Chapter 6 - Yoram Grows Up and Meets Meir for the First Time

{Read the Hebrew original here}

During those years that Yedidya studied at Talmud Torah "Etz Chayim," ¹ his younger brother, Yoram, grew up and also exhibited extreme talents. In particular, he showed an amazing level of natural smartness, shrewdness, strong curiosity to learn, and a lovely and happy demeanor. He made a lot of young friends in the neighborhood, and he was involved with many mischiefs. He loved to play around with his sister Shoshana and her girlfriends. One of his favorite mischiefs was as follows: When he would see his sister and her friends coming home, he secretly entered her room and waited for them behind the sofa, until they arrived at Shoshana's room. When the girls sat by the table and started to talk or do their homework, Yoram would suddenly imitate the whine of a cat. The imitation sounded so genuine, that the girls jumped from their seats and yelled with fear. Then, he would crawl out from behind the sofa, stand up, and with a victory laugh, would greet Shoshana and her friends.

The girls liked him very much because he was a tall and beautiful boy and because of his playful misbehavior and smartness. Before Yoram was three years old, he was already able to memorize the capital cities of many countries, and the girls liked to ask him questions on this and other topics. He was quick to answer every question, and he always had a happy smile on his cute face.

At the same time, David Hatalgi's business started to prosper at an accelerated pace. The factory became bigger, and the number of workers reached 50, a relatively large size compared to other factories in Eretz Israel during that time. It was a good economical period in the land, a time of prosperity. As Hitler ascended to power in Germany, many German Jews made an Aliyah to Eretz Israel ², in a large immigration wave that brought forth excellent personnel in the field of science and technology, combined with great capital in the form of machinery and other manufacturing means. In addition, many other Jews from Poland and other European countries made Aliyah to Eretz Israel. The large number of new-comers to Eretz Israel gave a great momentum to the building of the country and the establishment of various new industrial enterprises, bringing great prosperity and rapid economical expansion of the Yishuv. The main city of Tel-Aviv became larger, developing further to the north and to the east, and Haifa also did not stay behind. A new city, Nahariya, was established north to Haifa, absorbing many of the new olim ³ from Germany.

Parallel to this industrial development, the Jewish agricultural settlement in Eretz Israel, in its many forms and movements, also experienced a great expansion. Many new Kibutzim, villages, and other forms of agricultural communities were established, and the old settlements like Petach Tikva, Hadera and Rehovot also expanded their size and their population.

With his sharp commercial instincts, David sensed that with the population increase and the economical growth that fueled accelerating consumption, he would be able to significantly expand his production and his product mix. To that end, he needed more capital, and the help of an experienced professional manager who could manage the technical side of the business, while he could concentrate on the financial and marketing management. Luckily, David met a new Ole from Germany, Kurt Morgenstern, who had the proper capital and was an experienced engineer in the metal field. He was a descendant of an established Frankfurt family, in his early forties, who emigrated to Eretz Israel with his wife, Helen, and their fourteen- year-old daughter, Korin. Like the Hatalgi family, The Morgenstern family was traditional, and in a short time, David and Kurt became good friends. They reached an agreement that Kurt would join the factory as the production manager, and after a three-month probation, Kurt would become a full and equal partner in the firm. Kurt started his job with much enthusiasm, and David quickly realized that Kurt was the perfect man to be his partner. The workers liked Kurt, who initiated new production methods and improved the existing processes, causing a major increase in the factory output. David expanded the number of clients, who covered the entire market of Eretz Israel, including both the Jewish and Arab sectors.

After the three month probation, they formally established their partnership, calling the firm “Hatalgi and Co.” Together, they expanded the factory, built a new section, ordered new tools from Europe and started to manufacture new metal products. The products were of superb quality, and soon the company established good will in the entire middle east, with orders flowing in from the nearby countries. The Morgensterns rented a nice apartment in the Rehavia neighborhood, and Korin joined the Rehavia Gymnasium (high school), after finishing a quick Hebrew course with a private tutor.

David and Shulamit started to plan the studies of their younger son, Yoram. Knowing that their first born, Yedidya, was destined for political and leadership greatness, and realizing that Yoram had special wisdom and "street smarts," they decided that Yoram required an education that would prepare him to join the family business and help in its management. Nevertheless, they thought that Yoram must start with the proper religious education that would teach him the eternal and traditional Jewish values, and only later, they would transfer him into secular and professional technical studies. In view of these goals, they first enrolled Yoram in the "Chader,"⁴ and three years later, he was transferred to Talmud Torah “Etz Chayim,” at the same time that Yedidya finished his studies in that school.

During his studies at the “Chader,” Yoram met a tall and dark-haired youngster named Meir Feinstein. Meir, who was a smart and fast child, was also born in the Old City of Jerusalem, and exhibited a lot of similarities to Yoram, although he was a bit more serious. The two children developed a great friendship that kept growing through the years. Meir was the youngest son of an elderly and successful merchant, Eliezer Feinstein, who emigrated to Eretz Israel as a young lad from the town of Brisk-Litovsk, which at that time, was part of Poland. When he arrived in Eretz Israel in 1888, he became one of the leading students and followers of the Rabbi from Brisk⁵, who liked him very much because of his amazing diligence. After young Eliezer married a Jerusalem-born wife, he opened a small grocery store near the old Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai Synagogue in the Old City, and the Rabbi from Brisk blessed his young student for success in his business endeavors. This blessing was fully realized, and Eliezer became very successful in his small store, and soon he transferred his business to a larger store with a big warehouse on Hagai Street⁶ in the Old City. He established a wine distillery in his new warehouse, where he made various Kosher wines: sweet red wines, white wines, bitter wines and various kinds of Arak⁷. During the grape harvest season, the entire Hagai Street was filled with caravans of camels and donkeys carrying large baskets filled with wine grapes on their backs from the wineries of Hebron to Eliezer's Kosher wine distillery.

R'⁸ Eliezer saw many blessings in his work, created a large family, and his name became well-known as an honest and successful merchant. In spite of his hard work that started early each morning and lasted until late evening, it was the custom of Rav Eliezer, at the end of each day's work, to join the Gmara studies at the yard of Rabbi Yehuda Ha-Hassid (near the "Churva" Synagogue). This is how he fulfilled the Mitzvah of Torah and Avoda⁹. He kept this custom until his last day on this Earth.

Meir, the youngest son of R' Eliezer, was born in 1929, in the Misgav Ladach hospital in the old city of Jerusalem. He was born to Bella Feinstein, the second wife of R' Eliezer, whom he married after he became widowed from his first wife. The young and beautiful Bella made Aliyah with her mother from Bialystok (Poland) a short time before the start of the first world war. She was a tall, beautiful and magnificent young woman, and she had a well-carved face. She was religiously educated in Jewish tradition, and she supported her old mother. When she was introduced to Rav Eliezer, they both liked each other, and she agreed to marry him. This marriage was successful, and she bore a daughter and two sons prior to the birth of Meir. Bella was a faithful wife to Rav Eliezer, and in addition to her extensive work in maintaining the household, she provided her husband with a lot of help managing his business.

After the Arab riots of 1929, the Feinstein family moved into the new city of Jerusalem, in a house that R' Eliezer built for his family in the Kerem Avraham neighborhood. It was a house with eight rooms, six of those were rented to other families, while the Feinstein family occupied two rooms and a closed balcony. Meir grew up and obtained his early education living in this apartment. Before relocating from the old city, R' Eliezer moved his business to the new city, in the Machne Yehuda neighborhood. R' Eliezer made sure to provide all of his children with the proper orthodox education, so that when his youngest son, Meir, reached the age of three, his father enrolled him in a “Chader” in the Zichron Moshe neighborhood, the same “Chader” of Yoram Hatalgi. This is how the two children grew up together and became close friends from early childhood. When they finished their study in the “Chader” in Zichron Moshe, they both transferred to the same class in Talmud Torah “Etz Chayim.”

Notes for Chapter 6

1. Talmud Torah "Etz Chayim" - the religious school attended by my father, Binyamin, and Meir. Rabbi Aryeh Levin was their supervisor in this school.
2. Aliyah - "making Aliyah" by moving to the Land of Israel is one of the most basic tenets of Zionism.
3. Olim - Jews making Aliyah. (plural: Olim, singular: Ole).
4. Chader - the traditional Jewish early education method, where young children are first put in a room (hence "Chader" in Yiddish) with a religious teacher, who teaches the Alef Beit (Hebrew alphabet) of the Torah, and the elementary Jewish prayers and customs.
5. The Rabbi from Brisk - Rabbi Yehoshua Leib Diskin.

6. Hagai Street - a north to south road inside the Muslim quarter of the Old City leading from the Damascus Gate towards the Western wall. The street is called "Al-Wad" in Arabic. Many Jews living in the Jewish quarter expanded into Hagai Street as there was little room to expand inside the crowded Jewish quarter. Due to an unknown reason, my father called this street "Midan" (רחוב המידן) in the novel.
7. Arak - a Levantine unsweetened distilled spirit (≈40–63% alc/vol or ≈80–126 proof) in the anise family. See Arak or Araq.
8. R' or Rav - the Jewish honorific R’ is short for Rav (pronounced "Reib" in Yiddish, "Rav" in Hebrew). It is used to formally address a regular orthodox Jewish gentleman, who is not an ordained Rabbi. A real Rabbi is addressed, of course, as a "Rabbi." R' is essentially equivalent to "mister" and this is how my father referred to his father in the remainder of this book.
9. The Mitzvah of Torah and Avoda - a commandment in Judaism to combine honest work with continuous study of the Torah.