(going) The Extra Yad: November 2022

This post continues translation of letters and postcards in Yiddish (and, sometimes, Hebrew and a little bit of Russian) sent to Morris Lederman, who immigrated to the United States in 1910. Most of the correspondence, such as this one, were sent by Morris' father Levi Yitzkhak. For further background, see the first post in this series.

For links to other posts in this series, please scroll to the bottom.

Most of the correspondence saved by Morris Lederman was on postcards from his father. A few were letters. This letter and the letter sent to Morris on 28 November 1912 were sent in closed envelopes - the content hidden from prying Russian government eyes. The content as expected, therefore, was a bit more personal than what was seen in the postcards.

We do not have the original envelope for this letter. We have been lucky, however, in that Levi Yitzkhak identified the date on which he wrote to his son. By our calendar, the letter was written on Tuesday, 18 February (Gregorian calendar). The equivalent Russian date in the Julian calendar was 5 February. While he did not provide a year on the letter, we know that it had to have been 1913 because those dates fell on a Tuesday in that year.

Translation

Translation by Esther Chanie Dushinsky.

[Notes in blue as well as those at the end of the post are mine. For ease of reading, I have added paragraph breaks in the translation.]

Tuesday, February 5 Russian, February 18 English

My dear and beloved son Mr. Moshe Shalom Mordekhai, should live.

My dear son, we received all your cards _____ [torn] received a letter from Zanvel - received all my letters from home.[1]

Every time you write about wanting to visit Michel'n.[2] And you write that you can't go because you are lacking the money. And so, it's baffling to me. I don't understand what is going on. The entire time you wrote that you earn $10-12-13 a week. You used to ask to which address you should send the money. At a later time, you bought a watch for $75. And now it's actually the opposite. On the contrary, I see in all your letters that you barely get by in life...

And about conscription, my child, what are you planning? Well, my beloved son, from the 300 _____ [fine?] I am not even discussing.[3] But it is very bad for me. My opinion about the conscription. I am writing my opinion that you should come home, meaning you should come home and serve.

I can't seem to convince _____ to serve. You think it's a small thing to serve, serve ... _____[torn] we hear about the wars that happened _____[torn], also talking about a war here in Russia, Austria, Germany, etc...And they say that the soldiers are currently having a very hard time serving. Everything is very strict this year. They say that because they are preparing for a big war, they are very strict right now about serving. Bottom line, I am really unnerved about all of this. I don't rest, I don't sleep, just keep on thinking what we can do? What do we do? It is very bad, and very bad?

Moshe'le, you most likely are reading the papers there. Here we gather that the papers there are more accurate than our papers. Because here they write as usual, the _____ is hidden, so that the people should not be afraid.

My dear son, we can't even discuss mother, should live. Not a moment, a second passes that she isn't thinking about it.

Bottom line, my dear son, write to me about this, about your opinion.

I am sending you Faiga's letter.[4] I don't have any news to write about myself. My business isn't too great, but thank God for our health. God should help we should hear the same from you and God should help we should see each other in health and nakhas.

Your father who wants you to have good luck and it should be good, for your happiness and wealth. ________

I don't have anything to write about Zanvel'n. Everything is as usual. He himself wrote to you.

Notes:

1. Zanvel or Zeidel was Moshe's/Morris' older brother.

2. I have not yet determined this person's identity or where he lived in the United States.

3. If a young man called up for Russian military service did not appear (regardless of the fact that he had left the Russia), his family were fined 300 rubles - a huge sum. Gur Alroey, in his article "Out of the shtetl. In the Footsteps of Eastern European Jewish Emigrants to America, 1900-1914," estimated that it would have cost a Russian adult about 215 rubles to get to the United States - $107 in 1908 money; about $2860 in 2021. Leidschrift 22:2 (April 2007); http://easteurotopo.org/articles/alroey/ .

4. Faiga Grinfeld was Moshe's sister who lived with her husband and children in Baranovka.