J A

JEWISH AFFAIRS Chanukah 2015
Editor’s note: The following is taken from Alec Natas’s Almost Yesterday – Memoirs of a
Lithuanian Childhood (SA Jewish Museum, Cape Town, 2014), and is reproduced with the
kind permission of the publishers. The memoir first appeared in Hebrew in 1981, published
by Hakibbutz Hameuchad. This English-languages version by the author was edited by Evelyn
Benatar. Born in Lithuania in 1907, Alec Natas immigrated as a youth to South Africa, where
he died, aged 106, in 2007. He was the brother of the eminent Judaic scholar, writer and
educationalist Moshe Natas (who likewise lived to be over a hundred).
I was invited to spend Hanukah with my
relatives. Hanukah, the holiday of miracles
and the pride of the Jewish nation, when the
Maccabees defeated the Greeks and saw the
miracle of a small jar of oil burning for eight
days.
That year I was to have my own private
Hanukah miracle. I was told Shmuel would also
be there. Shmuel was the only Jewish banker in
Kovno. He was driven through the streets in his
own automobile, puffing a fat cigar and sitting
behind a chauffeur who was dressed in black
leather uniform. Shmuel! His name had a magic
sound to his family, a name to bring smiles
to the lips and tears to the eyes. He was their
biblical Joseph. They bowed to him. “Shmuel
is coming! Shmuel is coming!”
And in expectation of a visit from him his
father, with his myopic eyes, would run about
the house, stopping now and again, nervously
combing his scraggy beard, perpetually asking,
“Ha? Ha? Where is he? Where is Shmuel?” His
mother had already combed her hair, put on a
new dress and a special smile, a Shmuel smile!
And when Shmuel strolled into his father’s house,
his four sisters and three brothers greeted him
and trailed behind him.
Shmuel was a broad-boned man, short and
rotund, serious and unsmiling. “Bankers don’t
smile”, he appeared to be saying. Money is too
serious a matter to be taken lightly. Shmuel
came for lunch one day when I happened to be
there. I was afraid to utter a sound that might
distract the family from the glory that was
Shmuel. Nobody spoke while waiting for him
to sit down. His silences were truly golden in a
way that pleased me. I could eat as much as I
wanted. Nobody saw me. I was invisible behind
the aura of light that was Shmuel.
Shmuel had offered to give me a lift back
to the studio in a blizzard one day. Since then
my prestige with the family had grown. I had
sat in a car for the first time in my life, afraid
to breath, afraid to inhale the air from Shmuel’s
car, afraid to exhale and pollute the gleaming
interior with my own insignificant breath. The
interior smelled of benzene, hair lotion, expensive
leather and cigars.
That Hanukah, I didn’t change my suit since
I had no other. I didn’t shave because I didn’t
grow hair on my face. The only thing I had
was an enormous appetite. My stomach was full
of butterflies on that great day. The colourful
Hanukah candles burned brightly, reminding us
of miracles past and a promise of miracles in
the future, perhaps.
The family was nervous. As always, they
stood at the windows waiting for Shmuel. The
old man kept milking his sparse ginger beard.
“Nu? When? Where is he? Where is Shmuel?”
The table was set for Shmuel. It was piled
high with crispy rolls. The smell of fried potato
fritters caused my head to float free of my body.
Only my appetite remained rooted to my stomach.
“Shmuel” someone shouted. “Shmuel is
coming!”
Everybody ran out to greet him. We sat round
the table. The food was choice and savoury,
sweet and filling. I ate as much as my stomach
could accommodate. No one looked at me.
“Another latke, Shmuel? More soup, Shmuel?
Eat, eat, Shmuel.”
After the meal, Shmuel took out his cigar
and ten hands stretched out towards him with
lighted matches.
“Children,” Shmuel said, “let’s play Hanukah
dreidlach.” He included me in this invitation. I
felt very bad as I didn’t have a cent in my pocket.
Shmuel took out a wallet so fat with money that
I thought he had brought all his money, afraid
of leaving it in his bank. He dished out fifty lit
to each member of family, including me. Fifty
lit!! A month’s wages! I wished I could have
taken the money home with me.
The game commenced.
It could have been fun but for my fears at
seeing my money disappear. I looked up to the
Hanukah candles and wished for a miracle. And
my miracle happened. Suddenly I was winning!
The small jar of oil was burning brightly that
Hanukah. Mounds of lits were piling up in front
of me. But the fear of losing was bulging in
14