עברית
Biography · From Poverty to the Land · A Firsthand Account

From Book Peddler to the Land of Israel

The baker, the humiliated peddler, the meeting with Ahad Ha'am — and the aliyah (Kislev 5666)
The chapters "Melamed and Bookseller," "Torah and Craft," and "From the First Days in the Land" complete the arc from poverty in Russia to his first days in the Land, and disclose key biographical, literary, and genealogical details: the name of his first wife, his maternal grandfather, the formative meeting with Ahad Ha'am, and the exact date of his aliyah. "Chapters of Memoirs" · Project Ben-Yehuda · Public Domain

A The Baker and Book Peddler (Belgorod)

In Belgorod, when teaching failed him, AZR became a baker — hard toil, together with his first wife:

"I sought to earn my living by the toil of my hands and became a baker. Hard labor I performed, I and my first wife Henya-Leah, of blessed memory… I would also split wood and carry water." AZR, "Melamed and Bookseller," "Chapters of Memoirs"; Project Ben-Yehuda.

When that did not suffice, he returned to literature: he printed his first story, "Al HaPerek" ("On the Agenda") (5642/1882), and set out to peddle it from town to town:

"In what way is this merchandise of mine — literature — inferior to a loaf of bread? Loaves of bread I carry about, seeking buyers for them; let the books be like them." Ibid.
A genealogical detail — the maternal grandfather: when he sent his story to his grandfather, AZR states explicitly: "My grandfather, my mother's father, R. Yehuda Leib… answered me that he took pleasure in my writing in the holy tongue, but could I not instead have composed some book of moral instruction…". In consequence he composed the musar book "Ma'agalei Tzedek" ("Paths of Righteousness"). This is direct documentation of his maternal grandfather, R. Yehuda Leib, completing a link in the maternal line (see "The AZR Lineage").

B The Meeting with Ahad Ha'am and Pinsker (Odessa)

The height of humiliation — and the height of the turning point — came in Odessa. Ahad Ha'am declined the book but held out a ruble:

"Here is a ruble, but your book I will not accept, for by going from door to door with your book you disgrace literature." And AZR replied: "My book I give to you, sir, as a gift; and money I will not take from you." Ibid. (AZR adds: "After some time we became friends" — the beginning of his friendship with Ahad Ha'am; see "The Ahad Ha'am Letters.")

Dr. Pinsker, too, gave a ruble, with a rebuke: "Better for you, and for the whole world, had you been a cobbler… I have no need whatever of the Hebrew language." AZR took the ruble "in full consciousness of abasement… like a trampled worm."

C Return to Poltava and the Feinerman Affair

In Poltava, AZR contributed to the modernization of the Talmud Torah and to its crafts department (headed by Feinerman, a disciple of Tolstoy). His position was a complex one — he valued "the poetic worth of religion," and in his story "Meir the Beadle" ("Meir HaShamash") it was precisely an Orthodox man he portrayed as the ideal figure — yet he criticized the neglect of the heders. Feinerman drew ever closer to Christianity, until in the end he converted (he and his family). A denunciation sent to St. Petersburg closed his school, and Prince Tyutishchev was dismissed, "and our meager liberty vanished."

D The Aliyah: Kislev 5666 (Late 1905)

The Date of the Aliyah from a Primary Source

"At long last I came with my family to the Land of Israel. (On Shabbat 'Mevarchim' of Kislev 5666)… I brought with me two hundred rubles in cash and eight souls." AZR, "From the First Days in the Land," "Chapters of Memoirs"; Project Ben-Yehuda.

Kislev 5666 = late 1905, confirming from a primary source the earlier dating (and resolving the contradiction with Tidhar = 1906). AZR immigrated with a family of eight souls and 200 rubles.

The teachers brought him into their "autonomy" — the courtyard of Refael Rabinowitz in Neve Shalom, facing the Chabad study house; most of them were "of the loyal army of 'Bnei Moshe.'" His friend A. L. Levinsky promised him 25 rubles a month for his work on "The History of Hebrew Literature" (the joint project; see "The Bialik Letters").

E His First Days: Jerusalem, Librarian, and the Workers

At Hanukkah he went up to Jerusalem and lectured at the Lämel School on "the defining marks of prophecy" — "a tremor passed through my whole body… am I not in Jerusalem?" A few months later he was appointed librarian at "Sha'arei Zion" (70 francs a month), and even swept the rooms himself ("nothing to be ashamed of"). And there sprouted the idea that would guide the rest of his life:

"For the workers — those who labor and live literally by the toil of their hands — they are the builders of the Land and of the people. Without them there is no foundation for any enterprise, nor for any of our hope." AZR, "From the First Days in the Land"; Project Ben-Yehuda.

And when the decree fell upon the workers of Petah Tikva, AZR, together with R. Yehezkel Danin (Dukhovolsky), tried to have it annulled — the beginning of his engagement on behalf of the workers in the Land (see "AZR and the Labor Movement").

Connection to the rest of the archive: this chapter ties the threads together — the meeting with Ahad Ha'am (the beginning of the friendship; see "The Ahad Ha'am Letters"), the "History of Hebrew Literature" project with Levinsky/Bialik (see "The Bialik Letters"), the teachers' ties to "Bnei Moshe," and the seed of the labor ethos that would ripen into "the grandfather of the Working Youth" (see "AZR and the Labor Movement"). Genealogical details: his first wife Henya-Leah, his grandfather R. Yehuda Leib, and a family of 8 at the aliyah.