| Len's uncle
A Conflict Over Teaching
Methods
Newport was a small town. Maybe the general population at that time maybe consisted of some 100,000 people or 80,000 people, but there were very few Jewish families there, I presume. I believe the synagogue that we went to was the only synagogue, and as I recall, I saw there not more than 50 people, or maybe 60, which isn’t enough for a big Jewish community.
So, he introduced me to the president of the synagogue and introduced me to the principal of the Talmud Torah. Before I came, Freydel and her husband probably advertised me quite a bit. They told their friends and acquaintances that a cousin of theirs is coming, and they told them of some of my qualifications. They may have exaggerated a good deal about them, but anyway, everybody knew that I was coming, because whoever I said “Hello” to, they said, “Oh, we heard already. We knew that you were coming.”
So, I said to the...yes! So, the principal of the Talmud Torah, a man with a stiff hat, a tall hat, dressed with a vest and a golden chain across from one pocket to the other, with a big belly. He looked like a real well-fed person. He said, “If you don’t mind, Mr. Wolfson, I would ask you to come to visit our classes tomorrow. We’re having school in the morning, Sunday.”
He says, “We need a teacher, and since you are in that profession, I would like you to join us.” Oh, I thought it was a very fortunate thing, just right away, as soon as you arrive, to get a job. Wonderful.
Well, anyway, I came to that school Sunday morning. I watched it. He was the only teacher in that school, and he was the principal, and he was the shochet in Newport. But he was only a shochet ofot; it means a ritual slaughterer of chickens, but chickens only. He could not touch a gasa or a daka, which means a cow, ox, or a calf, a sheep, and so forth. But only poultry.
And later on, I found out that he knew very little. I also learned of the type of the ritual schochet that they have in America, that they didn’t know anything. It is customary for a schochet to get ordained as such to know as much Talmud practically as a rabbi. There are certain books that he doesn’t practice going over, like for instance, trials between one man and his fellow man. Only the Rabbi takes it up in special books that are not Talmudic books. They are called yura deah, which means teaching knowledge, that were written and composed already in the Diaspora. A rabbi has to have gone over them if he wants to be ordained as a Rabbi. But a schochet doesn’t know them. A schochet had to be a very learned man.
But in America the shochtim, most of them, are ignoramuses. I met quite a number of them. I am saying this in parentheses. I met a number of them who learned their trade from a book written in Yiddish, because Hebrew they didn’t understand. But as long as they learned the profession, they knew how to hold a chalef, a knife, so that it wouldn’t hurt the animal, or the fowl, so they were ordained a schochet. He was one of that type. I found it out later. Well, anyway, I was there Sunday, and he told me to come an teach Monday. My first day as a teacher in the United States. So, I told him... There was a blackboard. I wanted some chalk, so he brought me some chalk, so, he says, “This is a beginners’ class.”
I said, “I’ll tell you something. Do I need textbooks?” I said, “Do you have any?” He has a siddur. And in front of the first page there is the alef-bes. “Well,” I said, “I teach just by writing on the blackboard. I teach them to read the word, to know it, and also they will know the meaning. I illustrate things so that I teach Hebrew while I teach them to read the letters.”
And I started. He walked out of the room, and I started teaching the children. And they responded beautifully. They responded. They got so interested in my illustrating. I didn’t know that he opened the door somewhere and looked in, peeped in.
And he breaks in on me suddenly, and he says, “That’s no way of teaching. That isn’t a way of teaching. You know how to teach. You tell them the alef, you write an alef and you make a kametz underneath. And you say, ‘Kametz alef aw.’ You make an aw, a sign of a vowel.”
Well, this was a way of teaching in the olden days, and that would take about ten times as long as teaching them properly. To start reading straight, and after they learn how to read well, then you give them the names of the letters. But in the beginning, you don’t have to give them the names of the letters or of the vowels before they learn to read.
Well, he didn’t understand teaching at all. And he says, right in front of the class, of the class, there must have been 16 or 14 children.
He says to me, “Do you know history?”
I said, “I think I know a little about history.”
He says, “When was the Rambam born. How long ago did Maimonides live?”
I said, “A little over 800 years.”
“I’m very sorry,” he said, “my friend, we didn’t get such a great big bargain in you. You don’t know it.” He says, “I’ll tell you something. I’ll bet you a bottle of whiskey.”
I didn’t know what a bottle was, and I didn’t know what a betcha is, and I didn’t know what whiskey was. “Is [words unclear] that the Rambam wasn’t born 800 years ago. Only about 80 years ago or 60 years ago, and that’s about all. And after we get through, we’ll go to my house, and I’ll show it to you in a book.”
Well, we went to his house after we got through with our session, and he goes up to his buffet, a beautiful buffet. By the way, he lived in a very nice home. And he takes out a calendar, a Yiddish calendar. It was a good size, like the size of a book, very thin. And they had there the chronology of the world on the first page. Every calendar has it. My mother had a calendar like that, and every Jewish home in Russia. And the immigrants coming here, they had the same calendar. And he says, “Since the world was created is five thousand five hundred and so on. Since Adam was born, so many years. Was created [sic]. Since Noah, since the flood, since Abraham, since Maimonides.” He says, “I’ll be damned.”
I heard him say it, and I didn’t know what it was. And he stretches his hand out to me and shakes hands with me, and he says, “You are right. I’ll be damned. You are right.” And he runs up, opens up the buffet, and takes out a bottle of whiskey.
I took a look, and I say, “What is it?”
He says, “Branfen. In Yiddish it’s branfen”. He says, “We made a bet.”
I said, “Well, I don’t want that. I don’t want it. I’m very sorry. You’ll have to excuse me Mr. Solomon, I have to go. I’m in a hurry to go.” And believe it or not, I broke down. I cried on my way to Freydel’s house. I got a desire to run back to Russia, no matter what happened. Go to the Army, go anywhere at all. If this is Jewish life, if a type like this can teach Jewish children, and if I have to teach in a school like that, and if this is American Jewishness or Judaism, then I don’t care to stay here one minute.
I walked into Freydel’s house, and she says, “What happened to you? Did anyone hurt you?” And Nossen ran up to me, “Did anyone hurt you?” “No, nobody hurt me.” I said, “I feel hurt but no one hurt me.” I said, “You know, I’m not going back to that school.” I told them what happened. I told them what kind of teacher they had. What kind of am-haaretz they had. It means an ignoramus. This was my experience on my first job, being employed. |
