Jurka Chapters

"Zviya shook her 600 kilograms very cheerfully for the unexpected freedom, while we asked to know why and what for" (fields of kibbutz Dan, 1949; photo: Upper Galilee Documentation Center)

 

In the second half of the 20th century the anthropological research and the historical study went through a parallel shift: When the unknown and exotic tribes like the Samoan one among which Margaret Mead had done her career became lesser and lesser, anthropologists began to investigate "sub-cultures" in their nearby Western societies, such as the Israeli kibbutz or of the Israeli ultra-orthodox Jewish groups; While historians abandoned their preoccupation with great events like wars, conquests and migration waves, and started to examine daily lives: How the slaves in ancient Rome had eaten, how the monks in medieval Spain had slept, and how babies had been treated in Germany of the 18th century.

The book Jurka Chapters gives us a glimpse of daily life of the low-middle class Jewry in Budapest at the eve of Second World War: "At the table one sits on high stool. Chairs with arms are considered luxury. Dishes and cutlery are washed in a bowl called Weidling, by a simple rug and a laundry soap. In the kitchen one makes laundry as well, in large wooden laundry tubs, and one hangs the laundry to dry on wires stretched high up in the kitchen... In the kitchen one also does homework, or has non-significant conversations with daily guests. The apartment's most important institution: a tap of running water - is reigning on all".

The author, Jurka Klein, who adopted in Israel the Hebrew name Moshe Eytam, is one of hundreds and perhaps thousands of anonymous Holocaust survivors who published and still publish their memories, most modestly, usually in formats of austerity. Some of these books not only provide fascinating pieces of information about the daily war of survival practiced by Jews whose dear ones and friends disappear around, but also an unusual philosophical perspective and even literary intensity. Such is Jurka Chapters - although not a real literary work, it has the spark that could have make it so under the hand of a talented editor and under the auspice of a well established publishing house.

An example of the way famous national events hide behind small and personal occurrences in such books, is one of Eytam's experiences after immigrating to Israel in the framework of Youth Aliyah and settling in kibbutz Dan: "On one early morning milking there came into the dairy barn the kibbutz's security man. He asked frantically to free one cow and expel her from the barn, to let her romp outside… Zviya (The cow's name, which means in Hebrew... a female deer) shook her 600 kilograms very cheerfully for the unexpected freedom, while we asked to know why and what for. It turned out that the Syrians caught in their territory an Israeli intelligence squad... Our government is trying to return the squad through the United Nations, claiming that they have chased after escaped cows. The attempt was unsuccessful. Uri Ilan of kibbutz Giv'at-Shmuel, who was among the trapped, was tortured to death. He was returned without a soul in his nose, just a note hidden between his toes: "I haven't betrayed"!