;.cPassages from The Yeshiva dealing with town of Amdur
;.l1,6,60,66,1,0,10,75,192,2,15,20,25,127,10,0,
;.l2,15,75,192,2,20,25,127,15,0,
;.l3,20,75,192,2,25,127,20,0,
;.l4,25,75,192,2,127,25,0,
;.l5,30,75,192,2,127,30,0,
;.l6,12,90,192,2,18,24,127,12,1,
;.l7,17,124,192,2,25,127,17,0,
.h2, =AM050995  --  More notes on Shtetl of Amdur
PASSAGES ON THE SHTETL OF AMDUR FROM CHAIM GRADE,  THE YESHIVA
FURTHER NOTES ON THE SHTETL OF AMDUR
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CHAIM GRADE: INTRODUCTORY NOTES:

Chaim Grade:  (1910-1982) :  
	born:  Vilna; Yeshiva student until 1932 (age 22).
	Figures autobiographically in The Yeshiva as "Chaikl Vilner"

Works include:
	Memoir:  My mother's Sabbath Day (Yiddish)
English Translation:
	The Well
	The Yeshiva
	The Agunah
	Rabbis and Wives (1974 (Yiddish); English: Knopf, 1982;Schoken, 1987)
	The Seven Little Lanes (English?)

The Yeshiva, 
	published as Tsemakh Atlas, Yiddish, USA, 1967
	translated into Hebrew for publication in Israel, 1968
translated form Yiddish with Introduction, Curt Leviant; MenorahPublishing, NY NY,                              
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One of the sub-plots of The Yeshiva is set in the town of Amdur.
The author lists 3 characters from Amdur:  Falk Namiot, father ofTsemakh's finance; Dvorele Naimot,  the financee; Reb YaakovYitzhok, Innkeeper at Amdur.  Those characters are carried over toVolume II of The Yeshiva, with the addition of Reb Barukh Rubin,the Amdur rabbi.

Because the author was born in Vilna and grew up in this area, onemight assume that the descriptions of Amdur are reasonablyaccurate.
                                                
An unsigned introductory note ("About this Book") to the Menorahtranslation notes:  "Though labeled fiction, The Yeshiva is anautobiography of Grade's (Chaikl Vilner in the book) teenageyears."  (One may note that Chaim Grade was born in Vilna, andthat the parents of "Chaikl" are given the surnames of ChaimGrade's parents.)

If one assumes that the character Chaikl is Chaim Grade (b. 1910),then from references to "Chaikl"'s age, and from the chronology ofthe narrative, the Volume I episode in Amdur would be dated about1925, and the Volume II episode about 1928.

============================================================ ====
VOLUME I, PART I:
            
p8:  "One of the visitos reported that a small yeshiva couldpossibly be started in Amdur, near Grodno. "

p10:  "Since the last day of Sukkos Amdur had been veiled in afine, autumnal rain.  After the week-long downpour, the squat,crooked houses and their soaked roofs looked half-sunken.  Treetrunks and naked branches gleamed dark and moist.  Clusters ofblanched and trodden leaves lay scattered about."

"Tsemakh turned to the Amdur rabbi, a heavyset midddle-aged manwith a curly black beard and a snow-white collar."

p15:  "Amdur householders sat around the groom, tasting honey cakeand whisky, speaking softly among themselves in a restrainedfashion. ... "
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(THE NOVEL THEN SHIFTS TO LOMZHE, VILNA, AND VALLKENIK)
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p143:  "Chaikl [from Vilna]  was pleased that the Valkenik roshyeshiva used the Yeshiva custom of calling him after the name ofhis home town.
	"'Reb Menakhem-Mendel tells me you're talented, Vilner ...'"

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COMMENT:
This is interesting, because it suggests the possibility thatthe last name Amdur, even for people from the shetl of Amdur,might not have been in common use as late as 1926.
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IT RETURNS BY VOLUME II TO AMDUR:
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Vol. II Part II, Chapter 17; p156 of Vol. II.
Town of Amdur, probably Elul (September) 1928.

"Tsemakh [Atlas] arrived in Amdur, near Grodno, still carrying hisbundle under his arm.  He stood on the narrow street, the only onein town, and gazed at the semicircle of houses ...
	He found the inn where he had stayed two years ago... "

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COMMENT: (sa 5/95:)
N.B.:  Amdur, mi Pueblo Natale, has a section on "Streets{Gasse, lanes} of Amdur" (p48) and "The Jewish street{Gasse}" (p49)
	So where Chaim Grade speaks of the town only having onenarrow street, that does raise the question of whether hewas, as I've assumed, describing the actual and not afictitious town of Amdur.  However, he speaks below inpassing of "village lanes".                                           
	From my available rough-translation English notes (=byRN, =pueblo) on p48, and glancing back at my xerox of theYiddish text, although I cannot read Yiddish:  "There werethree important streets:  Gradner [Grodno(?)] St. [Gasse],Walkawisker [Volkovisk??] St., Krinker St., named after thethree big towns of the Grodno District.  Miastaski Lane[Gase] was called Goyish Lane [which is described in thefollowing section, p49].  The [above-mentioned] three streetswere long streets with equal _____.  The very little streetsdid not follow any systematic plan.  The houses made theimpression as if they were fallen down from sky in the middleof the night, or like a _____ in the open field.

p49:  The Goyish Lane:  "At the end of the Shtetl wasMiastaski [RN: Thiestarski] Lane, where lived only non-Jews. In the central Jewish lanes lived only Jews, no goyim ... TheGoyish Lanes was a continuation of the Jewish lane, but ifyou came from the Goyish Lane to the Jewish, you felt [as ifit was another world].
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	As noted (Shetl Finder, Diaspora Museum, Tel AvivUniversity), Amdur had an 1897 population of 2194,  82%of which was Jewish, and a 1931 population of 2650(Columbia Gazeteer),; and was 15 miles south of Grodno,near the Polish border.  Prior to the war that was inPoland and Lithuania; after the war it was Belorussia,USSR.
END COMMENT.
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RESUME QUOTATIONS FROM CHAIM GRADE, THE YESHIVA, VOL. ii

l1
                               
" ... He wandered about in front of the row of houses.  ... Localpeople watched him from the porches and the shops ... 
	... The old people in Amdur remembered a plague and theyremembered that a wedding had once been held in the cemetery.  Thedestruction of the Great War was fresh in everyone's memory.  Thevillage had lost people in the postwar pograoms when a new regimetook over, and they rememgered those who were slaughtered in thevillage lanes during peactime. ..."                     

	"The Amdur rabbi, Reb Borukh Rubin, had a paunch under hissilken gaberdine and a cold, scholarly gaze behind his gold-rimmedglasses. ..."
L2
[N.B.:  This contrasts with the impression given by thephotograph, possibly ca. 1880's?, of Rav Mishkanaski on p61of Amdur mi pueblo natale; the latter has a full untrimmedbeard, and is wearing a full overcoat of rough material, anda rounded hat ("homberg"?); the impression is of a powerfuland uncompromising rather than analytic and worldly person. - sa.]
l1

[THIS ENDS THE APPEARANCE OF THE TOWN OF AMUDR IN THIS NOVEL]
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N.B.:  I don't know what traces remain of the shetl of Amdur. Apparently no traces remain of the Jewish community of Grodno,although much of the blame for destruction of remaining buildingsis apparently attributable to the indifference of the post-WarUSSR. 

  Sraya Shapiro (Jlem Post 5/14/95, p7, "There and Now", writingof the Yiddish-theatre actor-director Herman Yablokoff, remarks: "When he finally reached his hometown [Grodno, in 1960, then partof Belorussa, USSR) he was shocked.  Nothing Jewish remained.  Themarble tombs had been carried away and used as buildingmaterials."  
	The Encyclopedia Judaica indicates that:  "After the war some2000 Jews resettled in Grodno.  By the 1960s Grodno had nosynagogue.  The "Old" synagogue was a storehouse; the "New" onewas used as a sports hall.  In the mid-1950s the Jewish cemeterywas plowed up, and the tombstones were taken away and used forbuilding a monument to Lenin."

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Glancing at my xerox of Amdur, mi Pueblo Natale for photos:
The following are of particular interest:
(All captions are in Yidish; I give only thoses words I canrecognize.  I transliterate a few words that I could notrecognize; using lower-case a for Ayin.)

p51:  Amdurer Shul, AON GDOYSaD Beit Midrash (LYNKoS), a largebrick building.  One wing has 2 stories with a sort of penthouse;the other wing seems to be a 1-story synagogue with double-heightwindows.                 
l2

Returning to RN's translation:
p51:  "The Great Shul of Amdur and the betai Midrash:  InAmdur existed a Great Shul, 3 Batei Midrash, and 1 hasidische______ .  The Great Shul of Amdur was bebuilt after the bigfire of 1882. [Associated with a pogram? -- sa].  It was abig, high, large and very beautiful building, whch was builtin the ______ 
l3
[N.B.: I here correct 1 mistyped (right-hand-shifted-lkey-right)) line from =pueblo:]
l2
region for, of that time.  As soon as the building wasfinished, 
l3
[END CORRECTION]
l1
people from the surrounding shetls came to look at it.


p61:  HaRav Baruch BenZion Mishkanski, z''l.  ... Rav AaN AMDUR??

p92:  Amdurer Rebitzin Dinah Mishkanski 

p95:  R' Mordechai Efron, z''l
      [father of Iedido Efron]

p97:  Peshe [bat Reb Iehuda] MaRGii z''l  
      [mother of Iedido Efron]

p117:  A picture of villagers outside, and in front of the shul.

p153:  Amdurer "HeHalutz" (Zionist Pioneers), 1927.   Apparently aclass portrait.  All the men are clean-shaven, and almost all wearwhite shirts with tie & jacket.  Men and women alternate, inroughly equal preportion.     
l2
N.B.:  That photo, and whatever is said in the text about theHalutzim, may help identify the "Shepsal -- In Israel",apparently a first (or second?) wife, but possiblydescendent, of "Allen" Amdursky, a sibling of Samuel andHyman Amdursky, and apprently the son of Issac Amdursky, whowas apparently b. 1850.  


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Glancing at the Introduction, in Spanish [which I scarcelyread]  by Prof. Schallman (Buenos Aires, 1973), I gather thatIediddo Efron was born in Amdur 11 July 1878, and came toArgentina in 1895, at the age of 17.    So Amdur, mi PuebloNatale, would be largely about Amdur about 1890.  [WhereChaim Grade's impressions are from the late 1920's.]
	Prof. Schallman notes that Amdur was an important centerof rabbinic culture, and that Dubnow mentions it with Pinsk,Vilna, and Minsk.  He notes that Iediddo Efron has a specialchapter in his book on the Yeshiva of Amdur; and notes thatthe Council of Four Lands, active in the 16th and 17thcenturies, once sat in Amdur.  I have another note, withoutsource, indicating that this was in about 1800. 
	In =amdurtr, R. David Herzberger's translation of aHebrew section from Amdur, mi Pueblo Natale, there isreference to a "Meeting of Amdur on the 6th of Shevat 1720." 	I have a note (=am112394) of an oral translation (byMenachem Kallus) from a book whose title I did not note,indicating that Amdur "was the place where the Council ofLithuania met after it split from the Council of Four Landsof 6th Shevat 1720."
===============================================================

N.B.:  The "Map of Lithuanian Hasidism" on p232 ofRabinowitsch, Lithuanian Hasidism (Schocken 1971), codesGrodno, Amdur, Rosh, and Shershov as 'Amdur' [Hasidism];presumably meaning that representatives of the Amdur branchof hasidism were present there.  One might then expect tofind people named or called 'Amdur' in those towns.