Max talks about his father, Eli Lien, and how his father enjoyed the social life woven into synagogue observance. Max shares a uniquely detailed portrayal of his father's playful/joyful behavior.
MAX: Max, interviewed by Lisa or talking with other family members It was natural! I told you that my father, he was a plain man, plain man. He enjoyed to go to shul because he had his pals, and soon as the heat went off from the praying, he found place for comic, making fun of it. It was part of life. It wasn't a ritual that you have now, it was part of life!
Everybody wants a little fun, so where do you get fun? In the synagogue, you get fun. In the synagogue, you used to sit around the table, and my father was sitting; and across the street, the tailor where he lived across the street, Chaim Moshe, his name was, he was sitting there... the other guy, he didn't understand no jokes. He was simply [a] one-track mind. But my father liked fun, so he used to answer him, you know, get him to look like what you call... trap him…
IMAGE: Max's father, Eli Lien
NARRATOR: Lisa, backgrounding/commenting. The importance of the synagogue as a source of psychological release, camaraderie and a restoration of a sense-of-self is paramount. It was an information center, organizing the collection and distribution of charity, acting as a courthouse, providing shelter to travelers. It was a neighborhood bar, where all would gather at night to discuss the world and their families, celebrate weddings, bar mitzvahs and circumcisions, and to forget about their struggles for awhile. We are given a sense of the chaotic disorder of the shul in the following account by Isaac Baer Levinsohn:
QUOTE: Each chapel or house of prayer or synagogue abides by its own rules; there is no uniformity of service, only general disorder general disorder. This one demolishes what another has built; this one jumps while the other shouts; this one moans his loss while the other one complacently smokes; this man eats while that man drinks. One has just begun his prayer as another has finished it, one converses while the next one chants. Here one deliberates on the events of the day and there another indulges in ridicule; this one jokes and that one pulls by the ear. Quarrels and fisticuffs often ensue about private as well as public matters ... Absence of decorum was the rule, the gossiping in the women's gallery above calmly ignoring the strenuous entreaties of the beadle to quiet down. /10/
MAX: [We were] going to synagogue not only to pray, but to have fun! It was like a clubhouse! There are certain moments in the Jewish life where you pray, like Yom Kippur with the candles, but there are also moments in the Jewish life that there is a lot of fun! ... Like Simchas Torah, for instance ... Sukkoth, there are other times where the Jews enjoy themselves! It's not only [to] pray to God, it's to pray to people, from people to people! That's why the Jew had in history, he was not only always worried and pray[ing] ... his life was not [all] bad, he had moments of joy, moments of gaity, and moments of everything.
MAX: So my father used to be a kibbitzer. What was a kibbitzer? For instance I'll tell you another instance. Our house was one side, and Chaim Moshe's house was across the street. My father used to make ladies' garments, for the goys, and Chaim Moshe used to be a men's tailor, for the goyim. My father was a kibbitzer and in the middle of [being] busy, if he felt good, [and] he made a good day's work, [or my mother used to give him a good time sometimes ... so he was freilach /1/! So he opened the window, [and called]:
"Chaim Moshe!"
He called his neighbor across the street. Chaim Moshe was a Yid, you know a Jew, that he was always ready for a little fun, a little fun. And when my father used to call him he knew it's not for nothing. He wants to have a little fun. Heh! So he used to call to him:
"Chaim Moshe! Come 'ere!"
Chaim Moshe used to [go] around, my fat her used to open the window – we're talking about summertime.
"Chaim Moshe!"
"Wha ... ?"
NARRATOR: Max begins to tell the story in Yiddish, then catches himself and continues in English
MAX: He put an idea. Now Chaim Moshe was ready already with the questions and he starts:
"...Sweet potatoes, ripe potatoes..."
It was for the sake of conversing or having fun…:
"...And vi fel matzoh balls did you eat today?"
And he had to give him a figure about all this.
/8/ Sachar, p. 192
/9/ Ibid
[6]
LISA: Lisa, interviewing her grandfather, Max What did your father say when Chaim Moshe gave him a figure?
MAX: Well, whatever! According to the figures! The purpose was accomplished, you know. It took him away from his misery of work, from the goys, from his customers, and to have a little fun! Always fun. That's why when we grow up in a poorhouse... but we had the blessing of a little fun, too. Life wasn't the altogether, like they sing in the songs, misery, misery, misery.
NARRATOR: The sarcastic, self-deprecating humor of 20th century Jewish American comedians is the result of the problems of transition from old world ways to the new. Here, too, the dry wit of Eli Lien, Max's father, is rooted in centuries of continual persecution with little hope of total or permanent acceptance by the gentile world. The mind that devoutly discussed the Talmud also exploited the follies of daily life, choosing rather mundane items with which to do so. As a product of mass media and thus recipient of various forms of comedy, I was waiting for a non-existent punchline as I listened to the above story. Having experienced all I have and more, Max knew that he had to clarify the point about the joke for my sake. Yiddish was the ideal language for conveying this wit.
MAX: So, now we have big committees, but those days a little item like that used to bring you out of the misery of the daily life, with a little fun among themselves. So, for instance you see my brother Joe. An old man, a big man... Would you believe that my father, when he was in a good mood... after evening, and good weather, and after a good supper, and business was good, he used to take Yossel, Joe, and take all his things from the table... and would put Yossel on the table.
"Tontz, tontz!"
He should dance! He should dance! There were no movies that time! There was nothing. So he wanted to make himself freilach... There was no phone, there was no movies, there was no phonograph, there was nothing! So... dance!
LISA: How old was Joe?
MAX: He wasn't old enough. And I remember even the melody!
Tontz, tontz Yoselleh,
Tontz, tontz Yoselleh, l
a la la la loh la la…
And Yoselleh would [do it!]
NARRATOR: Max demonstrates how Joe looked dancing on the table.
MAX: It's the truth! I remember it like now, like now.
NARRATOR: Experts claim that as we get older, our memories often become sharper, and we can recall events that occurred fifty years earlier in great detail. However, the specific circumstances of our lives also play a part in determining our recollections. One result of emigration was the dismissal of life before, especially for children. The memories of what was left behind were filed away in the minds of those who anticipated a new life in the land of freedom. Although some clung to the old ways out of fear, many cast them off, bit by bit, in the attempt to assimilate into American society.
Max was only a small boy when his father entertained himself by making his little brother dance. But the clarity and phenomenal detail of his recollection reveal a special treasure that perhaps is only retained as an effect of a traumatic occurrence. Although he had never recalled his childhood before –much of this material is, in fact, new to his children– he certainly never forgot it.
IMAGE: Praying, Germany, 1947
IMAGE: Joe (Yossele), approx. twenty years old