THE GHETTO LANE IN VILNA Photographs by M. Vorobeichic From the Preface, The Jewish Lane in Light and Shadow by S. Chneour [Translated by Renne Brun] (The German original and a 1933 review by Max Weinrich follows - if there is interest I can scan the Yiddish version of Chneour's introduction) Published by Orell Fussi Verlag, 1931) Vilna, my great ancestress, city and mother in Israel, Jerusalem of Galicia, solace of the exiles in the North. To your grandchildren your bonnet, mended like the roof of an old synagogue, appeared loftier than the golden helmets of mighty towers. How often you dried our tears with a tattered apron embroidered with lions and crowns, like a holy Torah curtain .... Marc Chagall painted the city of his birth, Witebsk. By the use of gay colors and the poetic energy of these pictures, infused with symbolism, he captivated Paris and Berlin. He succeeded in instilling love for his Jewish Witebsk in the hearts of people of totally different cultures and environ-ments. This city of blue and violet houses, its old cemetery, odd swinging shapes in the air which seem like hovering souls, its Jews of green, black, brown .... The city of Vilna has not yet found its Chagall, although its unique life, its Jewish element, rivals that of many Witebsks and could fill the palettes of many painters. Cities, too, have their lucky stars when it comes to art. This rich material waiting for its artist has now found its interpreter. Overcoming traditional, stereotyped images, the sentimentality evoked by synagogues and old cemeteries, he has focused on life itself, its rhythms here and now. With an explorer's passion, he has enlarged and accented the details not normally noticed by the hurrying passerby. With scissors he has cut out squares and circles, their narrow focus becoming especially meaningful, crammed with the contents of the Jewish lane. This is how the composition was accomplished. One can sense a relationship to the organic as well as inorganic, to buildings as well as people. The old and modern, special occasions and everyday life, are all intermixed. What the camera captured, the photo artist has brought to perfection. Thus evolved the photo album: souvenirs of a Jewish lane, a museum in miniature, full of reso- nant shadows and joys of the past. Through floods of light, half-darkness, total darkness, and through changes in right angles and light beams the picture keeps changing its character. In the nuances of light and shadow there appear the arches of ancient architec- ture, barred windows, basement apartments, synagogues, walls, yard gates and shop fronts, silent corners , crowded markets, young and old faces. How great is the magic of light! In the very same lane, row houses spread up and out, like the wings of an eagle, and then again they huddle together, concealing life with its tragedies and joys. The beams are heavy. The burden of centuries presses down on the alleys and gates. But occasionally the mood is light and gay, like a dream while snoozing. It takes only a bit more light or shadow to reveal the hidden life. We are not talking about the lively faces which have their particular moods, but only about the rigid, inorganic objects, about their changes and revela- tions. Here the theme is the closed door of a shop, which resembles the printed letter "Jod," or the varied patterns of pavement in yards and alleys. The accidental and apparently unimportant object becomes an artistic manifes- tation. The change of light and shadow is as important to these subjects as a dress is to a dancer. Each dance requires a special costume that emphasizes the body's flexibility, making the lines of the body appear fluid, highlighting within each movement any special color and fold. All these themes come together in the focal point of the camera, only to spread out again as squares and circles. Thus unwinds the long chain of pic- tures, sometimes in movie speed, sometimes at an idyllic pace. Through a perusal of these pictures one finds remnants of the Middle Ages: dark intricate passageways, loosely dangling mesusoth, gateways with old ornaments, melting snow under dark archways, the yard of the synagogue with its school- and prayer-houses. The wrinkled faces of the old. In the twentieth century one can still discover the traces of the timidness and fright which are the legacy of earlier times. We find evidence of the tendency to hide everything: the body and the spirit, the beautiful daughter, the traditional life, the everyday and special occasions. One must have a sharp eye to capture the expressions and details at the right moment to give the viewer an idea of the depth of the subject. Fine blue blood obscured by filthy poverty, king's descendants of Jehuda, prisoners of blond racesþthey are pale and thin and sick, like transplanted palm trees, so far from home. Here life resembles existence in a fortress. One slips out in search of life's necessities, much as the front-line soldier crawls out of the trenches. Only by reading Josephus Flavius' "History of the Jewish War" can one get an impression of the horror of the besieged in this fortress. There is an invisible thread leading from Masada, the last Jewish fortress in Palestine, to the Jewish lane in Vilna. The former was a fight by sword; the latter a fight of the spirit and a unique culture. Great and mighty is the external world. Only in the hour that is neither day or night, when the eye of the stranger hardly discerns anything, when he ceases to envy and scoff, then the inhabitants of this street crop out from their hidings to seek their meager living, to grub a few pence; quietly to marry and rear their children, to weep and to dance .... That is the overall impression we have of the "Jewish Lane." In this age of airplanes and electricity we still see in these pictures the reflections of ancient fears. It seems as if a shadow hovers over the secrets of the Jewish lane in all of its manifestations: ancient fear in the mirror of the new; and the modern era flows between both reflections. Reading is not like viewing. Many have written about Vilna, the Lithuanian Jerusalem, in prose and verse, such as Sch. Fin in "Kirja Neemanah," the Russian-Jewish and English-Jewish encyclopedia, Ab. Kahan in his memoirs, as well as the author of this introduction. Many have drawn and painted Vilna: Herman Struck, Minkowski, Cukierman and Maniewitsch. But in the written and painted works, one always finds a certain lack of clarity caused by personal impressions. The photo album brings us reality and authenticity. The brittle, cut-and-dried qualities so often found in photographs have been transformed in the hands of a master. These pictures shape our understanding of the Jewish lane the way a director shapes our understand-ing of a play. This photo album is not meant for just the connoisseur but for the masses, to bring them closer to the Jewish lane. It shows the true Jewish existence and with its ethnographic material, is a handbook for everyone. Paris, October 1929 I feel that the interpretation of Vorobeichic's pictures as given in Chne-our's preface is misleading in a sense. In order to present my point of view, I enclose, in translation, an extract of an article I published in the Jewish Daily Forward, New York, of September 20, 1931, at the time when the book came out. M. Weinreich From a review of THE GHETTO LANE IN WILNO by M. VOROBEICHIC published by M. Weinreich in the Jewish Daily Forward New York, September 20, 1931. ...A preface to the book has been written by S. Chneour, who already years ago attracted notice by his Hebrew poem on Wilno... In this preface he tries to give what can be called a "formula of Jewish Wilno. He feels that ever since the Jews have found themselves in the ghetto, life here dragged on as in a fortress. "One slips out in search of life's necessities much as the front-line soldier crawls out of the trenches... Great and mighty is the external world. Only in the hour that is neither day nor night, when the eye of the stranger hardly discerns anything, when he ceases to envy and scoff, then the inhabitants of this street crop out from their hidings to seek their meager living, to grub a few pence;- quietly to marry and rear their children, to weep and to dance..." Nice as this may sound, I don't feel I can agree with such a definition of present day Jewish life. There was a time then people used to marry their children, now the youth marry themselves. And accordingly everything is much more active, much more vivacious than Chneour maintains. He himself praises Vorobeichic for having avoided sentimen- tality and romanticism; if so, what is the use of introducing them again via the preface? If there is at all a possibility off coining a formula for Jewish life in the narrow lanes around the court-yard of the Old Synagogue, I should say just the contrary of what Chneour is proposing. It is not to hide up nor to creep into a nook until night is setting in that those Jews want. Just the opposite: what they want to get a chance to come out of these shadows, dank slums into the shine of the sun. They seem to state: we have persisted for hundreds of years in those holesþthis proves that we are fit to live. We have here built up the synagogues and the library with these folios, this proves that we are creative. Thus, give us access to the treasures of the world! This is the language I feel to be spoken by Vorobeichic's pictures. And when I look once more at his Jewish Street, p. 17, and at his Glezer Lane, p. 24, which both strike by their breadth, and if we further notice that they grow broader and broader, I become quite sure that I am in agreement with the intentions of the artist himself. I don't touch upon the question whether we will succeed or not. I am talking merely of the striving for sunshine. Whether we shall succeed or not depends upon many circumstances. It chiefly depends upon whether the boy on Vorobeichic's picture, p. 50, will be in a position, when grown up, to work with his arm that he is now throwing out in a childish, roguish way and whether he will be able, if necessary, to clench his fist. But if Vorobeichic wished to show that the Jewish lane is still alive he has omitted plenty of material. He could have caught by his kodak a lot of things that would have brought out even in a much more impressive way the discrepancy between the opportunities of life for, and the will to life among the Jewish masses. Why not show a lesson of athletics in a modern Yiddish school? Where is a match-game between two Jewish football-teams and the faces of adult Jews who are breathless with Joy when their favorites get a goal? Where is a manifestation of Jewish working-men? A political mass- meeting? The Jewish Technikum (engineering school) of the ORT? A troop of boy-scouts or the BIN? Perhaps Vorobeichic thought that such a combination of old and mod- ern Jewish life would not appeal to the German publisher to whom he was to offer his album. But he was mistaken. Certainly the world has enough to worry about and is not very much concerned with us. But if we can manage to present our idea the right way (to "sell the idea", as the Americans put it), then a greater interest can be expected just in that blend of old and new patterns of which we are witnesses in Jewish life of today... EIN GHETTO IM OSTEN (WILNA) von M. Vorobeichic eingeleitet von S. Chneour (copyright) Orell Fuuli Verlag Zurich, Switzerland 1931 S. Chneour DIE JUDENGASSE IN LICHT UND SCHATTEN ... Wilna, meine groáe Ahne, Stadt und Mutter in Israel, Jerusalem des Gallith, Trost des Ostvolkes im Norden, Deine Haube, geflickt wie das Dach der alten Synagoge, Schien erhabener deinen Enkeln als Goldhelme der Turme. Wie oft trocknetest Du Trlnen mit zerschlissener Schurze Die wie ein heiliger Thoravorhang bestickt ist mit Lowen und Kronen . . . Marc Chagall malte seine Geburtsstadt Witebsk. Durch die frohen Farben, den dichterischen Schwung seiner Bilder, die ins Symbolische reichen, hat er Paris und Berlin erobert. Er hat es vermocht, in die Herzen von Mensch-en ganz anderer Kultur und Umgebung die Liebe zu seinem judischen Witebsk zu pflanzen. Diese Stadt mit ihren blauen und violetten Hausern, ihrem alten Friedhof, mit den sonderbaren Schwingungen in der Luft, die wie schwebende Seelen scheinen, mit ihren grunen, braunen und schwarzen Juden. . . Die Stadt Wilna hat aber ihren Chagall noch nicht gefunden, wenn auch das eigenartige Leben, das judische Element in ihr, mehrere Witebsk zu schaffen vermag und die Paletten vieler Kunstler ffillen wilrde. Auch Stadte haben ihren Glucksstern in der Kunst. Dieses reiche Material, das auf seinen Kunstler wartete, hat nun seinen Deuter gefunden. Das Traditionell-Schablonenma~ige wuSte er zu uber- gehen, das Sentimentale, das den Synagogen und alten Friedhofen eigen ist, zu uberwinden. Er hat es auf das Leben selber, so, wie es an Ort und Stelle pulsiert, abgesehen. Mit der Liebe des Entdeckers vergroberte und unter- strich er das, was der ewig-eilende Passant kaum bemerkt. Mit scharfer Schere hat er Quadrate und Kreise ausgeschnitten, die streng begrenzt, um so inhaltsvoller sind, angefullt mit dem Inhalt der Judengasse. So ist diese Komposition entstanden. Eine Beziehung merkt man hier zum Organischen wie zum Unorganischen, zu Bauten wie zum Menschen. Antikes und Modernes, Feierliches und Alltagliches ist da vermischt. Was der Aufnahmeapparat leistete, hat der Photo-Kunstler zur Vollendung gebracht. So wuchs das Schaubuch: Andenken an die judische Gasse, Museum in Miniatur, voll zitternder Schatten und Freuden einer Ver- gangenheit. Lichtflut, Halbdunkel, Dunkell Anderung des Richtwinkels oder Licht- strahls, und das Bild hat seinen Charakter geandert. Im Spiel von Licht und Schatten aller Nuancen erscheinen Gewolbe von uralter Architektur, vergitterte Fenster, Kellerwohnungen, Synagogen, Wande, Hoftore und Ladenturen, stille Winkel, Gewimmel des Marktes, junge und alte Gesich- ter. Wie grob ist der Zauber des Lichtes! In ein und der selben Gasse klaffen plotzlich Hauserreihen nach oben auseinander, wie die Flugel eines flug- bereiten Adlers, und dann wieder drucken sie sich eng zusammen, das Leben mit seinen Leiden und Freuden verhiillend. Schwer sind die Balken. Die Last der Jahrhunderte druckt auf Gassen und Tore! Doch manchmal scheint es leicht und froh, wie ein Traum im Schlummer. Es genugt schon etwas mehr Licht oder Schatten, um das verborgene Lehen hervorzurufen. Reden wir hier nicht von den lebendigen Gesichtern, die ihre eigenen Stimmungen haben, sondern nur von Starrem und Unorganischem, von ihren Anderungen und Offenbarungen. Hier das Motiv der geschlossenen Ture eines Ladens, die das Aussehen des gedruck- ten Buchstabens "Jod" hat ('), oder die verschiedenartigen Motive des Pflasters in den Hofen und Gassen. Das Zufallige und scheinbar Unwichtige wird hier kunstlerische Offenbarung. Der Wechsel von Licht und Schatten ist fur diese Motive bedeutsam wie die Kleider einer Tanzerin. Jeder Tanz verlangt sein Kleid, das geeignet ist, die biegsamen Korperlinien zu unter- streichen und sie moglichst plastisch erscheinen zu lassen, jede Bewegung im Lichte der besonderen Farbe und Falte. All diese Motive laufen im Brennpunkt der Kamera zusammen, um sich von da aus wieder in Quadrate und groáe Ringe auszubreiten. So rollt sich die lange Kette dieser Bilder, bald im Filmtempo, bald in idyllischer Ruhe ab. Beim Durchblattern der Bilder findet man den Rest des Mittelalters. Die dunklen, verwuhlten Durchgange, die "Mesusoth", die locker hangen. Die Tore mit ihren alten Ornamenten. Unter den halbdunklen Gewolben spat schmelzender Schnee. Der Synagogenhof mit seinen Bet- und Lehrhausern. Die faltendurchzogenen Gesichter der Alten. Im zwanzigsten Jahrhundert entdeckt man noch die Spuren jener Scheu und jenes Schreckens, die hier das Erbteil alter Zeiten sind. Hier betatigt sich noch irgend- wie die Tendenz, alles verstecken zu mussen: den Korper und den Geist, die schonen Tochter, das traditionelle Leben in seiner vollen Entfaltung, den All- und Feiertag. Man muá ein scharfes Auge haben, um die Ausdrucke und Feinheiten der auberlichen Rinde im richtigen Moment festzuhalten, um dem Beschauer vom tiefen Inhalt und saftigen Kern eine Vorstellung zu geben. . . . Feines blaues Geader blickt aus schmutziger Arrnut, Konigssprossen Jehudas, Gefangene blondgelber Volker, Blab sind sie und mager und krank wie die Reiser der Palmen, Die in den Sumpfen Rublands wachsen, so fern ihrer Heimat. Hier gleicht das Leben dem Dasein in einer Festung. Man schleicht in den Alltag hinaus, wie der Front- kampfer aus dem Schutzengraben. Nur beim Lesen des Werkes von Josephus Flavius: "Die Geschichte des judischen Krieges" kann man eine Vorstellung bekommen vom Entsetzen der Um- ringten auch in dieser Festung. Ein unsichtbarer Faden zieht sich von Massadah, der letzten judischen Festung in Palastina, bis zur Judengasse in Wilna. War es dort ein Kampf mit dem Schwert, so ist es hier ein Kampf des Geistes und eigen- artiger Kultur. Groá und machtig ist drauben die fremde Welt. Nur in der Stunde, wo wederTag noch Nacht ist, in der dasAuge des Fremden kaum noch etwas zu unterscheiden vermag, zu spotten und beneiden aufgehort hat, in dieser Stunde kommen die Bewohner der Gasse aus ihren Verstecken, um ihr karges Brot: zu suchen, um ein paar Groschen zu k„mpfen; man heiratet in aller Stille, ernahrt die Kinder, man weint und man tanzt. . . Das ist der allgemeine Eindruck, den wir von der "Judengasse" haben. Die Spiegelung des alten Schreckens sehen wir in diesen Photokompositionen noch heute im Zeitalter von Flugzeug und Elektrizitat. Es ist, als ob der Schatten des Geheimnisvollen uber der Judengasse mit allen ihren Erschein-ungen schwebe: Uralte Angst im Spiegel des Neuen, und die moderne Zeit stromt zwischen beiden Abspiegelungen. Lesen ist dem Schauen nicht gleich. Viele haben in Prosa und in Versen uber Wilna, das Litauische Jerusalem geschrieben, wie Sch. Fin in "Kirja Neemanah", die russisch-judische und englisch-judische Enzyklopadie, Ab. Kahan in seinen Memoiren und auch der Verfasser dieser Zeilen. Viele haben Wilna gezeichnet und gemalt: Herman Struck, Minkowski, Cukier- man und Maniewitsch. Aber in literarischen und malerischen Werken ist immer eine gewisse Unklarheit vorhanden, die durch personliche Empfind- ungen verursacht wird. Das Schaubuch bringt das wirklich Gesehene, das Echte. Das Sprode, das Trockene, das dem Photobild sonst anhaftet, hat die Meisterhand beseitigt. Was die Regie fur das Drama bedeutet, sind diese Photokompositicnen fur die Judengasse geworden. Dieses Schaubuch soll nicht nur fur Feinschmecker, sondern vor allen Dingen auch fur die Masse sein, ihr die Judengasse nahebringen. Es zeigt das wahre judische Dasein, ist mit seinem ethnographischen Material ein Handbuch fur jedermann. Paris, Oktober I929.