Beryl Segal, Orinin, My Shtetl.

Beryl Segal describes turn of the century life in his community, now in present day west Ukraine. Located just 10 miles

from Kamenets-Podolsk it was very close to the border of Austrian Galicia. The writer gives a balanced account of the

pleasures and hardships of day to day life. This is not an idealized shtetl but a frank account, some of which can be

associated or understood with this Russian military map from 1917; the Jewish cemetery has been colored in blue.

We are thankful for the permission of the Rhode Island Jewish Historical Association. 

http://www.rijha.org/about-us/

Download or view the original PDF version of this file

ORININ, MY SHTETL 
IN THE UKRAINE 
ROOTS AND REMEMBRANCES 
by BERYL SEGAL 
THE SHTETL 
My generation is perhaps the last to have been born, raised, and 
educated in the Shtetl*. We were fortunate to have escaped annihila-
tion at the hands of the Nazis and their collaborators in the Ukraine, 
Poland, Lithuania, and elsewhere in Eastern Europe. It is therefore 
our duty, each in his own way, to tell about that special way of life. 
The Shtetl was neither a city nor a village. It could have been a 
community where two or three thousand souls lived, or a little settle-
ment such as my Shtetl, Orinin, of five or six hundred Jews, living 
completely apart and in isolation, an isolation decreed by law and 
fortified by tradition. But within this isolation there was a wealth of 
folkways and folk living that are gone forever. Yiddish was the 
tongue of the Shtetl. Yiddish song, Yiddish anecdotes, Yiddish wisdom, 
they nourish us to the present day and will continue to be a source of 
inspiration and wonder for generations to come. 
We are the remnants of those who still remember the Shtetl with 
its beauty and also its ugliness, its spiritual greatness, and its grinding 
poverty. We also remember — it is engraved upon our hearts and minds 
— the tragic end of the Shtetl and all who lived in it at the unclean 
hands of the enemy. 
Yet the Shtetl refuses to die. It is immortalized in hundreds of 
studies. It lives in the works of great writers who knew it well and 
told the world about it. It inspired poets and singers who were once 
touched by the afterglow of the Shtetl and who stand in awe of it, as 
one stands before a towering crag. 
We never exhaust the stores of tales, and listeners never tire of hear-
ing these reminiscences, just as people never tire of listening to the 
strains of a beautiful melody. 
The reasons are many. 
To the immigrant, such as myself, the Shtetl brings back memories 
of childhood and of youth, of days when we were dreaming dreams 
Footnote: Much of this material has appeared in somewhat different form in the 
Rhode Island Herald. 
•Small town or village, diminutive of the German Stadt, meaning "city" or "town". 
542

Orinin, My Shtetl In the Ukraine 	543 
and strove to attain peaks that stretched as far and as high as our 
fertile imagination could reach. 
To the sons and daughters of immigrants tales of the Shtetl help 
them in understanding of their parents. It is the natural thirst for 
knowledge about ancestors that are gone, and a life that has passed 
away. Stories told to them when they were young come back to them, 
and as they read about the Shtetl they exclaim: "This is exactly what 
my mother told me about her Shtetl". Or, "My father told me about 
the poverty he had endured in the Shtetl, and I could not believe it." 
Or, "The pictures of my grandfather and grandmother on the mantle-
piece of our house fit in exactly with the stories of the Shtetl." 
And for the reader of the third and fourth generation, as well as 
for the non-Jews who have no romantic ties with it, the Shtetl presents 
at once a puzzle, a mystery, a wonder. To them the Shtetl is an absorb-
ing object of inquiry and study. 
I shall, therefore, add my own recollections and experiences and 
describe the Shtetl of my birth, where I lived until the age of twenty. 
ORININ, MY SHTETL 
Orinin was a small town of about five hundred inhabitants, almost 
surrounded by a riverbend in a fertile valley that was part of the 
breadbasket of the Ukraine. Located in the district of Podolia, hard 
by the Austrian border*, it was far away from a railroad, had no 
telephones, no electric lights or gas, and no newspapers. News was 
carried by word of mouth, greatly delayed and very often exaggerated, 
when someone came back from the big city. Plumbing and sanitary 
facilities were unheard of. In winter the houses were heated by burn-
ing wood and straw. A wood and straw fire was also used for cooking 
and baking, chores that were done by the housewife every day. The 
foods one could buy in the stores were few, and fewer still were the 
housewives who could afford to buy them. 
Most of the houses were made of clay. On a spring or summer day 
one might come upon a house being newly built or having a room 
added. Such an event attracted spectators as it does universally. On a 
large area in front of the construction men and women could be seen 
treading with their bare feet a mass of clay mixed with the droppings 
*Galicia, was the easternmost portion of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. East 
Galicia is now within the U.S.S.R. Podolia is the west central region of the Ukraine. 
Kamenets-Podolsk on the River Dnieper, former capital of Podolia, before World 
War II had 40 per cent Jews.

544 	Rhode Island Jewish Historical Notes 
of cattle, the whole reinforced with straw. When the three ingredients 
were well and uniformly homogenized, the mass was broken up into 
bricks and placed between the wooden framework of the new house. 
A house made of this material was cool in the summer and held the 
warmth in the winter. The roofs were usually made of straw. Such 
roofs were fire hazards to be sure, but they were also effective protec-
tion against rain, frost, and winds. The houses of the rich had shingle 
roofs or were covered with sheet metal of a red and green color, appear-
ing very colorful at a distance. 
The straw of wheat and barley had many uses. In addition to its 
use in the construction and heating of houses, it was used in the feed-
ing of domestic animals. When used for food the straw was cut into 
small bits in a very primitive mill and fed to the horses ancl cows mixed 
with oats ancl other feeds. Most of the households kept a cow or a goat 
to supply the dairy needs of the family, and the merchants had horses 
to transport them about the villages. For the animals each house had 
an attached lean-to or a large barn, where the animals were cared for 
as if they were members of the family. 
Every household had a barrel or two of water. The children had 
the task of bringing water from the wells that dotted the Shtetl within 
walking distance. Although there were water carriers who supplied 
water for a few kopecs a week, most households used these carriers only 
in the slippery winter season. Going to the well was a favorite pastime 
for youngsters. 
New houses were seldom built. A house was handed down from one 
generation to another. As the families grew, so did the houses. Extra 
rooms were added onto this side or that of the old house as needed, 
and family dishes and furniture were shared by the new family. 
The greater part of the kitchen was taken up by an oven, large 
enough for two or three children to sleep on, warm enough for them 
to do without covering at night. Near these ovens the mothers spent 
their time cooking meals and baking bread, and preparing delicacies 
for every festival and season. 
The oven had two compartments. The pripetchok, the fore part of 
the oven where the cooking was done, and the oven proper used for 
baking bread and hale* the Sabbath bread. 
A stranger traveling toward Orinin would stop at the top of the hill 
and gaze down at the sight revealed to him. In the valley below stood 
•A braided loaf of white bread (Hebrew).

Orinin, My Shtetl In the Ukraine 	545 
houses stacked upon houses, roofs topping roofs, patches of color vying 
with one another, and a river like a silver ribbon embracing all of this 
on three sides. 
But as the stranger came down from the hill into the valley he would 
discover a little town divided into streets and alleys, squares and market 
places, each throbbing with a life of its own. 
The stranger has arrived at Orinin. 
There are two churches, one at either end of Orinin, the larger, the 
Russian church with its green cupola, and the smaller Polish church 
with its modest cross protruding above the tall stone walls around it. 
They stood guard over the Shtetl, as if to say: 
"You are not to expand beyond the Russian church. There is the 
territory of the Krestianin, the Christians, the Pravoslavny. And you 
cannot go beyond the Polish church, because the river laps the grounds 
of the stone wall, and you have no business to live across the river." 
Was it by accident or by design that the two churches stood at either 
end of the Main Street, or Post Roacl, of the Shtetl? The fact was that 
no one dared to step out of the boundaries set up by the Polish and 
Russian churches. When a new house was built in the Shtetl, it was built 
in the empty spaces within the town, and not in the wide open spaces 
of the village. 
The stranger strolling at a modest pace down the Post Road between 
the Russian and the Polish churches could walk the distance in about 
fifteen or twenty minutes. He would have walked the entire length 
of the Shtetl. But there was also a width to the town. The bulk of the 
population lived in the streets and alleys that began suddenly and ended 
just as suddenly within the limits of Orinin. The Post Road was straight 
and was paved with cobblestones, but the others were not as favored. 
There Avas the Yatke Gass,* the butcher's alley, where all of the slaughter 
houses were located, characterized by the stench of slaughtered animals 
and dogs underfoot. The street began at the large animal slaughter 
house and came to an end by the fence of the policeman's garden. There 
was the Variatsky Gass, where the merchants of dry goods lived. Bolts 
of cotton, alpaca, cretonne, and linen were stacked on the shelves of 
their establishments, which were simply the front rooms of their houses. 
Leather goods were also sold on the Variatsky Gass. The aroma of 
freshly tanned soft calf skins, karakul, and beaver always hung in the 
air as one approached the stores. 
•From the German Gasse, meaning "alley".

546 	Rhode Island Jewish Historical Notes 
A narrow street called "between stores", hardly a street at all, was 
busiest on market days. Two customers going in opposite directions 
rubbed elbows while stopping to buy ribbons and trinkets there. It 
was a short street, which ran the length of the Variatsky Gass. It was 
crowded, stores almost touched one another. Beyond these named streets, 
began a jumble of alleys and crooked passageways known under the 
general designation of Lower Streets. The arirzans, the horse dealers, 
and the poor inhabited that part of Orinin. 
But the Lower Street had the distinction of having the Old or Big 
Shul* and four Houses of Worship along its way. The Old Shut was 
at the very shore of the river as it curved to embrace the Shtetl. The 
shul and the mihveh, the public ritual bath house, stood side by side. 
Farther removed from the shore were the Old and the New Beth 
Midrash,** the Zinkover and the Tchortkover Klois.-j- The latter 
were known by the names of the towns where the Hasidic rebbesi. 
resided, and in them their followers worshipped. 
One could draw a triangle with a line running from the Russian 
church to the Polish church for the base and the Old Shul at the apex 
of the triangle at the mid-point of town. The Old Shul was not very 
impressive to look at from the outside. The structure was low in profile,, 
and appeared even lower because it was built in the lowest part of town, 
so as not to distract from the two churches. Old-timers explained that 
this was done at the insistence of the two Christian churches, so that 
the Jewish synagogue could not be seen as a landmark of Orinin. Others 
said that the synagogue was intentionally built in a low-lying area so 
as to conform to the words of the Psalmist: "Out of the Depths I call 
Unto You, O Lord." 
But the interior of the Old Shul was awe-inspiring. The small: 
windows high up near the ceiling allowed little light to penetrate the 
interior. There was a hushed quiet as one entered the sanctuary, shelt-
ered from the hustle and bustle of the street. Illuminated by the flame 
*Shul is Yiddish for "synagogue", from the German schule, "school". 
**Beth Midrash is Hebrew for "House of Study". 
-j-Klois, from the German Klaus (enclosure) , was term often used by the Hasidic 
Jews for their synagogue, where the adults studied Talmud. 
±Rebbe (rabbi) was the term used by the Hasidic Jews for their spiritual 
leader. Rav or Rov was used by the non-Hasidic community. Rabbi is Hebrew for 
"my master", rav means "great". Rebbe is a corruption of the Hebrew rabi (pro-
nounced rah-bee), anglicized to rabbi. The Hasidic rebbe, though well-grounded in-
Jewish learning, did not necessarily have formal ordination from an academy or 
yeshivah. The rebbetzen was the rabbi's wife. Reb was also used as a title — a 
shortened form of rebbe. The subtle differences and apparent interchangeability of 
these terms is confusing, but probably not too important.

Orinin, My Shtetl In the Ukraine 	547 
of the Eternal Light the large chandeliers could be seen hanging from 
the ceiling. The intricate carvings of the Aron Kodesh, the Holy Ark, 
the work of an unknown artist, reaching the full height from floor to 
ceiling, held the eye of the visitor. And the balemer, the readers desk, 
standing in the center, lured one to ascend the three steps to the plat-
form and to look around in silence. 
Yet the Shtetl was inhabited by people who needed sustenance and 
the essentials for survival. How did they manage to eke out a living? 
IN MY FATHER'S HOUSE 
My father was a klei kodesh, literally a Floly Vessel, one whose func-
tion is essential to the Jewish community. A Shtetl could get along 
without a rabbi if necessary, but no Jewish community could function 
without a shohet, a slaughterer of fowl and cattle according to Jewish 
law. My father was not only a shohet, but was also a mohel, one who 
performs the rites of circumcision. He was also the sofer, the scribe of 
the Holy Scripture. He wrote mezuzas* and tefillin** as well. In addi-
tion he was the hazan and Torah chanterf in one of the houses of 
worship. There were other functions in the community where his 
learning or skill was required, such as the printing of marriage contracts, 
or troyim, and performing marriage ceremonies, as well as writing 
divorce procedures. 
I mention all these skills or trades or duties of my father so as to 
understand the spiritual needs of a Shtetl. There were such klei kodesh 
in every little community. Despite all of these occupations my father 
was far from being a rich man. We lived austerely, and when an emer-
gency arose we had to borrow from one of the money lenders. We were 
always making weekly payments to one lender or another. As the boys 
grew up they were put to work to help with the expenses of raising a 
family of nine. My older brother and I were sent away to teach the 
sons and daughters of Jews living in isolation in the villages. There 
were such Jews who were owners of flour mills, or supervisors of wood 
cutting in the forests, or proprietors of roadside hostleries, and there-
fore privileged to live outside of the Shtetl. They rented these facilites 
•Hebrew for "doorpost". Small parchments on which are inscribed the first two 
paragraphs of the Shema (Deut. 6:4-9; 11:13-21). Rolled tightly, it is placed in a 
small case or capsule and attached to the doorpost. Shema means "Hear", from 
"Hear, O Israel". 
••The prescribed prayers. 
fThe hazan was the cantor. He sings long passages of the liturgy. Torah is the 
Pentateuch.

548 	Rhode Island Jewish Historical Notes 
in perpetuity, and were usually rich Jews. But they were at the mercy 
of the Poritz, the owner of the land and all that was on it. 
But even before we became teachers to village Jews, we helped in 
the many enterprises of my father. On days before the Sabbath and 
in preparation for the holidays we stood at the entrance of the slaughter 
house and collected tickets or money from those who brought chickens 
or geese or pigeons to be slaughtered. The tickets were of different 
colors for each category of fowl. We sorted them by color and counted 
them so that father could collect the money due him from the man in 
charge of taxation. Each family was taxed to raise funds to pay the 
shohet. 
Our largest chore was preparation of the Sefer Tor ah.* The Tor ah is 
written by hand on separate yerios, or sheets of parchment. These yerios 
had to be sewn together to form a scroll. When father finished a yerio, 
we would proof-read it. One of us had a printed book of the Torah, 
while the other read from the hand-printed yerio, word for word and 
letter for letter, making sure that the clots and ornaments on the letters 
were in place. We would then prepare the giddin, the sinews of young 
calves by which the various yerios were held together. The sinews were 
dried and beaten until individual strands were separated. The strands 
were joined together, end to end, and wound on spools. This was the 
only means of sewing together a Sefer Torah, yerio to yerio. 
In fact, we made such an abundance of giddin that the dealer in 
parchment would come once or twice a year to sell parchment to our 
father and buy giddin from us. 
My father also taught young men Hilchos Shehita,** the laws of 
ritual slaughter. There was always a young man in our house, a student 
from another town. 
In the midst of all of these activities my father always studied. I 
cannot remember a single meal without a sefer, a book of instructions, 
morals, or words of wisdom at father's side. He would look into the 
book between dishes and mother would have to remind him that the 
meal was getting cold. 
There were other klei kodesh in the Shtetl, servants of the community, 
essential to the spiritual life of a town such as Orinin. 
The rov, the rabbi, was of course the most respected of the klei kodesh. 
The melamdim, the teachers of little children, were most essential, 
•The scroll containing the five books of Moses that is kept in the Ark in front 
of the synagogue. 
**Shehita is "ritual slaughter". Shohet the "ritual slaughterer". (Hebrew)

Orinin, My Shtetl In the Ukraine 	549 
though their lot was not always an enviable one. The cantor of the 
Old Shul as well as the shammos, the attendant of the Shul* were 
invited to every wedding and brith (circumcision). To a lesser degree 
the kabron, or the funeral man who was in charge of the Beth Olom, 
the cemetery, and the manager of the mikveh, the ritual bath house, 
were also counted among the klei koclesh. 
All of these men were at the mercy of the rise and fall of the fortunes 
of the Shtetl. In times of prosperity the klei kodesh had enough to eat. 
When times were bad they could barely keep body and soul together. 
In such cases my father would see the money lender, and we boys 
would carry vochen gelt,** weekly payments, to their houses. 
But good or bad times, the boys always attended heder, the Jewish 
school for children, and when we grew older we were sent to the yeshivah 
in the big city, Kamenetz Podolsk. 
WHAT COULD I Do IN THE SHTETL? 
The universal dream of every child is to become either a policeman 
or a fireman. These were out of the question for a Jewish boy growing 
up in the Shtetl. 
He could not aspire to be a policeman because that exalted office 
was out of reach of a Jewish boy by decree of the Czar. Oh, to be a 
policeman with a uniform, and brass buttons, and a sword at his sidel 
He could not be a fireman because there were no firemen in the Shtetl. 
When a fire broke out the entire population would come out with pails 
of water to form a chain of fire fighters. They would keep it up until the 
conflagration was out. By the time the "fire brigade" arrived from the 
nearest town there was nothing for them to do except to disperse the 
crowd. 
There was one man in the Shtetl who was dressed in a uniform and 
treated everybody as if he was doing a great favor in acknowledging 
their existence. He was the postal clerk who stood behind a grilled 
window and received and distributed mail. But that office was forbidden 
to a Jewish boy. Jews were excluded from all government offices, in-
cluding the Post Office. Jews were forbidden to be in federal, state, or 
local civil service. The Jew coulcl never become a judge or district 
attorney or hold a notary public seal. He certainly could not be a 
teacher in the public schools or an instructor in a university. 
•i.e. the sexton. 
**From the German Wochengelt, "weekly money".

550 	Rhode Island Jewish Historical Notes 
The army and navy were distasteful to Jews. When a boy was drafted, 
the unhappiness at home was very great. He would not be able to 
observe the sabbaths and holidays, and would not have kosher food. 
The government would never think of providing these for Jews. A 
Jewish officer in the army and navy was rare, and he was usually in 
the medical corps. When a Jewish boy rose to officer rank you could 
be sure that he had tampered with his faith. Renouncing the faith and 
becoming a member in the Pravoslavny church, "a True Believer," 
was the key to a good position and to proper marriage in Russia. 
Some Jews did this, and received the keys to the kingdom. They never 
returned to the Shtetl. 
Attendance at government schools, equivalent to public school here, 
was fraught with difficulties. The ten per cent norm for Jewish 
children was strictly observed. Within my memory only two boys ever 
went up "to the hill", as the government school was called in Orinin. 
Parents were not very anxious to subject their children to all kinds 
of humiliation on the part of teachers and pupils. The schools were 
under the supervision of the Russian (Pravoslavny) church, and 
religious instruction and prayers were a dominant part of the cur-
riculum. The same was true of the middle school, the gymnasium, a 
school which was not available in Orinin. One had to go to the city 
to attend that type of school. But not having an elementary education, 
how could one aspire to the gymnasia? 
A Jew could not own a farm, or cultivate his own field, or gather 
the fruit of his own orchard. Ownership of land was forbidden to 
Jews. In a country where agriculture was the main occupation of the 
people, the Jew was excluded from participation in it except for buy-
ing and selling the fruits of other people's labor. 
Buying and selling were the only occupations open to Jews, provided 
they had the inclination or aptitude for such pursuits or the means 
to establish themselves. 
What could I grow up to be or what could boys of my generation 
do in the Shtetl? We could become merchants in grain and cattle, 
provided our fathers set us up in such business. Children always fol-
lowed in the footsteps of their fathers in Orinin. Children of merchants 
became merchants. You were born into it. You were trained in the 
business, and you found it easier to slip into it as you grew up. 
We could become arendars, that is people who rented a water mill 
and ground wheat and corn for the peasants. We could rent a section

Orinin, My Shtetl In the Ukraine 	551 
of forest and work its wood for its fuel, its lumber for furniture, build-
ing, or export. We could rent an orchard and gather the fruit when 
it ripened, or lose everything we invested if the crop failed. Again, 
we could gamble on the abundance of the Graf's* or Poritz's fields. 
When the wheat or corn or barley crops were plentiful, we became 
rich. When the rains did not come in time, or the sun was scorching, 
or the grains for some reason were shriveled on the sheaves, we became 
impoverished overnight. The Poritz had no responsibilities for the 
crop. We would buy it up as soon as the grain was planted. 
Or we could, and many of us did, open a store, one more store, to 
sell dry goods, food stuffs, or agricultural supplies to the peasants. 
Such stores enslaved the owners to the business day and night, all 
through their lives. And it required money, which was in short supply 
in Orinin. 
The profession open to everybody because it required little money 
and no skill and no specific qualifications was to be a hijtmensch,** 
a shtekele dreier, a twirler of the cane, an agent for one thing or 
another. These luftmenschen, or agents, would attach themselves to 
a money bag and do all kinds of services for him. They would make 
deals for him, collect his debts from improverished debtors, go to 
far-away places in all kinds of weather to do his bidding, take all kinds 
of insults from him, and for him from people whom he displeased. 
Such persons were known as meklars, and their livelihood was precarious. 
They lived out of thin air — they were truly luftmenschen. 
Orinin had more than its share of meklars. 
We could become artisans. Most of the population of Orinin were 
artisans of one kind or another. There were tailors, carpenters, shoe-
makers, sheet metal workers, rope twisters, barrel joiners or coopers, 
wagon makers, or silversmiths. But these were trades that were handed 
down from father to son, and unless one had some family connection, 
there was no way he could learn the trade. There was no trade school 
in Orinin. 
Then again because of yihus,f the complicated relations between 
*Graf is German for "Count". 
**Luftmensch, Yiddish, from the German Luft ("air") and Mensch ("man"), 
described by Leo Rosten as "1. Someone with his head in the clouds, 2. An impractical 
fellow, but optimistic, 3. A dreamy, sensitive, poetic type, (or) 4. One without an 
occupation who lives or works ad libitum". Shtekele dreier is Yiddish. 
fHebrew, meaning "distinguished connections or genealogy". Originally the dis-
tinction of belonging to the family of a priest or scholar.

552 	Rhode Island Jewish Historical Notes 
the various sects and groups in the Shtetl, no son of a balebos* who 
resided in the Upper Gass would ever think of learning a trade. "Es 
shtet nit on" — it is not becoming to a nice balebatish boy. When-
ever one of such balebatishe children went down to an alley in the 
Lower Gass and apprenticed himself to a master tailor or carpenter, 
respectable dwellers of the Upper Gass would turn up their noses. 
Children were expected to walk in the footpaths of their fathers, 
and any deviation from the established rule provoked the disapproval 
of clannish Orinin. 
But we, the sons of klei kodesh, those who worked in holiness, were 
in a class by ourselves. The son of the rov was expected to become a 
rov, and the son of a shohet had to be a shohet when he grew up. We 
were covered, and limited, by the law of Hazokah. By this law a klei 
kodesh had the right to bequeath his position to his sons. If he had 
no sons he could bequeath it to his son-in-law. Accordingly, my elder 
brother studied Hilhos Shehitah and was awarded the semi hah, the 
authorization to become a shohet. I was the next in line, and I, too, 
was sent to a yeshivah to study and be a slaughterer of fowl and cattle. 
But then came the revolution, and everything was uprooted. All of the 
laws, ukases, and edicts of the Czar were abolished. All limits, all 
restrictions, all do's ancl dont's were as if they had never existed. The 
Krome Yevreyev, "Except Jews", of the Czarist laws were declared null 
and void at one stroke and forgotten. All restrictions on living 
quarters or professions and divisions into sects and classes were re-
moved. The Shtetl dwellers broke out of the yoke they had lived under 
all these years. They traveled over the length and breadth of Russia 
unrestrained. All professions were opened to them, and the sons and 
daughters of the Shtetl filled the trade schools and the universities of 
the land. 
Is there any wonder that so many of us were infected with the fever 
of the Revolution and in those days became the most ardent followers 
of the new order? 
The Shtetl as my generation remembers it was swept away in the 
storm of the Revolution. But as so often happens, everything was 
swept away, the good and the evil, the beautiful and the ugly, the 
spiritual together with the vulgar. 
*Balebos, from the Hebrew, refers to the owner of a store, shop, or establishment: 
a manager or superintendent; one who assumes authority; and ultimately the head 
of a household. Balebatish, the adjective, means "of some consequence," "respon-
sible," and ultimately "quiet," "respectable," or "well-mannered."

Orinin, My Shtetl In the Ukraine 	553 
THE HEDER 
The heder was the Jewish answer to government schools. There 
was no compulsory attendance in school; hence the Shtetl took care of 
its own education system. 
The heder was the most remarkable phenomenon in the life of the 
Shtetl. It was private and yet under the supervision of the parents. 
Since the parents were themselves products of the heder, they could 
follow the progress of their children in all stages. It was voluntary, 
yet with a degree of compulsion imposed by public opinion. Every 
Jewish child in the Shtetl had to attend a heder, any heder, and those 
who could not afford to pay tuition were assisted by community funds 
collected for such purposes. In larger towns the community supported 
a T almud Tor ah, a place of study for the poor children. The rich and 
the poor children sat side by side, the rebbe, the teacher, usually favor-
ing the poor child, because it is said in the Talmud: 
"Be careful of the children of the poor, 
because from them will come forth Torah". 
Heder means a room, a schoolroom, a form, but typically the heder 
was a room in the house of the rebbe. Children came to heder early 
in the morning and left for home late in the evening. We sat around 
a long rectangular table, on long hard benches, and learned from 
books placed in front of every student. We studied in a sing-song 
manner, the rebbe setting the tune and we repeating after him. Every 
once in a while the rebbe would stop in his recital and point to one 
or another of the pupils, asking him to read alone. 
Woe to the pupil who did not know the place and just pretended 
to sing along with the class, moving his lips. No one could fool the 
rebbe. Not for long, at any rate. 
A child came to heder at the age of three. By that time he knew 
quite a few things required of a Jewish boy. Some knew more, some 
less, depending on the home they came from. Before a child came to 
heder he knew the blessings over bread and water, and milk and wine, 
and fruits and vegetables. He knew the modeh ani, the morning prayer 
in which we give thanks to the Creator for giving us back our souls, 
in his great mercy. He also knew the Shema Yisroel, the admonition 
to every Jew to remember that God our Lord is One. And much more. 
Some children learned the entire Aleph Beth,* before coming to heder. 
The first heder was at the house of the dardeki melamed, the teacher 
•The Hebrew cognates of alpha beta, i.e. the "alphabet".

554 	Rhode Island Jewish Historical Notes 
of little children. Dardak means a "child", a youngster. Passing by 
•the dardeki heder one could hear the sing-song of Kometz Aleph — 
O, Kometz Beth — Bo, and so on through the entire Aleph Beth, until 
all the letters were paired together, each consonant with each vowel, 
and each vowel with each consonant. 
What was the method of teaching in the heder? Before explaining 
such things as methods, I must point out that the dardeki melamed, 
the teacher of beginners, was not at all versed in the psychology of 
children, or in methodology of teaching. The subject matter as well 
as the method were both handed down from generation to generation. 
The rebbe was not at all innovative or original in his method, which 
consisted of endless repetition. Day in, day out, we repeated the read-
ing of the rebbe in the siddur* the prayer book, which was the text-
book par excellence, until we knew the entire text mostly by heart. 
The sing-song of teaching was a great aid to memory. The rebbe sang, 
and we emulated him. The text was remembered together with the 
melody. 
Repetition, emulation, and singing were the old and proven methods 
of teaching in heder, especially so in the heder of the dardeki malamed. 
The kantchik, the leather tongued whip, was the chief aid in teach-
ing. The dardeki melamed and the kantchik were inseparable. The 
melamed would make the rounds of the table and listen to the sing-
song of the children. With the kantchik poised in mid-air, he would 
bend an ear to the reading of each child. If something displeased 
him, it would come down on the shoulders of the pupil. The child 
would whimper a little and go on with the sing-song. 
The dardeki heder had another institution, the behelfer.** He was 
the assistant to the rebbe, an apprentice who was in training to be-
come a dardeki melamed in his own right. His job was to bring the 
children in in the morning and take them back at sunset. He would 
walk with his flock ahead of him, carrying the weaker ones on his 
shoulders, holding on to the hands of the frightened ones, and singing 
with them the Aleph Beth or other songs of the heder. He would 
dress and undress the children in cold weather, and he was in charge 
of the lunches they brought with them. The behelfer would have his 
meals at the house of a different child every week. 
•Hebrew for the daily and Sabbath prayer book. Contains three daily services, 
the Sabbath prayers, in some editions the festival prayers, ethics of the Fathers, and 
special readings. 
** Yiddish for "assistant" or "helper". From German helfen, "to help".

Orinin, My Shtetl In the Ukraine 	555 
The dardeki melamed was the first step in the education of a child. 
After that came other melamedim, teachers of other hedorim. There 
was the teacher of Humosh and Rashi.* There was the teacher of 
the Prophets, and the gemoro** melamed. Each one would take the 
pupil one step further toward the completion of the standard course 
of study. After that, some went on to a yeshivah, a rabbinical school, 
but most helped their fathers in making a livelhood. Their education 
was over. 
In presenting the heder and its system of instruction we should 
mention one more step in the learning process. It was called 
"jarheren",-\ listening. Every Sabbath afternoon the rebbe came to 
the house of the pupil and had the parents or some other person 
"listen" to the progress of the child. Some children would bring their 
books to the rov in Beth Midrash to show him what they had learned 
during that week. In this way the parents checked on the rebbe and 
his teachings. In this way also the uniformity of teaching was assured, 
so that the children of Orinin and the children of hundreds of other 
places, hundreds of miles away, knew the same prayers, the same 
sidras and midrashim, and were imbued with the same Jewish ideas. In 
a world without newspapers, journals, conventions, or schools for 
teachers, such uniformity was miraculous. 
The year of the heder ended during the High Holidays. On these 
days, called Bein Hazmanim, in-between seasons, the melamedim of the 
various schools were seen around the Shtetl, visiting parents of children 
who would be prospective pupils in their heders. 
Usually when one child of the family went to one heder, all of the 
others in their turn would attend the same heder. Calling on such a 
family was a mere formality. In the meantime the rebbe talked of 
various subjects to the man of the family, while the woman brought 
tea and cookies for the guest. 
The relations between parents and teachers were very personal, 
very close, a relationship we miss in our schools today. We also miss 
the ceremony of the first day of a child in heder, when he was initiated 
into the study of Torah. There is hardly a person of my generation 
who does not remember that first day, with the father carrying the 
child to the heder, the mother bringing cooked chick-peas and raisins 
*Humosh, the five books of Moses, or the Pentateuch, synonymous with Torah. 
Rashi, abbreviation of Rabbi Shelomoh Yitzhak (Hebrew for Solomon ben Isaac) of 
Troyes, French Bible and Talmud scholar of the eleventh century. 
** Gemoro is one of the two basic parts of the Talmud. 
fYiddish, from the German horen, "to hear" or "listen".

556 	Rhode Island Jewish Historical Notes 
and candy to distribute among the children, and sweet cakes baked 
for the occasion and dropped from above the head of the pupil onto 
the pages of the siddur as he read each letter. That too was a means 
of bringing rebbe and pupil and parents together. 
THE SHREIBER, A HEDER FOR GIRLS 
Girls never attended the same heder as the boys in Orinin. The 
Shtetl rigidly observed the separation of sexes in education. The girls 
went to a different heder, they were taught different subjects, and their 
teacher was not dignified with the name of rebbe. He was called a 
shreiber* a writer. While there were many rebbes in the Shtetl, there 
were only two shreibers, which means that parents did not feel obli-
gated to send their daughters to school. To send a girl to a shreiber 
was considered a luxury. 
The shreiber used a method which is, alas, used even today—copying. 
The first thing a shreiber did in his school was to write down the 
letters of the Aleph Beth on a sheet of paper with a pencil. The pupils 
were required to go over the letters with pen and ink. They would 
write the letters and repeat the names of the letters aloud. 
Having learned the entire Aleph Beth, the girls were ready for a 
Shurah Grisl,** that is a Greeting Line. The girls would use their 
pencils and ruler and mark lines on the paper. The shreiber would 
write on the first line, and the girls would copy the same line on the 
rest of the paper. They would go from the simple to the complex, 
from the familiar to the novel, from the easy to the difficult. They 
would learn to write their names, their father's and mother's names, 
the name of Orinin. Later they would learn to copy sayings, moral 
and ethical concepts, and proverbs. Why it was called Shurah Grisl no 
one really knew. But from copying these single lines, the girls gained 
fundamental knowledge and folk wisdom. 
After copying a Shurah Grisl, the girls were given textbooks which 
were called brivenshteler,j letter writing handbooks. They were soft 
covered booklets, sold by the traveling booksellers when they came 
to Orinin. The brivenshtelers did not have the same standing as the 
siddur, the prayer books. From the brivenshteler the girls learned how 
to write a letter, an art that is still taught in the secretarial schools. 
•Yiddish, from the German, Schreiber, "writer". 
*'Yiddish. From the German, Gruss, "greeting". Grisl is a diminutive. 
•{•Yiddish. From the German: Brief means "letter" (briefen is plural). In German, 
Briefsteller is a "letter-writer".

Orinin, My Shtetl In the Ukraine 	557 
There were business letters, of course. But mainly these letters re-
lated to episodes in the life of a Jewish girl. A letter of invitation to 
a wedding, and a letter accepting such an invitation. A letter of intro-
duction to the future mother-in-law and a letter telling of accomplish-
ments to the future father-in-law. A letter to a friend telling of yearn-
ings for the bride-groom and a letter from a friend who was married 
and moved away to a strange town and, alas, not so happy in marriage. 
Romantic letters and letters expressing sorrow at the loss of someone 
dear or close. 
The letters in the brivenshteler were printed in Yiddish, and the 
girls had to copy them in Yiddish script. The letter handbooks were 
kept at home and copied many times even when one was not a pupil 
at the shreiber. They were used as models for writing letters. The 
books are a rarity now, and are kept in libraries and museums. The 
Yiddish of these handbooks is mixed with Germanic expressions, for 
this was the style of the day. The spelling of Yiddish words was also 
in the style of those days and followed the Germanic orthography. 
But with all its shortcomings the girls had a secular education, some-
thing the boys never received. 
Strange as it may seem the shreiber also taught the girls arithmetic 
and elements of geography. One shreiber also taught the girls Russian, 
a tongue the boys were expected to pick up from the streets of the 
Shtetl. 
A few parents taught their daughters Humosh and Rashi. A rebbe 
would come to the house to teach the daughters what the boys learned 
in heder, and he also taught them to write in Yiddish. But boys and 
girls never learned together in the same heder. Sex education was 
considered anathema. 
A new refreshing wind began to blow in Orinin. During the first 
decade of the new century modern Hebrew Schools were opened in 
many towns in the vicinity, Orinin among them. The modern features 
of the Hebrew Schools consisted of the following: 
1. A house, a special house, for this purpose was hired. The house 
was furnished with desks and blackboards, and the pupils were seated 
in alphabetical order. They even wore a uniform and were called by 
their given names. 
2. Teachers, actual teachers, were hired. They were mostly young 
and graduates of teachers courses offered somewhere in Odessa or Kiev. 
These teachers wore modern clothing, shaved their beards, and spoke 
Hebrew.

558 	Rhode Island Jewish Historical Notes 
3. Hebrew speaking was a novelty in Orinin. While everyone knew 
Hebrew, nobody spoke it in everyday affairs. It was considered a Holy 
Tongue and not to be profaned by mundane usage. The teachers in 
the modern Hebrew School spoke Hebrew and taught history and even 
geography and arithmetic in Hebrew. And singing. Nobody ever 
heard of a school in which time, precious time, was given to singing. 
They sang songs of Zion and of nature and even of love. 
No boys were going to waste time singing and reading stories and 
poems written by the new writers. And so the modern Hebrew Schools 
were for all practical purposes during the first years of their existence 
mostly schools for girls. Here again the girls had the advantage over 
boys. 
In time the Hebrew Schools became co-educational. The heder, the 
rebbe, and with them the kantchik, were on their way out in Orinin, 
as indeed in all other towns. 
And yet, the heder, as an institution, with its emphasis on traditions, 
with its home-like atmosphere and its close refc &<?-pupil-parent relation-
ship, and above all in its voluntary yet obligatory nature, has never 
been duplicated in modern education. 
WHAT DID THE CHILDREN DO IN THE SHTETL? 
Orinin had little to offer in the way of entertainment, so we enter-
tained ourselves. We were the actors. We were the audience. We had 
no movies, no radio, no TV, no playground, no band, nor orchestra 
or concert singers, not even funny books, all of the things that take 
up so much of the time of children in America. We had no organized 
games or sports. But do not make the mistake of thinking that Orinin 
lacked excitement, that life was always bleak and that children were 
forever depressed. Nothing is further from the truth. 
The heder took up most of the day, but the heder was a warm place, 
both literally and figuratively. When the wind and snow raged out-
side in winter, we were kept warm and secure. At such times the rebbe 
told us tales of long ago. Tales of heroes and epics of great men and 
women. In heder we heard about the exploits of Deborah and Barak, 
about Samson and Delilah, about the Maccabees and Bar Kochba, about 
the Rambam* and Abarbanel, about lost tribes and the restless River 
Sambatian. Stories of kings and queens, of judges and prophets, of 
great joy and deep tragedy. And all of these things happened in distant 
lands, across the Great Ocean, under different skies. And these skies 
•Hebrew, abbreviation for Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, Maimonides.

Orinin, My Shtetl In the Ukraine 	559 
became as familiar to us in our imagination as the crooked streets and 
narrow alleys of Orinin. 
But also games and diversions occupied our time, games suited to 
various seasons and climates. 
The snowdrifts in Orinin were as high as the houses themselves. The 
snow lay undisturbed except on the Main Street, where people and 
animals had trodden a path for themselves. It lay unsoiled in the back 
of the houses and in between the houses until the spring thaw. We 
dug tunnels underneath the snowdrifts, and built castles and ramparts 
around them. None had ever seen a castle or been in a tunnel, but 
we built them from stories we had heard and above all from our own 
imagination. 
The river around Orinin was frozen most of the winter months. 
We made "skates" for ourselves, which were no more than pieces of 
wood tied to the shoes with strings or wire—plus a little imagination. 
We made sleds to slide down the hill. The sleds, like everything else, 
were homemade. All one needed were two side boards, some narrow 
pieces of wood, and plenty of nails. The two boards were made smooth 
by rubbing them with a stone until they would slide over snow or ice, 
and the shorter pieces of wood served to hold the two boards together 
and also to hold the rider. The sleds were carried up to the top of 
the highest hill in Orinin, called "Mount Sinai", and we would come 
down triumphantly into the valley below. There were many mishaps 
— the sled would collapse, the rider would spill, sleds would collide — 
but these were the hazards of sledding. We expected them. We wel-
comed them. 
But most of the games were invented during spring and summer 
evenings. There were swimming places on either side of Orinin, 
two for boys and two for girls. As soon as supper was over we would 
rush to the river, unbuttoning our shirts and trousers as we ran, and 
jump into the water in the nude. Nudity was not a crime in the 
Shtetl. We didn't know one could swim otherwise. 
On summer evenings we would go fishing. We fished for anything 
the fishing pole brought up. The poles of course were homemade. 
They were simply long rods, soft and elastic, freshly cut from the 
willows that grew in abundance at the river bank, with a long string 
tied at the end, and a crooked pin attached to the string. There were 
plenty of earthworms near the river, or we would attach a piece of 
dry bread for bait. The worms wiggled out of our pins, and the

560 	Rhode Island Jewish Historical Notes 
bread was eaten up by the fish, but we stood in the stillness of the 
summer evening and watched little fish splash in the water, make a 
pass at our hooks, and disappear. 
A very popular game was called "Sticks and Stones". It was our 
football and golf and hockey combined, with some elements of each 
of these games. We chose sides on the big square of the horse market, 
and stood facing each other in two rows. Each player had a heavy 
stick, preferably with a knob at its head. At a signal from the head 
player each side hit its stone, a round, smooth rock that was kept 
hidden in a corner of the square. Both sides tried to keep the oppo-
nent's rock out of its territory. It was our task to hit the stone as it 
approached our side. There were rules and regulations, usually made 
up on the spur of the moment. But the one rule that everyone had 
to observe was never to use hands, either to throw a stone or to chase 
away a player from the opposite side. We could use our bodies to 
push away the players, but could never touch them with our hands. 
Needless to say girls were excluded from these games. The girls had 
games of their own, chief among which was cheichen. They picked 
up seven smooth little stones, hardly more than pebbles found on 
the shore of the water and would sit down in a circle on one 
of the lawns. Each had a larger pebble of her own in addition to the 
seven smaller ones required in the game. This was considered the 
lucky stone. The trick was to hold the lucky stone in the palm of the 
hand and to pick up as many of the smaller pebbles as one could with 
that hand. The adept girls, and there were famous champions in 
Orinin, could pick up as many as five or six at a time. But before 
anyone won the game, there would be arguments, and sometimes they 
came to blows. One could hear the noise and commotion blocks away. 
On rainy clays we played at being musicians. The fiddles were made 
of thin pliable boards shaped into violins. Strings for the violins and 
bows were obtained from the tails of horses. We made wind instru-
ments from hollow reeds that grew along the shore of the river, cutting 
little vents in the reeds, and fashioning a slanting mouthpiece at one 
end. Some of the boys were lucky enough to have clay birds and 
trumpets that were sold during the fair held in Orinin by an itinerant 
artisan. For cymbals and drums we borrowed kettles, sieves, pots, and 
pans from the kitchen, and hoped that no one would find out about 
it. We gathered in the attic of the house of one of the boys and played 
to our hearts' content. 
The girls played ball against a wall. They would bounce a ball to

Orinin, My Shtetl In the Ukraine 	561 
and from die wall, and all the others would count: Not one. Not two. 
Not three. When the player failed to catch the ball on the rebound, 
another girl would take her place. It wasn't simple, and no game was 
over without quarrels. But the girls played and chanted for hours — 
nonsensical songs that no one understood. 
The girls also played with hoops around the square, and "covering 
the bride", each one dressed in her mother's old clothes and talking 
mother talk. 
All in ail boys and girls were inventive and filled their free time 
without interference from their elders. What is more, these games, 
there were dozens of them, were accompanied by songs and ditties that 
were a mixture of Yiddish and Ukrainian, some with nonsense words 
that were incomprehensible to us. They were probably handed down 
from time immemorial, from parents to children, and were a part of 
the games. 
HOUSES OF WORSHIP IN ORININ 
There were five houses of worship in Orinin. Three of them stood 
side by side, so that the singing and the chanting in one could be 
heard in the others. The other two were a little farther removed 
down by the river bank. The five houses of worship were designated 
as the Old Beth Midrash, the New Beth Midrash, the Zinkover Klois, 
the Tchortkover Klois, and the Old Shul. 
The worshippers in these houses of worship represented the various 
shades of difference in the population of the Shtetl. The Old and the New 
Beth Midrash attracted the solid balebatim of Orinin. They were the 
well-to-do, the merchants, and all dwelled on the Main Street and on 
the Variatsky Gass. The Zinkover Klois was so-called because its wor-
shippers followed an Hasidic rebbe of the town of Zinkov, who was a 
descendant of the Apter Rov. The Tchortkover Klois, sometimes also 
called the Sadigurer Klois, were followers of the Hasidic rebbes who 
held court in those Galician towns. But the largest and the most 
impressive house of worship was the Old Shul. It was so-called because 
no one among the living knew when and by whom the shul was built. 
While the other four houses of worship were nothing more than 
simple two-room houses, one room for men and the other for women, the 
Old Shul was architecturally distinct. The Shul was a conglomerate 
of several buildings added to the main structure. Its windows were 
small and were tucked away at the top of the high walls, near the 
roof. It had no heat, and in the fall and winter worshippers did not 
take off their overcoats. It was therefore also known as the Cold Shul.

562 	Rhode Island Jewish Historical Notes 
The mizrah, or the eastern wall, was taken up almost entirely by 
the intricately carved Holy Ark and the hazan's stand. A few steps 
led up to the Holy Ark, which contained several Sefer Torahs of ancient 
origin. Copper candelabras hung from the beams of the roof. They 
were lit only on holidays and Sabbath Eves. Attached to the main 
Shul was the women's gallery, way up near the roof. One of the 
buildings, really a lean-to attached to the Shul, was the repository of 
shemos, a general name for all torn prayer books, Humoshim, and dog-
eared Psalms and Tehinos, prayers for women. They were not to be 
thrown away, but kept forever because they contained the name of God. 
Another lean-to was used as the chapel during weekdays, and for 
"dissenters", those who preferred for some reason to worship by them-
selves on Sabbaths and festivals. 
The Old Shul was built as already described in the lowest part of 
Orinin. Besides, the worshippers had to go down a few steps before 
entering the Shul proper. 
Now, we are told, the Old Shul has been torn down, after it was 
used as a stable for the Cossack horses. The shemos were probably 
unceremoniously disposed of either by fire or by scattering to the 
winds. Nobody will ever know how many generations brought their 
old torn books for safe-keeping in the Shul. Lost with the shemos is 
also the secret of the first builders of the first house of worship in 
Orinin. The only witness to the shul are the waters of the river that 
lapped the foundation of the structure, and probably still laps the 
same foundation, but without the shul or worshippers of over three 
hundred years. 
Every wedding in the Shtetl took place on the little square before 
the Old Shul. Under the starry skies the huppa, the wedding canopy, 
was put up, and the entire population crowded to see the ceremony. 
Traditionally every house of worship had a distinct function. The 
Old Beth Midrash provided the platform for every magid, itinerant 
speaker, who came to Orinin. On a Saturday afternoon the house 
would be crowded with listeners who came to hear him. Some magidim 
were amusing, some were eloquent, some would exhort. Others 
could tell tales of woe and awaken sympathy for their predica-
ment. On the next day the magid and the shamos would go from house 
to house to collect fees for his talk. 
The Zinkover Klois congregation sang and danced much more than 
others in the Shtetl. Once a year the Rebbe from Zinkov would come 
to Orinin for a Sabbath. The Shtetl Hasidim would go out on the high-

Orinin, My Shtetl In the Ukraine 	563 
way to meet the rebbe. About a mile from Orinin, near the forest, 
the rebbe and his entourage would stop, and the young Hasidim would 
unhitch the horses and pull the phaeton into town by themselves. On 
the Post Road the older Hasidim would crowd around the rebbe and 
shake his hands, while the younger ones would dance and sing around 
him. A weekend of singing in the Zinkover Klois would follow, and 
dinners and suppers and dancing till all hours of the night. The rebbe 
has come to Orinin! 
The Tchortkover Hasidim had not had such a Sabbath. The rebbe 
had never come to town from his residence in Galicia, a district of 
Austria only a few miles from Orinin. Instead they made a pilgrimage to 
the court of Tchortkov, or Sadigura, once a year. In their house of wor-
ship one could always find a group of people who were bent over 
volumes of Talmud absorbed in study. The Tchortkover were the 
scholars of Orinin. The western wall of the klois was covered with 
shelves filled with volumes of the Talmud, the Midrash, and com-
mentaries on the Scriptures. 
But it had fallen to the New Beth Midrash, the least pretentious of 
the houses of worship in Orinin, to provide living quarters for the 
rov. The house was divided into two halves with a corridor between 
them. On rainy Sabbaths, and more lately when the rov had been 
sickly, the doors of the Beth Midrash were left open and also the door 
to the room of the rov so that the old man could sit draped in his 
tallis* and listen to the worship. When the weather was pleasant and 
the rov was in good health, he would leave his house early in the 
morning and go to the Tchortkover Klois, where he had a seat next 
to the Holy Ark. 
I knew every corner of these houses of worship as well as I knew 
our own house. They are gone forever. 
THE Rov OF ORININ 
The rov was the final authority on what was kosher* and what was 
tref,** what was clean and what was unclean, what was permitted, and 
what was forbidden to a Jew. He derived this authority by virtue of 
years of study in the yeshivah, the rabbinical school, and by ordination 
before he accepted the call to be a rov to Jews. His verdict was final, 
and no one dared contradict him. 
•Hebrew, "prayer shawl". 
** Kosher, Hebrew, "fit to eat," ritually clean according to the dietary laws. Tref, 
Hebrew, animal not slain according to ritual law; any food which is not Kosher.

564 	Rhode Island Jewish Historical Notes 
The rov belonged to the entire community, but no one ever met 
him on the streets or in public places. He sat constantly at a long 
table strewn with open books of varying sizes and thickness ancl seldom 
spoke to anyone. His main duty was to pasken a shaaloh, to rule upon 
an inquiry. These inquiries were on a variety of subjects: 
What was the housewife to do when a dairy dish was mingled with 
meat dishes? 
A chicken was seemingly slaughtered by the shohet, but on the way 
home it came alive, ran away, and expired a little while later. Is the 
chicken kosher or tref? 
The innards of the goose were exposed, and a rusty nail was found 
in the gizzard. Should the entire goose be discarded? 
There were also questions relating to puberty, menstruation, and 
infidelity. 
In such cases, whenever a woman came into the house, the rov would 
cover his face with his hand and call his wife from the kitchen. She 
served as the interlocutor. The woman making the inquiry asked the 
question of the rebbetzen, the rov's wife, who would transmit the 
question to the rov, who then consulted some books if the shaaloh was 
a difficult one. He next pronounced his decision to the rebbetzen, who 
transmitted it to the inquiring woman. 
Thus, the rov would be spared the sin of being alone in the same 
room with a woman not his wife, speaking to a woman not his wife, 
or coming in contact with a strange woman when there was a need 
of examining a chicken or goose or any object brought in as evidence. 
Jews seldom went to courts of law. In the first place there were no 
courts to settle litigations in Orinin. In the second place the pro-
ceedings in the courts in the big city nearby were extremely slow and 
cumbersome. When two Jews had a case of contention between them, 
they resorted to arbitration. Each picked an arbitrator, and they came 
before the rov and presented their arguments. The rov listened and 
gave his decision after consulting rabbinical precedents. The two 
sides abided by that decision. It was not the decision of the rov, it was 
the opinion of the rabbis of old. 
Twice a year the rov spoke at one of the houses of worship. On 
Shabbat Hagodol, the Great Sabbath before Passover, he spoke in the 
Old Shul. On Shabbat Bereshis, the Sabbath when the Torah is 
rolled back to the Sidrah Bereshis, to be read again for the coming

Orinin, My Shtetl In the Ukraine 	565 
year, an event that takes place after Succot, he spoke again. And that 
was the extent of his public utterances. 
The rov had no contract with the Shtetl and no fixed wages. His 
subsistence was derived from two sources: from donations and from 
yeast. 
Whenever a man was given an aliyah, the honor of going up to 
the reader's desk where the seven weekly portions of the Torah are 
read every Sabbath and on holidays, he would donate toward the liveli-
hood of the rov. Each gave according to his means. From these dona-
tions the rov received his wages. The shammos, the sexton of each 
house of worship, would collect the sum given by the donor and bring 
it to the rov. The second source of income was from the sale of yeast 
for the Sabbath bread, the hale, which Jewish housewives baked every 
Friday. A penny's worth of yeast was sufficient for a family. The rov 
had a monopoly on the sale of yeast, and the storekeeper who sold 
yeast to housewives was guilty of masig gvul, infringement on the rights 
of another person, in this case the rov's livelihood. Hasogas gvul, in-
fringement on someone's territory or means of livelihood, was a great 
offense. 
Another source of income for the rov was the sale on Passover Eve 
by Jews to non-Jews of non-Passover foods and grains. This was 
called mechiras hometz, selling of the leaven. The rov was the seller 
of the hometz for the entire community. It was a token sale, of course, 
and the sales contract was null and void the day after Passover. 
The rov was highly respected in Orinin, as well as in other towns, 
because of his piety, scholarship, and impartiality. 
As time went on, the town was left without a rov. He had passed 
away, and none of his heirs was suited to take his place. In such cases 
the hazokoh, the right of perpetuation of the office in the family, re-
turned to the community. 
But Orinin could not decide upon a single rov. Two factions arose 
in the community, and each brought in a rov of its own. The Shtetl 
was divided, and friends of yesterday became enemies of today. They 
were at loggerheads, one against the other. 
Unfortunately, the days of the Shtetl were numbered, and both 
factions, each with its own rov, were doomed to extinction. Came the 
Russian Revolution. Came the Second World War and the Nazis. The 
Shtetl disappeared. 
The old rov was spared all this.

566 	Rhode Island, Jewish Historical Notes 
A YARID IN THE SHTETL 
The livelihood of the Shtetl depended on the yarid, which was held 
once or twice a week. In Orinin the yarid, the market day, was held 
on Tuesday and Sunday. Merchants, peasants, horse dealers, and 
artisans of all kinds mingled on this day. People watched the skies days 
before the yarid to foretell the weather for the market days. 
Yarid, by the way, is a Hebrew word, meaning a place where people 
get together for selling and buying or exchanging merchandise. In 
Yiddish the word yarid took on the meaning, in addition to that of 
a market place, of confusion, noise, disorder. Sholem Aleichem, the 
Jewish humorist, compared life itself to a yarid. You come full of hope 
and expectation, run around, hustle and bustle, take a lick of this, a 
smell of that, and at the end of the yarid, when the evening of life 
approaches, you feel empty, disillusioned, and are very tired. Such was 
the yarid in the Shtetl. 
Orinin had four market places for the yarid. The largest of the four 
was the horse market. Horse dealers came from far and wide and 
parked their horses and wagons around the stone fence of the Pravo-
slavny church. With the break of dawn, peasants from the surround-
ing villages congregated in the square, each leading a few horses nicely 
combed, their harnesses attractively decorated, glistening in the sun, 
impatiently neighing and stamping. Buyers approached sellers and the 
drama of the yarid began. 
The horse dealer would hold out the palm of the peasant's hand and 
ask: "How much for this undernourished horse?" 
The peasant would grab the outstretched hand of the dealer and 
reply: "You call this an undernourished horse? Why, look at his 
calves! See how impatient he is! He wants to be harnessed to a wagon!" 
The peasant would quote an impossible sum of money. 
The horse dealer would begin to laugh. He called to his partner. 
After telling him the sum of money asked for the horse, they would 
both laugh aloud. While all the time the dealer held onto the peasant's 
palm. The other partner would in the meantime look the horse over 
from all sides. He would look at his mouth, kick his shins, pull him 
by the tail, drive him through the square. The dealer would raise 
the price while the peasant would lower it, to the accompaniment of 
slaps on the palms. The quotations would fly back and forth, and the 
slaps would grow in frequency and intensity, until finally they arrived 
at some price much lower than the peasant asked for, and much higher

Orinin, My Shtetl In the Ukraine 	567 
than the dealer wanted to pay at the start. At the end buyer and seller 
departed to the nearby saloon and drank "Na Zdorovia", To Health! 
and everything ended happily. 
The second market place was for general merchandise. Itinerant 
merchants would put up tents the night before and sleep in them. 
When morning came, they opened the tents and displayed a dazzling 
array of manufactured goods. There were ornaments and jewelry, 
ribbons and kerchiefs, scissors and knives, ikons and candles, crucifixes 
and beads. And the colors of the merchandise, the flattery of the 
merchants, the bargaining of the buyers, these were all part of the 
yarid. The merchants in the tents came from Great Russia. They were 
called katzapes, and they were recognized by their dress: high boots, 
wide trousers tucked in the boots, and billowing white shirts tied to-
gether with wide colorful belts. On their heads they wore small caps 
with leather visors. They always held long pliable whips in their 
hands to scare away intruders such as cats, dogs, and pigs and to crack 
over the hands of would-be pilferers. The children would fear them 
and at the same time were attracted by them and their wares. 
We were fascinated by the toys which they displayed. They had 
trumpets made of tin, singing birds made of clay, drums and drum-
sticks beautifully carved and colored. And they had wooden soldiers 
painted with colorful costumes. But what could we buy for the 
kopek we were allowed for the yarid? We stood open-mouthed and 
watched. 
The third square was used for the grain market. The merchants had 
storage bins for corn and barley, for sunflower and caraway seeds, for 
wheat and buckwheat. The merchants held scales in their hands and 
weighed out the bundles brought by the peasants' wives. It was less 
colorful than the horse market but more business-like. 
Down by the river, where the slaughterhouse stood on the hill, was 
the market place for lambs, goats, calves, and sheep. The noise in that 
market place was not that of buyers and sellers, but the baaing and 
mooing of the animals as they were being separated from their herds. 
But the yarid spilled over into the side streets and alley-ways of 
Orinin as well. There was hardly a house that was not involved in 
the yarid. At one place women bought chickens and geese and eggs 
from the peasants. In front of houses people put up little tents and 
displayed pots and pans, seives and funnels. Artisans of all kinds sold 
their wares and implements. Coopers made barrels right on the spot,

568 	Rhode Island, Jewish Historical Notes 
and the rope maker walked back and forth with wads of flax around 
his loins as he twisted lengths of rope for the waiting peasant. 
A most exciting place was the farm tool and implement market. 
Peasants would pick up a scythe, a sickle, or plow. They would listen 
to the sound the implements made as they hit them against a stone, 
and from the sound they would decide whether to buy. 
There were smaller merchants who bought a bunch of rareripes or 
garlic, pumpkin seed, or dried beans. Everybody was busy on the days 
of the yarid. But when evening came and the peasants departed, the 
out-of-town merchants drove off with their spirited horses and wagons, 
the tents and stands were folded, and the horse dealers gathered the 
horses they had bought and sent them off to the nearby Galician 
border, peace descended upon the Shtetl, and people began to prepare 
for the next yarid. 
Not bad, the Shtetl people would say to one another. But it could 
be better. Maybe next yarid. Next week. 
The Shtetl would return to normal. Normal worries. Normal anxi-
eties. Normal petty squabbles. 
LOVE IN THE SHTETL 
Boys and girls of Orinin, as of any Shtetl, were paired off at an early 
age. The mother of a girl who had her eye on a boy of a friend would 
send a shadchen, a matchmaker, to the parents of the boy, and the 
shiduch, the engagement was arranged. The boy and the girl both 
attended heder and played hoops nearby yet never spoke to one an-
other. But for all practical purposes they were engaged to be married. 
Two Hasidim met at the court of their rebbe. It turned out that 
one had a son and the other a daughter; so they arranged an engage-
ment. They then drank to the hoson-kaloh, the bridegroom and bride-
to-be, and the rebbe wished them health and good fortune. The two 
shook hands and made a tkias kaf, a hand-shake in the presence of 
other Hasidim. A tkias kaf had the power of an official agreement. It 
could not be broken. 
The boys and girls were left out of the agreement entirely. The boy 
received the traditional gold watch and chain and was known as the 
hoson bohur. The girl received a beautiful kerchief, and became known 
as kaloh moid. Both of them continued whatever they were doing in 
their parents' homes. Nothing was changed, although the Shtetl knew 
that they were engaged to be married.

Orinin, My Shtetl In the Ukraine 	569 
Most boys and girls became engaged through a shadchen or a shad-
chente. Both men and women were proficient in the profession. The 
shadchen, the male matchmaker, usually brought together out-of-town 
couples, while the shadchente, the female matchmaker, had a local 
clientele. 
A successful matchmaker had an abundance of patience. He (or 
she) would come to a prospective client on a Saturday afternoon for a 
visit and a glass of tea. They would be dressed in their Saturday best, 
and would talk about everything under the sun, until the hoson or 
kaloh were mentioned in a round-about way. The parents knew what 
the matchmaker wanted, but no one mentioned it. 
When the shadchen was encouraged in his conversation, he would 
proceed further, lavishing praise upon the bride or bridegroom. But 
when he sensed a reluctance on the part of the parents to continue the 
matter, the shadchen would bring the conversation around to another 
prospect for marriage. The shadchen knew everyone in the Shtetl and 
knew the foibles of each family. He must be careful of the sensitivities 
of parents. But when the match was made, the two young people were 
not consulted. The match was between the two families and not be-
tween the young people. 
There were certain basic principles that every shadchen or shadchente 
had to observe in bringing a prospective match to a family: 
1. Yihus, lineage, or caste, if you please. Lines were drawn between 
rich and poor, balebos and laborer, dwellers of the upper and lower 
streets. These lines were seldom crossed. The son of a tailor was not 
good enough for the daughter of a balebos. But it was different if the 
son of a poor water carrier happened to be a scholar, a Ben Torah. 
In such cases the shadchen would be sent to the yeshivah in the town 
where the boy was studying, and the brilliant boy would be selected 
for the rich daughter of the merchant in the Shtetl. A scholar, a sharfer 
kop* a masmid in the yeshivah, a diligent student transcended yihus. 
Such was the value the Shtetl put upon learning and scholarship. Every 
poor mother dreamed of her son becoming a scholar and being chosen 
by a rich man as his son-in-law. 
2. Names, first names, had to be gone into before a match could 
be brought up. The name of the mother of the hoson and that of the 
kaloh could never be the same. In some families it was considered bad 
luck for the father of the bride and the hoson to have the same first 
name. 
•"Sharp head". Yiddish.

570 	Rhode Island, Jewish Historical Notes 
3. Priesthood could not be violated. A widow or a divorced woman 
were forbidden to a Cohen, a man of the priestly family. Every man 
with the last name of Cohen, Kahn, Katz, Kaganowitz, Kaplan, or Kagan 
was most certainly a descendant of priests. But even when the last name 
did not suggest priesthood, there were family traditions, handed down 
from time immemorial, from father to son, about their genealogy. A 
shadchen had to make sure about his prospects. 
4. "Blemishes" on either side could not be overlooked. Apostasy 
in the family, no matter how distant a relative involved, was considered 
a blemish. Farflecken di mishpocho, to soil the family, was an unfor-
gettable offense. 
In all of this the feeling of the hoson and the kaloh were not taken 
into account. Tradition and family considerations came first. Love 
was not a prerequisite to marriage. 
The task of the matchmakers was not over with the bringing together 
of hoson-kaloh. There were many obstacles to overcome. There was 
the delicate deliberation about the nadan, the dowry, and the promise 
of board and room to the hoson. The parents of the bridegroom always 
held out for a greater dowry and insisted on a longer term of board 
and room from the parents of the bride. At any moment the shiduch, 
the engagement, was in danger of being dissolved. Oploson a shiduch, 
to let an engagement dissolve, was even worse than a divorce. The 
shame to the bride and her family was more than they could bear. 
The matchmakers shuttled between the two sides until a compromise 
satisfactory to both sides was reached. 
Then and only then did the shadchen and the shadchente receive 
their commissions. There was no set fee. The greater the nadan and 
the promise of support, the larger the commission. 
Matchmaking came into disuse by the time my generation was ready 
for marriage. A quiet revolution had taken place in Orinin and in 
the towns all around. Boys and girls met on their own in various 
places. We met in the Beth Am, which was at once a community center, 
(People's House), a library, and a lecture hall. We met on the 
Doroshka, the pathway which divided the two streams of the Big River, 
one continuing its course around the town of Orinin and the other 
diverted to turn the stone of its grist mill. The Doroshka ran for about 
half a mile between the two streams and was a shaded place, very 
quiet, very romantic. We would walk back and forth on the Doroshka 
and would observe the moon rise, and the willows by the river grow 
pensive, and the cicadas chirp away through the long evening.

Orinin, My Shtetl In the Ukraine 	571 
The matchmaker continued to practice his skill for many years, but 
for most of us it was considered "old-fashioned," a relic of days gone 
by. We were emancipated. Little did we know that matchmaking was 
still going on — in America! Loneliness is not limited to the Shtetl. 
One can be lonely in the big cities as well. 
WELFARE IN THE SHTETL 
No one went hungry in the Shtetl. Poverty there was, but hunger did 
not exist. The poor did not know where tomorrow's meals would come 
from, but for today their needs were provided for by neighbors. 
Widows and orphans were first on the list. Every balaboste, the wife 
of a merchant or store keeper, as she baked her weekly supply of bread 
would bake an extra loaf for a widow. Every Friday when the same 
balaboste baked her hale, the white twisted bread for the Sabbath, 
she would also braid an extra hale for the poor. And so it was for the 
Holidays. The poor did not have delicacies, but they did not lack 
bread. The portions of bread and meat and other necessities were sent 
to the home of the widow or sick in secret. The woman of the house 
would send one of her children with a covered basket. The child was 
told to leave it on the kitchen table and tell the widow that mother 
had sent what she owes her. 
The poor, the sick, the orphaned, and the widowed were cared for 
by the noshim tzidkonioth, the good-hearted women of the Shtetl. The 
men contributed to a general fund that was maintained by the gabbai, 
the elected head of each house of worship. 
There was a fund for hachnosath orhim, the sheltering of the 
strangers. When a poor stranger came to town he immediately re-
paired to a house of worship. There he was sure to find a place where 
he could rest his feet from the long walk from the last Shtetl. In the 
evening worshippers would come, would greet him with Sholom 
Alechem, and inquire where he came from and when he was leaving. 
The shammos took him to an inn and then to a balebos for supper. 
On Sabbath Eve strangers were particularly numerous. I hardly re-
member a meal without an orah, as the strangers were called. A guest 
for Sabbath was the norm rather than the exception. 
Hachnosath kaloh literally means "bringing the bride under the 
canopy". There was a fund for the purpose of providing a full ward-
robe for the bride of the poor. This included nadan, a dowry, no 
matter how small; a bed, chairs, and table; and kitchen utensils. Very 
often a stranger would come to the Shtetl bearing a letter from his rov

572 	Rhode Island, Jewish Historical Notes 
(rabbi) stating that the bearer was the father of a grown daughter in 
need of a dowry. The gabbai saw to it that the stranger did not leave 
the town empty-handed. 
A nisraf, a man who was impoverished by a fire, was a common 
visitor to the Shtetl. He, too, brought with him a letter from the rov 
of his town testifying that a fire had consumed everything the man 
possessed, and that he was worthy of receiving aid from the town. He 
was not only given assistance from the common fund, but was recom-
mended to a select few who helped him rebuild his house and restore 
his livelihood. 
Moes hittim., money for wheat, was an annual charity that was scru-
pulously observed. This institution, which was brought to America and 
is still observed, is very ancient. Jews could not conceive of the idea 
that a person would sit at his Seder table loaded with all of the Pass-
over foods, while another sat at an empty table. So much was this 
tradition observed, that it was said of Moes Hittim: either one gives, 
or one takes. More gave than took. 
Biknr Holim, visiting the sick, was the duty of the entire Shtetl. It 
involved sitting at the bedside of the patient all night so that the family 
would be able to sleep. Men or women were hired for this purpose 
and paid from the community fund. The men sat all night chanting 
psalms, while the women read techinos, supplications for women. 
Hevrah Kadisha, the Holy Society, was another of the Jewish institu-
tions brought to this country from overseas. When someone died, the 
Hevrah Kadisha took over the arrangements for the funeral. The body 
of the deceased was washed, purified, and dressed in the tachrichim 
(the shrouds), and wrapped in the tallis (the prayer shawl), which 
every male had used while he was among the living. The body was 
carried on the shoulders of the members of the Hevrah Kadisha by a 
route mapped out by the society: From the house to the house of 
worship where the deceased had prayed, to the Old Shul, and then to 
the cemetery. All of the time, the shammos would precede the funeral 
procession with a metal box and cry: Tzedaka Tatzil Mi'moves, 
"Charity saves from Death". The money collected would be used for 
funerals of the poor. 
Every once in a while an appeal would come to the rov or the gabbai 
for Pidyon Shvuyim, "Ransom of the Captives". This goes back to the 
days when Jews would be captured and brought to a Jewish community 
for redemption money. This was practiced quite commonly during 
the Dark Ages. The Shtetl was called upon to aid in the defense of a

Orinin, My Shtetl In the Ukraine 	573 
Jew who was falsely accused of some offense which lie clid not commit. 
Aid for this purpose was also called Pidyon Shvuyim, "redemption of 
the innocent", and immediately dispatched wherever it was needed. 
Eretz Yisroel, the Land of Israel, always sent out emissaries, meshula-
him, for various purposes. It might be a yeshivah they could not 
support by themselves, or a hospital that needed help. Sometimes the 
emissary himself was stranded and would ask for a return ticket. 
Emissaries from Eretz Yisroel were in a class by themselves and were 
aided generously. 
There were a dozen funds to which the balabos contributed annually.. 
On the eve of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the entrance hall 
to the house of worship provided some idea of the extent of charitable 
funds to which every Jew had to contribute. Dozens of plates were 
arranged on a long table. Each plate had a card near it telling the 
name of the charity, and every Jew entering the house of worship 
left something in the plate. 
The town was small, and the needs were many, but the Jews gave 
as much as their means would allow. The donations were voluntary. 
The Shtetl had no power of coercion. But the funds were always well 
subscribed. 
SABBATH IN ORININ 
All who have written of the Shtetl have marveled at the miraculous 
change that came over it as soon as the Sabbath arrived. 
The inhabitants threw off their workday yokes and became Sabbath 
princes. The men and their women and children all took on an extra 
Neshomoh, a Sabbath soul. The interior of the houses, the clothes of 
the people, the very streets of the Shtetl had another—worldly aspect. 
The transformation took place on Friday afternoon, for which Jews 
have a name, Erev Shabos* the Eve of Sabbath, not just another day 
of the week. The Shamos of the Old Shul would make the rounds of 
the Shtetl streets, stopping at every second or third house, and in a 
hoarse voice chanting: "In Shul Arein! In Shid Arein! In Shul Arein! 
"To the synagogue! To the synagogue! To the synagogue!" 
Immediately the stores would be shut down, transportation would 
stop, and all business dealings would come to a standstill. Soon the 
balegoles** would roll down the hill, bringing passengers home, and 
•Yiddish. Erev Shabbat in Hebrew. 
••Drivers of wagons or phaetons for hire.

574 	Rhode Island, Jewish Historical Notes 
merchants in their one-horse coaches would quicken their steeds to get 
to the stables with all dispatch. 
Out of the houses came fathers and sons, hurrying to the public 
bath with towels and underwear under their arms. With water drip-
ping from beards and heads, they would rush back to their houses 
to dress for the Sabbath. The women, mothers and daughters, would 
set the table for the Sabbath meal and put finishing touches on the 
houses. Black clothes for the men. White linen cloths on the tables. 
The women dressed in their Sabbath best. The whole house would 
take on a Sabbath mood. 
Mother would bless the candles while the whole family stood around 
her. She would cover her eyes with both hands, her lips moving in 
prayer, and then she would greet everyone with: "Good Shabos. Good 
Shabos" ("Good Sabbath, Good Sabbath.") 
The same procedure would be repeated in hundreds of homes in 
the Shtetl. Tables set with hale and wine. Candle flames swaying. 
From now on no work will be done. No fire lit. No hilarity allowed. 
No music played. No dancing allowed. No frivolity tolerated. The 
day of rest has arrived. 
Father and sons would walk slowly to the houses of worship along 
quiet streets past cheerfully lit houses, joined by neighbors as they 
approach the synagogues. 
Again greetings of "Good Shabos" when father returns and he chants 
the Sholom Aleichem ("Peace to you, Angels of Peace. Come in peace, 
bless us with peace, and depart in peace, you Angels of Peace"). Father 
also sings the Eshes Hayil, a Woman of Valor. While the family stands, 
father sings the Kiddush, the sanctification of the wine, and everyone 
sips from the cup. 
Supper lasts longer than any other evening meal, and the meals 
are different, special for the Sabbath. The Zmiroth (hymns), the chants 
between courses, are part of the Sabbath supper. Zmiroth of thanks-
giving. Zmiroth of exultation. Zmiroth of prayers for the rebuilding of 
the Holy Temple and the coming of a day which is wholly Sabbath. 
The Sabbath day is devoted entirely to prayer, study, and rest. The 
Sabbath prayers last a long time and the family remains in the Beth 
Midrash, the House of Study, from early morning till late in the after-
noon. After a Sabbath nap father returns to the Beth Midrash to 
study, to hear a magid, a preacher who comes from afar, or to chant 
Tehillim, the Psalms.

Orinin, My Shtetl In the Ukraine 	575 
At home, mother would read from the Tzeenu Urenu, a book in 
Yiddish for women, translating the Sidra* of each week and adding 
beautiful legends from the Talmud and Midrash* A few neighbors 
would gather to listen to her reading in a sing-song, shaking their 
heads and wiping a tear for the sin of Adam and Eve, for Noah and 
his Ark bobbing in the waters of the flood, for Abraham binding his 
only son Isaac, for Joseph being sold to the Ismaelites, and for the 
destruction of the Temple in Zion. 
The young people of the Shtetl are out on the Shosee, the paved 
highway out of Orinin on the way to Kamenetz, or on the Doroshka, 
the pathway near the Polish church by the river. They promenade 
back and forth until evening falls on the Shtetl and it is time for the 
evening meal. 
In the half dim house mother wishpers the "God of Abraham:" 
God of Abraham, of Isaac and Jacob. 
The queen Sabbath is departing, 
The week of toil is coming back. 
Send us sustenance, 
Guard us from evil, 
And grant us peace. 
And soon father comes home, chants the Havdalah, the prayer of 
separation of the Holy Day from the weekdays, and says Kiddush over 
a cup of wine and lights the twisted candle. 
As if someone had waved a magic wand, the splendor of the Sabbath 
is over, the wine cup is put away in the cupboard, the festive Sabbath 
clothes are changed to weekday drab garments, and the house is back 
to its worries, its problems, and its humdrum existence. 
But there will be other Sabbaths, days of delight and refreshment 
of soul. 
A DAY IN THE SHTETL 
The Shtetl was astir with the break of day. The first minyan** was 
already at worship in the Old Shul as the first rays of the sun appeared 
in the east. The streets were blueish and eerily quiet, so that the 
scraping of doors and the unlocking of gates were heard all over town. 
*Sidra (Hebrew) is the weekly portion of the Pentateuch read publicly in the 
Synagogues on Sabbath. Midrash (Hebrew) are commentaries and interpretations of 
the Bible. Leo Rosten states: "The very highly developed analysis, exposition, and 
exegesis of the Holy Scriptures". 
Whether Yiddish or Russian, it certainly derives from the French chaussee, meaning 
"highway". 
**The quorum of ten men, necessary for worship.

576 	Rhode Island, Jewish Historical Notes 
The balegoles, the drivers of wagons and phaetons who take pas-
sengers to and from the big city, were the first to line up on the market 
square. Some had steady customers. As soon as they saw them coming 
they would run to meet them and to help them with their satchels. 
They left as soon as all of the seats in their vehicles were taken. Other 
balegoles were not so fortunate. They had to wait for fares, to bargain 
for prices, and to set new fees for each of the customers. 
The merchants would drive out of their alleys in neat wagons or 
in sulkies drawn by one horse, trotting smartly on the cobbled Post 
Road. They were off to the other yaridn (markets) in the neighbor-
ing towns, or to supervise their interests in the villages around Orinin. 
The market women, the poorest of the poor, put up their fruit 
stands in the square. Summer and winter they stood at these stands 
and tried to eke out a living with fruit and vegetables displayed on a 
space no larger than an ordinary kitchen table. Their stands were 
placed next to one another, and the jealousy among venders added to 
their miseries. When a housewife appeared in the square, they all pro-
claimed the virtues of their wares, and followed the would-be buyer 
until she stopped at a stand. 
The storekeepers opened their shops and brought out bulk merchan-
dise to the sidewalks in front of their business houses. Sacks of salt 
and squares of salt for cattle to lick. Barrels of black sticky tar to 
lubricate the wheels of vehicles. Bundles of dried, salty herring hung 
on nails over the doors of the stores. Casks of nails in all sizes for 
various purposes. All of these were waiting for the peasants as they 
came into the Shtetl for their supplies. 
From the butcher street came the cry of lambs as they were taken 
out of the pens and led away to be slaughtered. The coopers rolled 
out their wares from their storage places, barrels of various widths and 
heights, and the hollow beat of their hammers could be heard in the 
distance. 
Old men returned from their klois or Beth Midrash where they had 
been praying and studying on empty stomachs since early morning. 
They would return to study and prayer soon after they had eaten some-
thing. 
The meklars, the cane twirlers, the lujtmenschen, persons without 
an identifiable profession, stood in circles in front of stores and ex-
changed the latest news.

Orinin, My Shtetl In the Ukraine 	577 
Children were taken to the dardeki melamed, the teacher of young 
children, by the behelfers, the assistants to the rebbe, while older 
children, with their books under their arms, were rushing to their 
various hedorim, rooms of the teachers, for a day of study. 
The daily routine of the Shtetl, established so many years ago, was 
repeated with minor seasonal variations from day to day. 
Smoke rises from the chimneys of the houses. Housewives stand at 
their kitchen pripetchoks, the fore-ovens, preparing the meals for their 
families. It was a laborious time-consuming chore. The housewives, 
in fact, spent most of the day cooking and baking. Washing and 
ironing, cleaning and scrubbing — in addition to baking, cooking and 
canning — were the daily routine of the housewife. 
With the setting of the sun the Shtetl had a rhythm of its own. 
Children returned from the heder. The travelers came back from the 
big city and from their dealings in the villages. Children waited at 
the bridge for their fathers' return and were picked up for the short 
ride to their homes. Old men rose up from their studies and began 
the evening prayers. Lights appeared in the windows and people sat 
down to a long evening meal. 
With the coming of the night the Warta showed up on the streets 
of Orinin. The Warta consisted of young men who guarded the Shtetl 
at night. They took turns every month traveling in twos, walking the 
streets and alleys of the Shtetl. They carried no arms. When something 
suspicious occurred, they would raise an alarm and drive off the would-
be thieves or other disturbers of the peace. But the nights were quiet, 
and in the summer months the aroma of growing things, of flowering 
things, and of ripening things, and the murmur of whispering things 
filled the air of the Shtetl. 
At midnight a candlelight would flicker in some houses. Grand-
fathers and fathers would arise for hatzotli, the lamentations at mid-
night. They would lament for the "Presence" of the Holy One who 
was exiled, for the Holy Temple that was destroyed, and for the Land 
of Israel that was taken away from us. And they would study in their 
sing-song, swaying over the large folios of the Gemoro. 
The Shtetl had its charms day and night, and we who knew them 
can never recapture them.