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LIFE, RECONSTRUCTION, AND CREATIVITY 137
Kusnishtcher Street, and Polish Street. The Jews
first settled at the center of the town square and
alongside those four main streets. They built
their homes, brought children into the world,
and generation after generation contributed their
share to the character of our small town, Luboml.
No one determined a border to the streets
where the Jews lived. Nevertheless, it is a fact that
there was a certain spot on the line drawn by the
designer, where Jewish life stopped and the life of
Luboml's gentile citizens began. It just happened
that the Jews lived in the center of town and
gentiles' homes and fields surrounded the Jewish
part of town like a belt.
I remember the residents of our town being
divided into different classes. There were scholars
and those who were thirsty for knowledge, merchants
and craftsmen, rich and poor, widows and
orphans, lucky men and those who had run out of
luck, fishermen and owners of carriages, water
carriers and beggars.
The life of our town was conducted in surprising
harmony. There was acceptance of the
laws and judgment from "above" without criticism
concerning unfairness, that some were better
off economically, or that property was not
distributed equally.
We children conducted our lives differently
from the adults, according to our own set of rules.
These rules were made by those boys who were
physically superior.
Our parents, however, did not divide themselves
into groups as we did. They did not fight.
They accepted their lot without thinking or protesting,
at least not out loud. They argued about
important world issues, about large wars. Nevertheless,
they never spoke about their own wars,
their struggle to survive from day to day. They
accepted their economic standing as a decree from
heaven or they blamed it on their personal failures.
In their favor, it could be said that they were
fair, proper, and decent. A man's economic standing
did not affect his social standing. One's
honesty and intelligence were his ticket to a
favorable social standing. It is for this reason that
I think highly of our town's citizens.
I also remember our town's places of worship,
many of which were shtiblach [small syna-
gogues] belonging to Chasidim. There was also a
bet midrash and the central synagogue.
These places of worship were like a haven of
refuge to most Jews of Luboml. Toward evening,
after a long hard day of standing in the store, the
Jew would come to the bet midrash to shake off
the day's hardships. He would delve into a problem
posed in the Talmud or listen to a lesson on
Ein Yakov.
In this manner he would lessen the worries
on his mind, such as the fact that he had not paid
for certain school lessons or that he did not have
a proper dowry for his daughter who had come of
age.
Here in the shtibl and the bet midrash the
ways of mutual aid, secret alms-giving, and sincere
charity were permanently set. Those who
were poor and forced to wander from town to
town came to these places to request shelter when
they passed through Luboml. There each person
compared his life to the sorrow and hardships of
others, and as a result his life seemed brighter. In
the bet midrash and the shtibl men revealed the
details of their worries and added them to all the
worries of the community. Men were encouraged
to let go of some of their problems and look forward
to a new tomorrow.
In the shtibel and Bet-Midrash, men tried to
determine the future course of events in world
politics, such as the time at which the next war
would break out, etc. There was always one
question that kept repeating itself: "Is this or that
for the good of the Jewish people?"
Our community was connected to the outside
world through the post office, the railroad,
and horse-drawn carriages. Letters and packages
came in the mail, mostly from America, from
relatives who had gone to try their luck across the
Atlantic Ocean. In our imagination, all of them
across the ocean were millionaires, eating like
kings and dressing like princes.
The receiving of packages was a major event,
and in order to distribute the different presents
among family members one needed the wisdom of
Solomon. The packages also caused jealousy among
neighbors who were not lucky enough to have
relatives overseas. A telegram would, in most
cases, bear bad news of a family disaster or
tragedy. It was only on rare occasions that a