HUNGRY GERALD

The “shtetl”, glorified in the movie and play, “Fiddler on the Roof”, did not resemble  the “shtetl” where HG’s late Mother, Ida Kopkind Freeman, spent her childhood and young womanhood. Her home was in the town of Plestyanitz in Belorussia, Pale of Settlement (geographical area where Jews were allowed to live). Shtetl life was unpleasant. Sewage and sanitary facilities were primitive. Rats abounded (A large rat bit my beloved Mom’s toe and cracked a bone. Some 40 years later, USA surgery repaired it). Mom’s father was a fur trader. He sold the skins in Vienna (Access was secured by bribes.) Transportation was horse and wagon. He was accompanied by a paid Cossack bodyguard and rifleman. (Many wolves in the forest and roads). Mom’s father was away for nine to ten months a year. (HG presumes he had another family or mistresses in Vienna). HG’s Father, Hershele Tsvi “Grisha” Freimann (Later anglicized to Harry Freeman) had a pleasant time in the town of Smulovitch in the Ukraine (HG believes it’s now part of Belorussia). Don’t know how they managed it, but they were prosperous and secure. The Freimann family managed the estates of absentee Russian noblemen (And probably used their influence to prosper). The family owned a wheat mill and a vodka distillery. Young  “Grisha” Freimann was a skilled horseman and delivered vodka to taverns via horseback. (Many decades later, he never passed a Bronx horse without giving it a friendly nuzzle).  “Grisha’s” older brother Philip , (The first to emigrate with his family to America), owned a glove factory which was burnt down in a pogrom after the Russia-Japan War (Russia’s military woes were the fault of the Jews, of course).  This violent anti-Jewish event spurred Philip’s migration. “Grisha” left soon after as he was facing a draft into the Russian army. He managed to get to Hamburg where he worked as a stevedore to earn ship passage. “Grisha” enjoyed German beer, herring, wurst and black bread. He spent jolly times with German socialist stevedores (He had been a member of the Jewish Labor Bund in Russia). Finally, he sailed to America on the SS Pennsylvania and became Harry Freeman. (Here’s a happy postscript. HG/BSK are lucky to have two distinguished English friends–Antony and Claudia Cragg. HG/BSK love these two life enhancing, generous, thoughtful people. On an HG birthday some years ago, they presented HG with a Smulovitch soccer team pin. HG will never know how they found it. HG wears it proudly on the lapel of an HG English tweed sport jacket. Go Smulovitch!!)