Anna's Shtetl

23. The Two Korsuns

The way Korsuners treated Mr. Sollop was one of the things that Anna disliked about her hometown. She found many Korsuners to be meanspirited . They may have been soured by their inability to escape from poverty . Even men with a craft could have dif¤culty making a living. The town could not generate enough business for all the tailors and shoemakers. Many of the Jewish men in Korsun, as in any shtetl, were “airmen,” luftmentshen—so called because, having no trade or profession, they tried to make a living any way they could—“out of the air.” They were always on the lookout for a chance to serve as middleman between a buyer and a seller. They kept their ears open for information, which was their stock in trade. Hearing that a certain man wanted to buy a certain item, a luftmentsh would hurry to see another man whom he knew wanted to sell that very merchandise. For bringing the buyer and seller together, the luftmentsh earned a few kopecks. Troubled by the petty behavior of some people, Anna tried to balance it with the goodhearted behavior of others. She weighed the “good Korsun” against the “other Korsun.” Anna knew that the townsmen and women could be kind and generous. The mother of one of Anna’s playmates rented a room to a young couple and their child. The young man was unable to speak. He was known as the mute shoemaker. Although everyone liked him, he was a poor man, a shoemaker in a town with so many others in the business that they had a separate shoemaker’s house of worship. His wife was a pretty woman, which usually meant that other women would gossip jealously about her, but because of her husband’s af®iction, people pitied her and treated her kindly. One day Anna heard her playmate’s mother and a neighbor enthusing 23 The Two Korsuns about the khalla baked by the mute shoemaker’s wife. The neighbor said that the excellent white bread owed a lot to the kindness shown to the young wife. First of all, the woman who had sold ®our to the young wife felt sorry for her and gave her the best ®our. Not only that, but when the young wife stopped at the marketplace on the way home, another vendor felt sorry for her and gave her a present of a few eggs. Of course they were cracked eggs, which the egg lady usually sold at a discount, but they were still usable. Like other poor women, the young wife could not often afford to buy an egg, but on that Friday morning she made her Sabbath khalla not only with the usual yeast, salt, and water, but with the luxuries of eggs and the ¤ner grade of ®our. Jews routinely did acts of kindness, both collectively and individually, as part of their religious observance. Every town had a poorhouse to shelter its beggars. One of the individual acts of kindness that Anna admired involved the beggar as guest. If there was a beggar at the Friday night prayer service, one of the married men took her home so that she would have food and a place to stay during the Sabbath. No matter how dirty she was or how shabby she looked, no beggar would be left to spend the Sabbath at the poorhouse. A beggar was not “a guest of the family,” but instead was called “a guest of the Sabbath,” a name to foster the beggar’s self-respect. The guest stayed the night, usually sleeping on top of the oven, a choice spot. Orthodox Jewish women were responsible for only three good deeds according to Jewish law: to light the Sabbath candles, to bake the Sabbath bread, and to maintain personal and domestic ritual purity. Ordinary women, however, also saw the providing of hospitality for a beggar as their special mitzveh, their special good deed, so they were happy when their husband brought a Sabbath guest home. The women fed the guest the fat soup, the best part, with bits of meat, and they liked to give him or her a pair of socks or some other article of clothing. Rich people, in Anna’s view, were not so quick to welcome shabbes beggars. Some of the well-to-do had peasant servants, orphans or runaway girls from the villages, who slept in the kitchen and worked for almost nothing. Ordinary people joked that a...