| Len's uncle
Danila the peasant and the elevator to the Holy Ark
There was a big synagogue, Der Alter Shul [The Old Synagogue], of which my father was a member. The Alter Shul must have been ages old. There wasn’t one man in the city that remembered when it was built. I asked a man who was about 90 years old, maybe older. He said his father couldn’t remember either. So that must have been one of the oldest synagogues that they had in Russia. In many towns and townlets and cities, they had an Alter Shul, and they called it “der alter der bekalter” [The old the cold] because in some cities they never heated those places during the week, except on the Sabbath. And they were empty throughout the week. But they were beautifully built.
Der Alter Shul had a lot of beautiful carvings inside. They had a beautiful stairway going up the Aron Kodesh [The Holy Ark], which was under the very roof. And the roof was very, very high. Far, far from the ground, from the floor. And they had some device that one, a Russian, a peasant man, who really, he came from peasantry. But he himself was an autodidact, he taught himself to learn, to read. He even leaned to read Hebrew. He used to come to shul every Saturday. His name was Danila. I used to admire him a lot. He was handsome. If you ever saw a picture of Dr. Herzl, that’s exactly what he looked like.
Later on, when I saw pictures of Herzl, when I was a small boy, I always thought of Danila. And he was the great master that made that wonderful masterpiece, a way of getting up the Aron Kodesh, which was way up under the ceiling. And you had to travel, you walked up steps and on a platform, and he had a lever which you pulled, and you moved, and the platform went up to the wall, and then it was raised right up to the Aron Kodesh.
And on the way back, you pulled the same lever, and you went down. Then you walked down the steps. You had to walk up to the platform about eight or ten steps. And the platform was made up beautifully. There was so much engraving done on it. It was unusual.
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