a “pitcher that breaks falling on or by being hit by a rock.” Here he is referring to the traditional Jewish practice of expiation (kapparot) that takes place shortly before Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. He was probably thinking of this ritual because the Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashanah) was only days away and the Day of Atonement would follow ten days later. We can guess that at least some of the traditional Jews in Mlynov engaged in this atonement ritual in which they symbolically transfer their sins to the chicken or rooster by swinging or waving a chicken above their heads while reciting prayers. Yitzhak doesn’t develop the metaphor further. But we can gather what he probably means: the Jews are like the helpless atonement chicken, “a scapegoat” or “sacrificial lamb” of peoples on both sides of the War. The sins of both sides were visited on the Jews.

Yitzhak explains the plight of the Jews. While most Russians are happy over the recent successes that Russia was having in the War, for Jews such victories were a two-edged sword. Yithak probably knew that in recent weeks, Russia has begun to turn the tide against Austria in the Battle of Gnila Lipa (Aug. 26-30th). Then during the battle of Battle of Rawa (Sept. 3-11) the Russian armies pushed the Austrian troops even further back into the Carpathian Mountains.

Although the Russians were having victories now and the front had moved further west, the Jews suffered no matter who was winning. Both “here and there” Yitzhak writes, “the air is suffused with strong awful hate against the Jews.” Yitzhak mentions one incident that came to his attention: Russian soldiers and the local Poles in the Chelm community joined together to desolate the Jews there. Chelm was under Tsarist rule even before the War started. But intense fighting between Austrian and Russian armies had taken place near Chelm in the earlier Battles of Krasnik and Komarov.

Yitzhak reiterates the certainty he expressed in earlier entries that the newfound love of the Jews displayed among the Russian newspapers and the reactionary group, the Black Hundreds, was to be short-lived and the “veil” covering their hatred was already showing signs of slipping. The libelous news story that Yitzhak recounted in his previous entry – about traitorous Jews hiding money in a coffin for Germany – was apparently the topic of a sermon by a local priest in Mlynov before his congregation. On this somber note, Yitzhak ends his last diary entry in his first notebook. It will be six months before he takes up pen again and starts his second notebook.

Notebook 2

July 1915

Interpretive Summary – Sunday, July [25], 1915

Interpretive Summary – Wednesday, July 28, 1915

Yitzhak’s diary entry for July 28, 1915 is a peek into the trench preparations in Mlynov, as the Russians anticipate the approach of the Eastern front, and into some frictions in Yitzhak’s personal life. Yitzhak indicates that he is now a recorder or scribe who is keeping track of the Jews who are coming out to dig trenches. He is also getting paid for the work. Yitzhak doesn’t say why the names need to be recorded, but he is delivering the list to the military council, the body that mediates between the military and the civilian authority. Presumably the list is tied into a quota system, and we know from his prior diary entry that the military authorities required Jews and non-Jews in Mlynov to dig trenches.

A week earlier, Yitzhak reports, he was sitting behind a pile of material when the non-Jewish men who were digging ridiculed the Jews who were digging and threw rocks at them. On a scrap of paper, he jotted down his reaction to the incident which he copied into his diary entry today. He wants to record this incident for the future so when he later faces his hardships in the Land of Israel, he will remember how awful it was living in galut, in exile. “Let me then remember this well and know that it is better to live in the land of the ancestors in a Hebrew surroundings and to be free to suffer sadness and grief than live life here in this terrible and difficult exile (galut).”

Another aggravating incident happened yesterday when Yitzhak was bringing the list of Jews who dug that day to the military council. Along the village road, Yitzhak encountered a soldier who mockingly called him a “Zhid” and threw a rock that struck him in the head. Behind him was another soldier who performed some ugly gesture to frighten Yitzhak, which provoked laughter and ridicule by non-Jews who were following. Yitzhak describes how he had to bite his lip and keep silent despite the storm of emotions inside him. The humiliation was unbearable. “And I would go out of my mind with anguish and pain – were it not for one ray of distant light which is: the Land of Israel.”

After recounting these disturbing incidents, Yitzhak shifts to personal matters. On the fast of Tisha B’Av eight days earlier (July 20th), Yitzhak wrote a letter to Hinda Weitz commending her for her inner strength and courage. Hinda was the daughter of Abraham Weitz, the man whom Yitzhak hoped to journey with to the Land of Israel during the previous summer before the War began. Hinda’s brother, Yosef Weitz, had earlier made aliyah in 1908 and was prominent in what is known as “the second aliyah.”

The Weitz family lived in the forest in the small village of Bokiima, 13 km (8 miles) away and they regularly sent a messenger to Mlynov to pick up goods at the store of Yitzhak’s family. Yitzhak mentioned Hinda’s name a year ago in his diary. When her father, Abraham Weitz, decided he couldn’t make the journey to the Land of Israel, there was still a possibility that his daughter Hinda would still go with another relative. Yitzhak was hopeful back then (during July 1914) that he would journey with them.

In his recent letter to Hinda, Yitzhak commended her on the special inner courage that he saw in her previously but especially recently now that she was the sole member of the household to remain living in the forest with her father. Yitzhak does not say why the other household members left, but it seems likely it has something to do with the War and perhaps the approach of the Eastern Front.

It seems possible, perhaps even likely, that Hinda is the love interest that Yitzhak alludes to but doesn’t name in his journal entry nearly a year before on August 18, 1914. The fact that Yitzhak mentions writing letters to her now and the interest his brother Moshe exhibits in reading the content of his letter (more on this below) suggests that this is not a simple correspondence between friends.

In any case, Hinda responded quickly to Yitzhak’s letter, though he does not say what she wrote. Yitzhak responded quickly to her letter that same Thursday (either July 22nd or 29th). But he sat on it for a few days and then rewrote it Saturday night (“Mosei Shabbat”). Since he had to leave for his work at the trenches early the next morning, he asked his brother Moshe to give the letter to a messenger to take to Hinda’s home in the forest in Bokiima. Yitzhak was suspicious his brother might open the letter and sure enough when he returned home, he found it opened inside his brother’s coat. Moshe tried to defend his actions but Yitzhak knew it was a lame excuse. The two brothers have not been close, ever since the War started. Yitzhak mentions in an entry on September 9, 1914 that could not talk to his brother about his feelings especially his dream of making aliyah.

No messenger came from the forest for a week and Yitzhak’s letter sat waiting to be sent. Then yesterday, Yitzhak learned that a messenger was going to be coming from the forest, and he again asked his brother to send the letter. But Moshe replied that the letter was already sent. Yitzhak doubts him and ends his diary entry noting that “meanwhile I need to check his pockets…”

August 1915

Interpretive Summary – Wednesday night, August 10, 1915

Yitzhak had a hiatus in his diary writing for thirteen days and here he tells us why. He has been at the trenches all day, apparently continuing his role as a recorder but perhaps also digging. He continued to earn rubles for his work and got a special assignment that earned him more. But his wages will probably decline soon because a new officer and new typists arrived in town and they set the wages for his work lower. Despite being so busy, and not having time to write in the diary, he managed to write a poem called “No Escape or Refuge From Wars,” which has unfortunately been lost. However, he quotes a few lines from the poem, expressing both the inescapability of war but the persistence of hopes. Presumably he is referring to his dream to make aliyah.

After the general update, Yitzhak provides an update on his letter writing with his friend Hinda Weitz. He is disappointed he has not gotten a response to his second letter he wrote her, which he mentioned writing on July 28th. This time he tells us why he values those letters so much. “There are few girls among our people who know how to write Hebrew and who understand the spirit of the Hebrew heart.” And anyway, Yitzhak doesn’t have that many acquaintances with whom he can be open with.

On Sunday this week Yitzhak wrote her another letter asking her the reason for her silence. He would have sent it that day himself, but to his irritation he ended up sitting with Yitzhak the administrator (staroste) working out the wages for the trench digging. Yitzhak Ferteybaum, the administrator, was remembered by his granddaughter in an essay in the memorial book who describes him as a Stolin Hasid who was very learned and respected by all (see “Stoliner Hasidism in Mlynov,” 78-81, Mlynov-Muravica Memorial Book.) After working all day Sunday with Yitzhak the administrator, Yitzhak was occupied the rest of the week at the trenches and couldn’t send the letter himself. Nor did he trust his brother Moshe to send the letter without reading it.

Interpretive Summary – Thursday, August 11, 1915

Yitzhak wrote a short entry the day after his last entry in order to give a quick update on the status of his second letter to Hinda Weitz. Luckily, today, he was able to return home early from the trenches because his work as a recorder was done after the military typist was there. There was a messenger there who was headed to the Weitz home in the forest so Yitzhak handed him the letter to deliver to Hinda Weitz.

The update on the letter is followed by Yitzhak’s familiar reflections on how awful exile is. As in the past (see August 18, 1914) he rails against those who “favor exile.” This time, however, he notes that he has no news of what is going on currently in the Land of Israel. No Hebrew or “jargon” [i.e., Yiddish] newspapers are reaching him. Yitzhak uses the disparaging term “jargon” for Yiddish reflecting the Zionist preference for Hebrew and the view that Yiddish itself is a corrupted language and symptom of exile.

Interpretive Summary – Wednesday, August 17, 1915

Yitzhak’s diary entry is a gloss on a poem by Hayim Nachman Bialik about the end of summer. It has been raining nonstop in Mlynov for several days and the pending change in seasons apparently reminded Yitzhak of Bialik’s poem, which was originally published in 1907-1908. Yitzhak quotes a verse from the poem and then gives it his own spin. Bialik writes: “Check your shoes? Patch your cloak? / go out and prepare the potatoes.” Yes, Yitzhak agrees. Do indeed “check your shoes and patch your cloak,” but not for normal living, but to get ready to flee town in case the War front draws close and residents are forced to leave. And don’t bother preparing the potatoes, Yitzhak says, because no one knows if they will be fortunate to eat them.

This is the first time since the trench digging began that Yitzhak has expressed such significant worry about the uncertainty facing the town from the Eastern Front. Everyone is vigilant and worried, he explains, and just wishes that whatever will be their fate should come sooner rather than later.

After this general update on atmosphere in town, Yitzhak indicates he still has not received a letter back from Hinda Weitz and he harbors the suspicion that she doesn’t want to continue a correspondence with him. But then an hour or so after finishing his writing, Moshe came from the family store and produced a letter from Hinda had arrived for Yitzhak. The contents of the letter was paltry. Hinda gave some lame excuses for not writing, but Yitzhak was happy anyway, since his suspicions that she didn’t want to correspond were unfounded. She was willing to continue the correspondence. He felt so positive about the letter that Yitzhak didn’t even vent in his diary about his brother again opening his letter.

Interpretive Summary – Wednesday, August 21, 1915

Yitzhak was out of the house during the day involved in distributing payments for trench digging. As a result, he missed the visit of Hinda Weitz and her mother to the family store. Of course, Yitzhak felt completely frustrated to learn he missed Hinda’s visit. He decides he must write her a second letter.

Interpretive Summary – Thursday, August 26, 1915

In this terse entry, Yitzhak mentions sending a follow up letter to Hinda Weitz if she still hasn’t answered his previous letter. In the meantime, the past few days he has been going with Mlynov Jews to the trench digging in the village of Pidhaitsi, 7 km from Mlynov and part of another military section. There was not much work for Yitzhak there, though he does not say why and does not indicate whether he is involved in digging or in recording, the role he had in the trench digging in Mlynov. The rumors, however, are now swirling around them as the Eastern Front of the War continues to approach Lutsk. Reports of people fleeing their homes and being evacuated are terrifying and he realizes that they could also be facing a similar situation.

Interpretive Summary – Erev Shabbat (Sabbath Eve), Friday, September 3, 1915 in Dubno

In this vivid and powerful diary entry which Yitzhak wrote in Dubno, he recalls the events over the last week that led to his family’s evacuation from Mlynov. He is sorry that he didn’t write last week when the events were fresh in his mind; he is certain he already forgot some of the significant details in the wake of the chaos that is still continuing.

Be that as it may, Yitzhak manages to in fact capture what happened in riveting detail. The fact that he is writing this entry in Dubno on the “Sabbath eve” (Erev Shabbat) is telling. He has not written any other diary entries on the eve of the Sabbath to this point in his first or second notebook. That he is writing on a late Friday afternoon or possibly even on the Sabbath eve itself, when writing is proscribed by Jewish law, says a great deal about the intensity of turmoil.

The turmoil began on Thursday, August 25th, when fighting broke out in Lutzk between the Astro-Hungians and Russian armies. Convoys of military personnel and equipment left Lutzk on the road heading south past Mlynov. Refugees appeared in Mlynov on Saturday, the Sabbath.

That Sunday (August 28th), Yitzhak went to the village of Pidhaitsi, which was about 7 km southeast of Mlynov, to get paid for the work he did there earlier in the week at the trenches. He didn’t get paid. When he returned home that day, he found his family members frightened by rumors that Cossacks had already entered Mervits and plundered and robbed there. The Cossacks were mounted fighters in the Russian Imperial army who were known for their calvary skills and traditional warrior ethos. Though serving in the Russian army, they reportedly would ransack and terrorize Jews even those in Russian territory. Meanwhile, the convoys of military personnel and equipment passing Mlynov from Lutsk were joined by similar convoys and refugees coming from Galicia in the West as the Russian army retreated and residents of towns fled ahead of the Austro-Hungarian advance.

Heavy gunfire could be heard in Mlynov that day. On Sunday night, the family went to bed with their clothes on in case they needed to flee. Yitzhak’s aunt, who lived with his family, woke up at night and heard soldiers in their yard shouting back and forth that a telegram had arrived with orders to hurry up and get on the road. When Yitzhak’s aunt and father went outside to investigate, they rushed back inside in a panic. Mervits appeared to be engulfed in flames. Everyone was terrified. They subsequently realized that Russian soldiers had set fire to piles of grain near Mervits, probably to prevent the Austro-Hungarian troops from using it as the Russian army retreated. More refugees began arriving from Demydivka which was 25 km west of Mlynov. That same night, other soldiers pushed into Yitzhak’s home and threatened to set the house on fire. About this dramatic moment, Yitzhak says no more. Apparently, the soldiers did not burn down the house and we don’t know how Yitzhak’s family resolved that situation. Indeed, Yitzhak doesn’t tell us yet in this entry when his family left Mlynov. He picks up that story in his next diary entry.

Almost as an afterthought here, Yitzhak remembered to mention another significant refugee who appeared in town. David Weitz and his wife fled from Nadchytsi to Mlynov from fear of the Cossacks. The fact that Yitzhak almost forgot to mention David’s arrival and had almost nothing else to say about it, illustrates just how discombobulated he had become. David was prominent in Yitzhak’s earlier diary entries from the summer of 1914 (notebook 1). Back then, Yitzhak was dreaming of making aliyah with David’s family and Yitzhak was assisting David manage subscriptions to newspapers. More importantly, David was the brother of Hinda Weitz, the young woman that Yitzhak was writing letters to and apparently had a crush on. Surprisingly, Yitzhak has nothing to say here about either his earlier dreams of aliyah nor his letter writing with Hinda. His mind is obviously preoccupied elsewhere.

Interpretive Summary – Sunday, September 5, 1915, Dubno

Yitzhak continues telling the story of his flight from Mlynov. In his last entry, several terrifying experiences befell his family on Sunday last week. The situation continued to deteriorate and by Wednesday last week, Yitzhak and his brother Moshe decide to flee with Mlynov householders who packed wagons and were ready to leave town. Yitzhak does not tell us whether his parents were involved in his and his brother’s decision to leave or whether, as his entry seems to imply, the brothers made the decision on their own. Later in this entry, we learn that Yitzhak’s family is now split three ways. He and Moshe are in Dubno, his sisters in Baranivka, and his parents, he thinks, fled to Varkovychi, though “God only knows where they are.”

Yitzhak describes painful and harrowing leave-taking from Mlynov as full of wailing and crying as he and Moshe left with three wagons, one carrying Moshe Shteren and [Mr.] Diyunetz, one belonging to the lawyer Pinchosovitz, and one to Leibush “the agent.” Nothing is known of Moshe Shteren and Mr. Diyunetz. Yitzhak previously mentioned the lawyer Pinchosovitz in his diary, describing him as the lawyer who called him to take notes at the military council that was discussing the trench digging activity (see his first entry in Notebook 2). Leibush may refer to Leibush Gelberg, the patriarch of the Gelberg family that migrated to America and documented elsewhere. His granddaughter wrote an essay later in life describing the evacuation of her family from Mlynov.

As the party of refugees traveled along the road toward Dubno, they could see billowing smoke from villages on fire and burning piles of grain including those near a schnaps distillery. Scattered by the side of the road were piles of goods abandoned by other refugees who passed this way earlier and who tried to lighten the heavy wagon load for their horses. When the party reached the village of Podgayetz they had trouble entering due to the large number of refugees. But eventually they made it there and rested, before heading to Dubno. Along the way they decided they would stay in Dubno and see what developed.

Not long after they reached Dubno, however, they reconsidered their decision, especially when an announcement went out that all people from age 17 to 45 must leave the city. Then they learned that the ruling applied only to Christians and they thought again about staying. But then they learned that the exemption for Jews was short-lived. Jews too would have to leave the city before they blew up the bridges later that day.

As Yitzhak recalls the week’s events, he thinks about his serene life and home back in Mlynov and the library of books in the basement that were left behind. He imagines the Cossacks breaking into the basement and destroying the books. Thank goodness, he thinks to himself, he saved his two notebooks that contained his diary.

It is good I saved my writings and notebooks etc. – if not for this, I don’t know what I would do! I imagine I would go crazy, because are not my spiritual outputs part of my life, and without them, it is as a large part of my life was lost. But who knows if this precious possession will still be saved, if the tumult grows so much more, who knows what will happen in the coming moments and hours.

Interpretive Summary – [September 8, 1915] Eve of the New Year in Dubna

Yitzhak wrote three days earlier about his experience fleeing Mlynov and his entrance to Dubna. It is now the eve of Rosh Hashanah when Yitzhak gives an update on the increasingly fraught circumstances. The fact that he is writing on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, a time when writing is normally forbidden and one is in synagogue or home celebrating with family, underscores just how dramatically Yitzhak’s situation has changed. Indeed, the situation has deteriorated significantly. The Russian army left the city and burned the bridges on the way out. They heard somehow that Austrian military spies are moving about the city but no one can figure out why the Austrian army which is close by has not occupied the city. It remains a riddle. It is not clear why Yitzhak and his brother Moshe and their Mlynov companions have not been evacuated or left on their own.

In spite of his situation, Yitzhak finds the wherewithal to reflect briefly on the year that has passed. “It is possible to express the essence of this year in several short words,” he writes. “It has been a year cursed by sword, famine and grief.” Humanity in general has suffered greatly from the War, but the Jewish community suffered the most, with the direct and indirect effects of the War. Yitzhak wonders too about the situation in the Land of Israel. Hebrew and Yiddish newspapers are no longer appearing and nothing is known about how the settlements there are faring.

On a more personal note, Yitzhak notes painfully that he and his brother are in a foreign place and are not with family for the holiday. His family is scattered into three parts and he is not sure where his parents are. He thinks wistfully about the natural signs of fall that signaled this time of year back home, the arrival of Elul, the month before the Days of Awe. The leaves would turn yellow and wither. Where oh where are you my silent hometown?” he writes. “Where are you all? Where have you all wandered, my precious and beloved parents?! We have indeed been split into three parts, and the good God knows when we will be joined together again as at first. Yikes! My heart is torn to shreds in thinking about the situation our family finds itself in now, my heart is torn to shreds! And my heart is full of sadness and grief and there is no rest for my soul.

Interpretive Summary – Monday, September 13, 1915, Dubna

Rosh Hashanah is over and Yitzhak is still alive, “still standing,” in Dubna. This is the period called the “Ten Days of Repentance” on the Jewish calendar, the period between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, a period when Jews metaphorically or literally believe God decides the fate of every person that year. The relevance is not lost on Yitzhak who feels that his own life is seriously endangered. Canon balls fly over the city. The Russian army has pulled out and Yitzhak believes that the Austrian military is now in control, though it is uncertain if the Russians will attack again. The authorities are not allowing the refugees who arrived in Dubna to leave the city. This may be why Yitzhak is still there in Dubna himself. He is reconciled to whatever happens to him now. But he still feels intense grief thinking about his parents, wherever they are, and especially his father.

Interpretive Summary – Wednesday, September 15, 1915, Dubno

Yitzhak is still in Dubno, distraught and evidently bored out of his mind. His situation reminds him of a poem he wrote a year or so earlier which he quotes in the diary. It is not clear if he is remembering the poem by heart or has his poetry writings with him at the time. In any case, Yitzhak complains that he is bored and he can’t focus:

There is nothing to interest you. Everything lacks interest. Everything is so unimpressive and useless, it is impossible to do anything. To read, to write – there is no patience and there is not that peace of mind required especially for the first [i.e., the activity of] (reading). Nothing can hold my focus, and the worm of boredom and grief don’t stop gnawing the heart, and you don’t know how to silence the gnawing pain

Yitzhak also reports the news he received from Mlynov. Apparently, soldiers have moved into all the houses, the cloister has been converted to a stable and the remaining residents have been taken for various types of labor. There is nothing to eat and no necessities. Yitzhak believes his group from Mlynov may receive a certificate soon authorizing them to return home. But what would they do there? “How will we enter houses filled with soldiers? Will they let us enter? With what can we prove to them that these are our houses? We are at a loss.” Yitzhak tries hard not to think about their future because it weakens his resolve too much.

Interpretive Summary – Sunday, September 19, 1915 (Notzitz / Nadchytsi)

It is Sunday, the day after the fast day of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Yitzhak spent the holiest day of the year in the town of Notzitz, [today Nadchytsi, Ukraine]. Nadchytsi is 18 km (about 11 miles) north of Mlynov just west of the road to Lutsk. This is Yitzhak’s first diary entry since arriving here. Yitzhak had hoped to catch up on his diary writing earlier, on Friday, the eve of Yom Kippur, but he ran out of time as he faced the difficult experiences on the road from Dubna and new ones since arriving here, which he recounts.

On Thursday last week (September 16), he left Dubna, with his brother, and some of the Mlynov travelers who he previously accompanied to Dubna. They set out on the road towards Mlynov, but the going was slow and when they got near the town, the bridges had been burned down by the evacuating Russian army were still not repaired by the Austrians who now held the territory. The travelers’ horses were not able to enter town and so the traveling party continued along the road and they headed to Notzitz, the town in which some members in the traveling party lived.

Mlynov was already 22 km (13-14 mi) from Dubna and Notzitz was about another 18 km (11 mi) along the road. It is no wonder that Yitzhak complained that they weren’t used to such walking. Along the way, when they got near Mervits, they ran into another unnamed Mlynov person who had also been in Dubna and who was headed home. Yitzhak wanted to return home even if their home was destroyed and there was nothing left. But his brother Moshe refused to go since they might go hungry there and they had no purpose in returning. So they pushed on and headed towards Notzitz. They spent a difficult night out in the cold and dark along the road. They finally reached the town of Notzitz on Friday afternoon, the eve of Yom Kippur. The Shteren family who had a home in Notzitz found only the four walls of their homes still standing. Everything else was destroyed and vandalized.

The observance of Yom Kippur was bleak for Yitzhak. They all wept when they greeted each other with “happy new year,” and Yitzhak was reminded of the observance in better days in his father’s home. After Yom Kippur ended, Yitzhak planned to leave with David Weitz who was going to pass by Mlynov on the way to the forest near Bokiima to check on the well-being of his parents and sister and their family home. However, events intervened changing their plans.

While they were praying on Saturday, during Yom Kippur, they saw Austrian patrols standing outside and looking in the opposite direction. It soon became clear that the Austrians were retreating due to an advance of the Russian army backed by reinforcements. Not long afterwards, they saw wagons carrying German residents along the road. They reported that the Austrians told them to evacuate before the Russian soldiers arrived.

Two men in Yitzhak’s party (Eleazar Shteren and Shumel Hochberg) left quickly towards Lutzk further north. Yitzhak wanted to go with them, but they left before he could gather up his possessions. The prayer quorum broke up and Yitzhak spent the rest of the day in fear. Russian soldiers passed by and some even stopped and recounted the Austrian retreat.

As Yitzhak was writing, more Russian soldiers and fearsome Cossacks passed on the road. News reached him that a Cossack battalion was even going to be stationed in town. Yitzhak’s spirit is understandably broken. He finds himself interested in nothing anymore, not even in the course of the War, which once interested him. Nor does he even mention the Land of Israel which up until recently was a constant preoccupation.

Interpretive Summary – Tuesday, September 21, 1915, Notzitz [Nadchytsi, Ukraine]

So many thoughts are running through Yitzhak’s head that he is having trouble knowing where to begin his diary entry. Nonetheless, he does find the words to give a powerful sense of what he and his brother Moshe are experiencing staying in the “forest” of Notzitz [Nadchytsi, Ukraine], near the newly forming Eastern Front. The Russians were retreating all summer but now in September they have stopped the withdrawal and are forming new lines of resistance that run close to where the boys are staying. Luckily they are not hungry. There are potatoes in the fields and they can obtain flour. Still, they have not bathed for a month and they fear for their lives. What will their fate be?

Yitzhak is thinking of what’s been lost and is fearful of what’s to come. His agony about what’s lost comes in this diary entry in thoughts about the fate of their books in their home collection, a thought he expressed in one of his earlier diary entries as well (see Sept. 5). Yitzhak remembers how and when they chose each of the books they bought. And he remembers how he and his brother Moshe carried all the books down to the basement. Twice he tells us though he doesn’t say why it occurred more than once. And Yitzak remembers quite painfully the trunk of “Father’s books” that he and Moshe carried to the attic, thinking, stupidly, that they would be safe there from the tyrant of War around them; they should have known better, he now knows.

Rumors are reaching them that the worst fighting is occurring right in the middle of his hometown Mlynov in what he calls the “the second battle.” By that, he is referring to the fighting at the end of what is now known as the Russian Great Retreat. That retreat followed Gorlice-Tarnow battle that began in May 1915. During the summer months, the Russian army pulled back from their positions in Galicia and Poland. Now the Russian army had stopped retreating and a new line of the Eastern Front was being established and it ran close to where Yitzhak and Moshe were staying.

After expressing some of his loss and fear, Yitzhak gently castigates himself. What right does he have to listen to such thoughts in his head? After all, for a good part of the War so far, his family remained relatively untouched while others were being evacuated or fleeing and experiencing the loss of home and even life. As Yitzhak puts it:

But there is something that I think to myself, what is the noise [in my head]? Why do I complain incessantly? In as much as during the year of war when I was staying safely in my parents’ home with enough food, healthy – how many of our brethren suffered in other places? And I, as much as I knew about it, nonetheless felt the burden of the situation in its entirety, and here now we find ourselves in a terrible situation like this. Such is life, I think to myself sometimes. Truly, for my part, I accept it all with love, but in recalling the sadness of my family – my heart is torn apart. And now Moshe and I stay in Notzitz, until when? – the Lord knows. Meanwhile it is not possible to go anywhere, we are like prisoners here in prison.

Interpretive Summary – Sunday, Sept. 26, 1915, Nadchytsi

Yitzhak is bereft. He is writing on the second intermediate day of the festival of booths (Sukkot) while he is still staying in Notzitz (Nadchytsi). Even more than the observance of New Year and Yom Kippur observances, the festival of Sukkot triggered powerful and painful memories for the young man of idyllic times he spent the festival in his family home. His brings those memories to life. He remembers the smells and beauty of the festival as he, his brother and father returned from synagogue and entered the Sukkah (booth) his family had constructed. He is distraught that in his current situation he was not able to bathe or change his clothes for the festival. There was no white shirt he could change into. He recalls too all the dishes they used during the festivals. They were all “imprinted” with memories from their use and all of them are probably now gone, and their memories with them. His heart spills over from all the sadness and grief as he thinks of his family members who are celebrating the festival in Baranivka, 138 km [86 m] east of his location. Yitzhak’s memory of his books again tears his heart apart. He remembers the ones that were in a bookcase in the vestibule of his home. Every time he entered the house, he would go there first and admire them. These books have become the symbol, a synecdoche, of all he has lost.

In spite of being torn apart with grief and his heart about to explode, he still briefly mentions his lifelong dream to make aliyah. Normally he will go on and on about that aspiration, but his articulation is shortened and muted here. It is clear he wants to flee exile still but he is understandably occupied by loss and fear.

Indeed, the previous night was sleepless. During the night they realized the Russians were evacuating the area. They heard frequent shooting close by and convoys moving in the distance:

In the morning we went outside and there was silence all around. No Russians, no Austrians. The telegraph of the Russian army stopped and meanwhile we live in fear without knowing our fate. Look how fate plays with us and casts me about and I am like a football [lit. game ball].

Interpretive Summary – Monday, September 27, 1915 Nadchytsi

Yitzhak continues to recount his emotional state in Nadchytsi. Mostly boredom attacks him since there is no work to be done or other kinds of interests to occupation, though he does mention he got a respite digging potatoes today and drawing water. Yitzhak’s intense fear has subsided now that the Austrians arrived. So far they are acting like a benevolent parent. How long that will last is unknown and Yitzhak is longing to go back to Mlynov to see what if anything remains of their home and assets. In the meantime, Yitzhak has nothing to do. He can’t get his hands on a book to read nor can he spend time writing for several reasons that he enumerates. First, his pages of writing, which probably include his poetry and earlier diary entries, are sewn up tightly into a bundle ready to be thrown on his back or on a wagon if they have to flee again. He doesn’t want to open the bundle since he doesn’t have a needle and thread and in any case he wants to be ready to evacuate if necessary. Second, his emotional state is not conducive to writing. “The heart becomes too foolish. From tragedy and grief.”

During his stay in Nadchytsi, Yitzhak has been thinking about going “to Russia,” which he clarifies to mean places under Russian control and in particular to his family members in Baranivka. He has mentioned that his sisters were in Baranivka in earlier diary entries, though he seems to imply that his parents, whose location was unknown earlier, may also be there as well now. Reaching Baranivka, Yitzhak thinks, would give him an opportunity to earn some money teaching Hebrew lessons and perhaps even establishing a Hebrew school. But then as if realizing how foolish his aspiration sounds is in his present situation, he acknowledges that “reality takes its toll and grabs the bridle of life in her hands…” The weighty question of what to do next will have to wait until the present situation becomes clearer. And then “we will know.”

Interpretive Summary – Wednesday, September 29, 1915, Hoshana Rabbah, Nadchytsi

It is the seventh and last day of Sukkot, the holiday known as Hoshana Rabbah. Yitzhak again is recalling the way the holiday was observed back home in Mlynov, the pleasant smells of the festival and the prayer service that went longer than expected. The photographic image of home life in his mind reminds him how miserable he feels now celebrating in a foreign place. Being in a foreign place for the holiday would not be so bad if it was by choice and he knew he could return to his hometown and that his home was still there. But now he is in a foreign place, and his “father’s home” is no longer standing, and his family members are celebrating elsewhere. He feels nothing celebrating Hoshana Rabbah here. Everything is profane. Yitzhak doesn’t have a change of clothes and there is no way to launder his clothes. They have also nearly run out of food and “and if not for the wife of Chaim Shteren who invites us every day to eat from her food – we would be actually starving.” Yitzhak so desires to be with his family, and be able to bathe and have a change of clothes “like a man,” that if he were able, he would go to them in Russia even at the risk of being conscripted into the Russian army. This is the first time Yitzhak has mentioned his worry about being conscripted and this may explain why he and his brother Moshe fled their hometown without the rest of the family when they headed to Dubno (see his account from September 5, 1915). Since he is now currently in Austrian-held territory, and the Eastern Front is close by, he probably could not dare cross now into Russia to rejoin his family. Though Yitzhak has more to say, he abruptly breaks off his diary entry here, because it is near evening and the festival of Shemini Atzeret is soon to begin.

October 1915

Interpretive Summary – Monday, October 4, 1915, Nadchytsi

The holiday season is over and Yitzhak, looking back over this difficult time, realizes he felt almost nothing. Everything seemed profane. With the holidays behind them, the various members of the group taking refuge in Nadchytsi begin to leave. Needless to say, the leave-taking was difficult. One group left heading for Boremel, 53 km (33 m) southwest of Nadchytsi and 38 km (24 m) west of Mlynov. The group included David Weitz and his wife, and Michel Hochberg and his wife and sister. The Weitzes were going to continue further beyond Boremel to Horochov [now Horikhiv, Ukraine] to be with David’s family.

The Weitz family held a special place in Yitzhak’s heart. Back in the summer of 1914 when Yitzhak began his diary writing, he was making plans to travel to the Land of Israel with David’s father, Abraham Weitz. At the time, the family lived in the forest of Bokiima, which was 13 km (8 miles) west of Mlynov. Then in the summer of 1915, after the War broke out, Yitzhak was preoccupied with writing letters to David’s sister, Hinda Weitz, who may have been his love interest (see for example his entry on July 28, 1915).

According to Yitzhak’s diary entry from September 15, 1915, David Weitz was still intending to go to his family at Bokiima at that point. In the last few weeks since then, as the Eastern Front moved into the vicinity of Mlynov, the Weitz family must have fled further west to Horokhiv which was deeper in Austria controlled territory. Yitzhak does not tell us how David Weitz learned that his family had gone there and we can surmise that information was spreading by word of mouth or by handwritten notes during this difficult period. It is telling that Yitzhak doesn’t mention Hinda Weitz by name, given how focused he was only months before in his correspondence with her. Nor does he mention his earlier plan to make aliyah with them. The War and the situation of its Eastern Front nearby has interrupted those earlier preoccupations.

Remaining in Nadchytsi with Yitzhak was Chaim Shteren and his family and the widow Chantzi Goldberg. Yitzhak and his brother, Moshe, had been with Chaim Shteren ever since leaving Mlynov at the start of September (see his entry from September 5th). They traveled together to Dubno, stayed together in Dubno, and then were on the road together to Nadchytsi. Chaim Shteren headed to Lutsk to learn more about whether he should stay put in Nadchytsi where he is. Yitzhak’s brother Moshe went with him to try to learn about whether residents in Hubyn Peshyi were still in their town where Moshe earlier worked and where they had friends (see, for example, the entry on July 19, 1914). If possible, they would make their way there.