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Domestic Service [137] Avraham Izrailevich Paperno’s Nanny Roiza Avraham Paperno, “Iz Nikolaevskoi epokhi,” Perezhitoe 2 (1910). Roiza, a middle-aged woman, an agunah whose husband’s whereabouts were unknown , came to work for us as a Mädchen für alles [maid of all work]: she cooked, washed, baked bread, sewed, and because the mistress in the house was absent, [she] replaced her in everything.1 In addition, the responsibility of taking care of me also fell to her. However, she regarded this obligation as the most gratifying duty: lonely and childless, she poured all her innate maternal love on me. She did not let me out of her sight lest something befall me, and in her free time pampered and carried me. The moment when I opened my eyes in the morning, I invariably saw her at my bedside . She instantly picked me up, washed me, and read prayers with me; with these prayers she put me to bed. In time I became her idol, her comfort, her entire life; and I reciprocated her love. I especially loved her songs and stories: she was a walking repository of folk songs and tales, and dear God, how marvelous was she at singing and storytelling. I sensed that she had not only mastered these works of folk culture, but that they constituted the better part of her being. Through them, she expressed her own aspirations and wept copious tears over her own grief. Dusk (when the atmosphere that enveloped us was most harmonious with the substance of her songs) was usually the time that she chose to sing. Her mournful motifs and doleful tone corresponded to those prevalent in synagogue melodies in terms of substance . Songs of joy, happiness, and love were not in Roiza’s repertoire; neither were heroic songs. The fundamental background of Jewish folk poetry in the diaspora is sorrow, misfortune , diminished hopes, eroded faith, and a feeling of national pride. A melancholy tone also dominated the stories —for the most part about princes and princesses, rabbis and rebbetzins. The heroes and heroines, the perfection of beauty and kindness, nevertheless suffered and endured every injustice and persecution. In the end, however, they were rescued and rewarded a hundredfold for the insults that they had suffered . The virtuous were often subjected to onerous tests but, after bearing them with steadfastness and firmness, they prevailed over evil in the end for “there is no injustice with God.” Roiza knew how to tell countless stories about angels and demons, about the lives of tsaddikim, miracle workers, and holy martyrs who would gladly have been burned at the stake to sanctify God’s name. She described heaven and hell and their inhabitants as graphically as if she had seen them with [468]   work her very own eyes. She found a grateful listener in me. As I listened to her stories, I lived through all the grief and joys of her heroes, and under her influence the spirit of Jewishness —its aspirations, belief in God and His justice, and the absolute conviction that the people of Israel were the chosen people—percolated through me until I entered the heder. In short, I was already a complete Jew in miniature . But every cloud has a silver lining, and every silver lining has a cloud. The adverse side of Roiza’s influence was that I became an incorrigible dreamer; fantasies often replaced reality; as I chased after cranes in the sky, I let go of the titmouse on the ground.2 notes 1. [During most of Paperno’s childhood, his father was away from home and working for Isaak Zabludovskii, a wealthy lumber merchant in Belostok . His mother ran a textile store in Kopyl, where he grew up. Remarking on his father’s absence, Paperno wrote: “As I indicated earlier, it was not unusual for wives to be left behind by their husbands; this was the order of things. Some left to complete their studies, others to search for work, so that ten months out of the year Kopyl appeared to be partly a town of Amazonki [Amazon women] or rather young female traders, waging a desperate struggle for existence without the help of the male sex.” Avraham Paperno, “Iz Nikolaevskoi epokhi,” in Evrei v Rossii XIX vek, 78–79.] 2. [This is a play on the Russian proverb “Luchshe sinitsa v rukakh, chem zhuravl’ v nebe,” or “a titmouse in the hand is better than a crane in the sky.” Similarly another proverb...

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