AZR opens his life account with a sentence that confirms, in his own hand, the question of origin that has occupied this archive (see "Lineage" and "The 1875 Conscription Record"):
"In the year 5614, on the 24th of the month of Shevat, I was born in the town of Lyady, Mogilev Governorate." AZR, "The Story of His Life Written by Himself" (5667/1907).
Lyady, Mogilev Governorate, 24 Shevat 5614 (1854), from AZR himself. This matches the conscription record ("Ziskind son of Hirsh of Lyady") and the resolution of the Mogilev question in the archival verification.
AZR's name is Alexander Ziskind son of Tsvi-Hirsh, and the father who appears here, Tsvi-Hirsh, is a direct link to the conscription record ("son of Hirsh"). AZR describes him as a poor rural debt collector, yet generous and content with little:
"My father Tsvi-Hirsh would go around all week with his wretched horse through the villages, collecting his petty debts from the peasants… For almost the entire week no hot food passed his lips… and only on Sabbath eve would he return home. His life was hard… and yet he always presented himself as a man of means, gave charity with an open hand, and fed the poor at his table… The commandment 'walk humbly with your God' was his rule in all his deeds." Ibid. (The father died "in the prime of his life, at about forty-one.")
His mother, Golda, he paints as an exemplary woman, learned and hard-working, a rare portrait of a learned woman in the Hasidic world of Lyady:
"And my mother Golda was a great scholar, versed in all the religious Torah literature, knowing by heart all the prayers and blessings… She, that small, thin woman, toiled like seven men to feed her children and to marry off her daughters." Ibid.
AZR describes a closed Hasidic upbringing breached by curiosity and reading: as a child he read Yiddish in his mother's books ("Menorat HaMaor," "Kav HaYashar"); he wrote halakhic compositions and liturgical poems; and he taught himself Russian to discover "what the gentiles write in their books." The turning point was Avraham Mapu's "Ayit Tzavua" (The Hypocrite):
"That book was 'Ayit Tzavua' by Avraham Mapu, the first of the storytellers in our Hebrew tongue; in it a new world was revealed to me: another language, other ideas, and other realms. From then on I began to immerse myself with great passion in our modern literature… and I became a maskil." Ibid.
His first article was printed, of all places, in a Russian periodical (Russkiy Yevrey). The national spark was kindled in Moscow by the circle of Hebrew students of the "Bnei Zion" society, whose Hebrew library was supervised by M. M. Ussishkin (its members included Yechiel Levontin, Rabbi Yaakov Mazeh, and others). And so:
"And in the year 5644 I entered the sanctuary of our Hebrew literature, to serve it and to delight in it." Ibid. (5644 = 1884, the beginning of his literary career.)
At the point most important for a source-based archive, AZR closes the autobiography with a reservation about the biographies written of him:
"Other pieces of information that have appeared in various periodicals (including 'Olam Katan') concerning the course of my life are inaccurate and not to be relied upon; and in particular, what has been written about the relationship supposedly existing between me and my townsman the writer Mr. Reuven Brainin, who is much younger than I, is an impossible fabrication." Ibid., postscript.
AZR himself warns that the biographical information published about him is inaccurate, direct reinforcement of the archive's working principle (to prefer a primary source over Tidhar and secondary sources). His reservation is targeted: what was written about a significant "relationship" between him and Reuven Brainin is invented. Yet AZR himself calls Brainin "my townsman," and in "Searching for Paths" he records a brief acquaintance with him (he lent him a book; see "In Russia: Brainin, Tolstoy, and the Revolution"). That is: claims of a significant bond or influence should be rejected, but the brief acquaintance between the two natives of Lyady should not be denied.
In the memoir chapter "Lyady," AZR opens with a sentence that settles, from a primary source, the question of location that has occupied this archive:
"The townlet of Lyady, where I was born and spent all the days of my youth, stands on the border between Mogilev Governorate and Smolensk Governorate. It itself belongs… to the Pale of Settlement, but beyond the bridge… over the river 'Mereya' begins 'the land of the nations,' 'outside the Pale.'" AZR, "Lyady" (Chapters of Memoirs).
AZR places Lyady on the border between Mogilev Governorate and Smolensk Governorate, on the river Mereya, at the edge of the Pale of Settlement. This confirms that Lyady belongs to Mogilev Governorate (as the archive concluded), and explains from a primary source why conflicting identifications arose: it is a border town, right on the line. Its attribution to "Vitebsk" is later/administrative; AZR himself names Mogilev/Smolensk. (See "The Archival Verification" and "Lineage.")
The rest of the chapter paints a poor townlet: mud "up to the knees," old, rotting wooden houses, a meager livelihood from trade with the peasants, and the land owned by the "Pan" Lubomirski. Its one glory was the great synagogue ("shtibl"), with a bimah painted with lions and leopards and bookcases up to the ceiling, among them "one book that was printed in Lyady," considered a great rarity — testimony to the Hebrew press that once operated in the town (adjoining "Ancient Roots").
In the chapter "With Hovevei Zion," AZR describes joining the "Bnei Zion" society in Poltava and the character of Hibbat Zion in those days, a religious-progressive movement:
"The Hibbat Zion movement in those days was essentially a religious-progressive movement… Most of the members were religious people, truly God-fearing, and Zion was their heart's desire… The central idea that pulsed within us was to leave the Exile… to settle in the land of our fathers, even if it meant subsisting there on bread and water." AZR, "With Hovevei Zion" (Chapters of Memoirs).
He admits candidly that in practice they were "utter children": lotteries of 3 rubles toward founding a colony (which lost hundreds of rubles), and then a delegation of two emissaries, Rabbi Yechezkel Arlozorov and Mr. Deiches of Kharkov, to the Baron in Paris, asking him to buy land in their name; the Baron refused and the society dissolved. But in the spiritual work they succeeded: spreading national consciousness and maintaining a high moral standing ("even the most freethinking among them would not open his shop on the Sabbath").
At the end of the chapter AZR dates his first steps: "In the year 5649 I printed in 'HaMelitz' the feuilleton 'A Melamed's Conversation'"; and immediately after it the story "The Hebrew Children," which won a 50-ruble prize, "that was the first time I received an author's fee." (This completes the life account above, and adjoins "Delegate to the Zionist Congress.")
This memoir chapter is named after Ahad Ha'am's essay "Lo Zeh HaDerekh" ("This Is Not the Way") (his debut essay, 5649/1889), whose revolutionary effect AZR describes: Ahad Ha'am raised Hibbat Zion from alms-giving ("twenty-five kopecks a month") to the level of a living faith of "chosen individuals, a 'fellowship of priests.'" Here too AZR's membership in Ahad Ha'am's "Bnei Moshe society" is documented, "a moment of spiritual elevation the like of which I had never felt in my life."
The Ben-Yehuda text reads "and in the year 5621 M. Krichevsky… brought me into the Bnei Moshe society," but 5621=1861 is impossible (AZR was 7; "Bnei Moshe" was founded by Ahad Ha'am only in 5649/1889). This is almost certainly a misprint for 5651 (1891) or thereabouts. Flagged so that no one is misled.
AZR dreams a Tolstoyan dream: to leave teaching and become "a model farmer in the Land of Israel… to join the idea of Hibbat Zion with… labor according to Tolstoy's method" (see "Vegetarianism"). He and Krichevsky asked Ahad Ha'am for a model colony of Bnei Moshe members that would include them, and Ahad Ha'am replied that the idea was fine but "there is no possibility of carrying it out." AZR honestly admits he was never fit for farm work.
The root of the decision: deep disappointment with teaching, and a sense that the Hebrew language was doomed in the Exile:
"Sixteen years I worked in the Talmud Torah; some four thousand pupils took instruction from my mouth… and in the end only a few acquired an adequate knowledge of the Hebrew language… I shall go to the Land of Israel, I resolved in my heart… I shall see how it returns to life, and with it – its language." AZR, "This Is Not the Way" (Chapters of Memoirs).
AZR: "I was ready to travel… before Rosh Hashanah… but because of a family celebration I was delayed until after Sukkot. My stepson was to be married on the first of Cheshvan." That is, the departure was postponed from Tishrei to Cheshvan, converging exactly with the shore farewell in Kislev 5666 (late 1905) that Bialik documented in his letter to S. Ben-Zion. Two independent primary sources, the same timing. (See "A Contradiction of Sources: The Year of Aliyah" in "Bialik's Letters.")
The chapters "My Parents," "My Grandfather R. Nissan," and "Grandmother Tsirli" provide primary-source genealogical documentation for three generations, and explain the family name.
AZR reveals that the family name derives from his father's mother, Grandmother Tsirli, a domineering, powerful personality:
"My father's mother ('di Bube Tsirli'), and after her my grandfather too was called – Nissan Tsirlis, and my father – Hirshe Tsirlis. Hers was the soul of a forceful man reincarnated in a woman's body." AZR, "Grandmother Tsirli" (Chapters of Memoirs).
That is, "Tsirlis" is a matronymic (a name derived from the mother): grandfather = Nissan Tsirlis, father = Hirshe Tsirlis (= Tsvi-Hirsh). This illuminates the "Tsirlis side" in the lineage documents (see "Genealogy v2" and "Lineage, a Summary").
The three generations, by name, from AZR himself:
| Generation | Name (from the memoirs) | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Grandfather and grandmother (paternal side) | R. Nissan (Tsirlis) and Tsirli | Nissan, one of the town's notables, completed the entire Talmud once every three years, died of cholera in 5627 (1866) and was chosen as a "good intercessor." Tsirli, the breadwinner, the midwife and charity matron of Lyady. |
| Parents | Tsvi-Hirsh ("Hirshe Tsirlis") and Golda-Chaya | The father, a poor rural debt collector, died at about 41; the mother, a learned woman who was widowed and became the breadwinner. |
| The son | Alexander Ziskind (AZR) | Born 24 Shevat 5614 (1854), Lyady, Mogilev Governorate. |