The World Beyond the Pale: One Life Between Two Worlds

By Louise Cabral

Esther Rabachs story begins in a Jewish shtetl (a small village) within the Pale of Settlement, an isolated area designated by Catherine the Great during her anti-Semitic rule of Russia. Esther, young and nave with a head full of romantic dreams, embarks on a journey to America to marry the man she loves.

Arriving in New York City in 1910, she discovers a world of ferment, chaos, and inequality known as the Sweatshop Era, where immigrants are exploited and abused. Experiencing these injustices first hand, Esther becomes a dedicated activist in the fight for an equitable America.

Louise Cabral, in her skillful writing, has accomplished a portrait of a womans transformation from innocence to true heroism. The World Beyond the Pale will take the reader on a voyage between the devastation of the Old World and the hope for the New World.

Louise Cabral writes with the impassioned insight of a wise, true eldera quality age alone cant guarantee. She writes with a courageous heartwilling to be broken open for the sake of being filled. My heart and mind have been enriched by virtue of her literary gifts.
Wayne Allen LeVine, author of Insights of an Ordinary Man

The World Beyond the Pale is an inspiring and uplifting story with a powerful female protagonist. I love Esther. All of the characters come to life through a realism that nothing is certain, all things change, and overcoming the obstacles is the triumph.
Aurora Terrenus, author of The Shroud of Sophia

The World Beyond the Pale captures your heart while it effortlessly feeds you historical bite after juicy historical bite. Through her compassionate words, Louise Cabral pays homage to the Jewish culture and brings life to a story that gives a voice to many who were silenced too soon.
Valerie Kruley, editor

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jan 24, 2012
• ISBN: 9781462064199

Louise Cabral

Louise Cabral is the author of six novels and is currently at work on her seventh. Her book Islands of Recall is a guide for those who wish to write their life story, both past and present. She lives in Southern California and continues to lead an active lifestyle into her vintage years.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

Tromsk, Poland—1908

Outside the general store, Esther Rebakh paused to catch her breath. She had run a mile and a half from her house on the dirt road, past the poor broken down houses, through the woods where the treetops blocked out patches of sky. Now, she stopped to look at the sky that was open again. Her heart was still racing. She closed her eyes and prayed that Chaim would be there in his father’s store. A glimpse, even one glimpse at him was enough fuel for dreams that would last days until she could find reason to return again. With her heart still quickening and her legs trembling, she entered the store.

Only one onion? asked Reb Hindel. Chaim’s father was the proprietor of the store. He had known Esther all her life. Maybe you’d better take two. He noticed how her eyes were roving. Two onions will make the soup twice as good.

Esther felt the color rising to her cheeks. Mama only needs one for the Sabbath soup.

Her eyes wandered around the general store that contained everything from grains and vegetables to fabric for sewing, aprons, pots and pans with separate dishes for dairy foods and others for meat dishes, kitchen utensils, Sabbath candles, yarmulkes, tools, and remedies for colds and minor ailments; everything to supply the immediate needs of the shtetl residents at a price. Reb Hindel observed Esther’s eyes in flight like two brown birds unable to alight.

So what else can I help you with? he asked. His smile crouched between his mustache and his beard. He was always one to enjoy a pretty face, and Esther’s flushed creamy complexion, her large brown eyes with highlights of green, her sweet mouth that turned up at the corners, and her thick black hair which she had left unbraided this day made him wish he were young and free again.

A potato, Esther said, her eyes still wandering.

One potato? A potato can get very lonely all by itself in a big pot of soup.

Well, two or three, then, Esther conceded.

Reb Hindel stroked his beard. His general store knew no competition and he ranked among the most prosperous members of their shtetl, the village not far from Warsaw, Poland. He knew why Esther purchased so little at a time. It was not out of poverty. Her father, Aaron Leyser the carpenter, made a poor but respectable living. There was another reason for Esther’s frequent returns to the general store and Reb Hindel was worried about the outcome of her desire. The dowry of a girl in Esther’s circumstance could never be sufficient for consideration in a match with a son of his.

I’ll wait on Esther, Papa. At last, Esther saw Chaim standing in a dark corner behind the grains. The sound of his voice started the familiar throbbing and pulsating within her. Her entire body turned to flame at the sight of him, and her heart lurched like the engine of a train pulling out of a station.

Without taking his eyes off her, Chaim moved toward the burlap sack containing potatoes.

Our cow had a calf yesterday, he told her as he wrapped three potatoes in a newspaper with the familiar Hebraic letters. Esther wondered if he knew she always made her purchases in the minimum quantity so she would have an excuse to return soon.

Papa, Chaim turned to his father. Can I show Esther the new calf?

Chaim’s father interrupted his conversation with a woman who was laughing loudly at something he said. Don’t take too long. He brought his attention back to his customer, talking animatedly, with both hands in motion.

Chaim motioned Esther to follow him. She marched right behind him, her eyes reading the curve of his broad shoulders, the ripple of his back. It was a celebration just to let her eyes drink in the sight of him.

Just before they reached the barn, he turned to her and took her hand. The walls of Esther’s insides crumbled.

You never saw a more beautiful calf, he told her. You’ll fall in love with her. Chaim pushed the barn door open. It whined pathetically.

Esther inhaled the scent of wood and hay and the fresh smell of animal excrement. A shaft of sunlight rushed in to illuminate the otherwise shadowy interior. The sounds of animal noises clucking, mooing, and braying were woven into a subdued concert with the occasional four-note leitmotif of Kukmiron, the rooster in the foreground, shrieking his shrill cry. Mazeltov, the cow who had recently given birth, stood close to her offspring chewing cud, announcing her bovine maternal pride in her own peacefully restrained language.

The calf, her hide a patch quilt of brown and white, lay on its side close to its mother, with its spindly legs jutting out over the hay. Esther stared down, watching the miraculous rhythm of its breathing.

Oh, oh! she exclaimed, as Chaim knelt down to gently stroke the tranquil animal. She is so beautiful. How peaceful she is. The motion of Chaim’s hands hypnotized Esther’s eyes over the neck of the calf.

Mooooo, Mazeltov intoned, as if to say she was not worried. She knew those who had come to visit her offspring could be trusted.

Come down here, Chaim instructed, indicating a spot on the hay beside him. You can pet her too.

Esther knelt beside the calf. Her heart had risen through her throat and entered her mouth. The nearness of Chaim brought her an unbearable pitch of excitement. Chaim placed his hand upon hers and guided it as she slid her palm over the smooth, warm fur of the silent, slow breathing animal. You see, he said. You see how soft she is.

Yes, Esther replied in little gasps, I see. I feel how soft she is. She is very beautiful.

Chaim lifted her face, tilting it toward him.

You too, he said. You too are beautiful.

Esther lowered her eyes. She was trembling beneath her skin. Chaim brought his face closer to hers. Esther stopped breathing.

Be very still, Chaim said. I am going to kiss you.

No, she protested, unable to believe the word had come out of her. No, we mustn’t.

Why not?

Chaim continued to bring his lips closer. They were almost touching hers now.

It isn’t wrong to kiss. It is beautiful to love someone.

She could offer no further argument against the power of his persuasion. His lips were pressing hers now, melting against them like the wax that drips from the Menorah candles. He crushed her against himself while the calf breathed, the rooster crowed, the cow mooed and all the chickens tucked away on the far side of the barn clucked their gossip and dismay. The barn spun around and around like a calliope.

As they clung together, Chaim’s hand began a sensual descent, moving vertebrae by vertebrae, then around and around, on a slow journey to known erogenous destinations. Esther allowed it to travel for just a moment until she could no longer endure the exquisite torment.

Stop! she cried sharply, wrenching herself away.

Kukmiron chose that moment to crow as if he were burlesquing her. Esther stared at Chaim, panting in rhythm to his labored breathing.

We mustn’t, she said. It is wrong.

What is wrong? Chaim challenged her, his teeth gleaming with white brilliance in an expression that was neither a smile nor a frown. You think it’s wrong to love?

The way he asked made Esther feel stupid and ashamed.

I-I promised my mother, she stammered. I cannot betray my word.

You promised? Chaim scratched his head with one finger. What did you promise?

Esther felt the blood rush to her face even more than it had before. He was waiting for her answer. There was no way she could evade him.

I-I promised my mother I will be a virgin when I marry, she stammered.

Chaim threw back his head and laughed, his white teeth gleaming.

That promise, he said through his laughter. Every girl makes that promise. No mother really expects her to keep it.

Now Esther felt herself growing angry at his superior manner. Staring directly into his eyes, she could feel sparks flying from hers. Her lips clamped down, one upon the other. Furiously, she began pulling at hay that had gotten tangled in her hair. A lock had fallen down over one eye and she blew at it, making a little gale of her breath.

I will keep it, she affirmed forcefully. A promise is a promise and I will keep it!

Chaim stood still and watched her, smiling broadly.

How adorable you are, he said, moving closer to her. Your face is even more beautiful when you are angry.

He was almost within reach of her now and when he was close enough, he began to lunge.

No! Esther cried out.

She ducked, swung around and escaped him. She used all her energy to keep herself moving. With Kukmiron’s crowing and Mazeltov’s mooing, and the chickens clucking and Chaim’s shouting orchestrated in her ears, she ran. She ran and ran without allowing herself to stop. It was not easy to run from the person she most wanted to be with, and she was so concentrated on getting away that she completely forgot her reason for coming to the store.

The potatoes and onions wrapped in newspaper were left behind.

CHAPTER TWO

"Nu, her mother said when she arrived breathless and disheveled at her home. So where are the onions and potatoes?"

She was sitting on a stool, plucking chicken feathers when her daughter arrived. Behind her was the large clay stove, which dominated the kitchen, and next to her was a wooden stand with a cutting board upon which she had begun to cut celery and carrots for the Sabbath soup that night.

The onion and potatoes! Esther had completely forgotten the onion and potatoes!

I-I must have left them at the store. Her words came freighted with the shame and misery she felt.

You left them at the store? I sent you for onions and potatoes and you bought them and left them at the store?

Esther rubbed her sweaty palms against the cloth of her dress. Her face turned downward in her need to avoid looking into her mother’s eyes.

Chaim Hindel wanted to show me the new calf that was just born. She struggled in her effort to create reason out of the chaos in her mind.

The the calf was in the barn. It was so beautiful. She paused, searching for something more.

Chaim let me pet it. I-I was so excited about the calf that I forgot the onion and potatoes.

Since when, Sarah Leah inquired, do you talk to your mother as if she is lying on the floor?

Esther felt herself resisting as her mother placed her hand under her chin to tilt her face upward. Sarah’s voice took on a new note of alarm. Her hand quickly moved to Esther’s forehead.

"Oy vey, look how hot she is!" she exclaimed, as though Esther were not there. The flat of her hand remained on Esther’s forehead.

Such a fever, she has. She’s burning up like a fire, she’s burning!

Please, Mama, Esther pleaded. I don’t have a fever. I’m just hot from running.

From running you’re hot? You were in such a hurry to bring back the potatoes that you didn’t have that you were running? It’s already a long time since you were running. How could you still be hot from running?

Mama, please stop asking me so many questions. I—

Esther burst into tears, making a move to escape.

Her mother grabbed her hand and pulled her back. Esther, it’s time we had a talk.

About what?

Sniveling, Esther struggled to free her hand from her mother’s grasp.

About the onion and potatoes? I can go back for them.

I’m afraid you’ll forget them again. Every time I send you to Reb Hindel’s store you forget what you came for.

Considering her history with past visits to the general store, Esther could not deny her mother’s accusation. She wiped a tear from her eye with one finger.

Couldn’t we make soup without onions and potatoes one time? she asked weakly.

It’s not the onions and potatoes we have to talk about.

No?

No.

What then?

Chaim Hindel. It’s Chaim Hindel we have to talk about.

Sarah Leah put a chapped hand under her daughter’s chin and forced Esther’s face upward. Sarah was a sturdy-looking woman. Although her stomach muscles sagged and bulged from child bearing, and her breasts hung pendulously beneath her loose fitting cotton dress, her back was still straight and strong. She carried her head and shoulders upright. Her dark eyes, which were duplicated in Esther’s, had a way of piercing through whoever she looked at.

This is not the first time you have gone to Reb Hindel’s store and come home with empty hands, she observed.

Esther stared speechlessly at her mother, then new tears began flowing from her eyes.

There’s nothing to t-talk about. Mama, p-please let g-go of my h-hand. I want to g-go to b-bed. I’m feeling sick.

Sick, you’re feeling? You just told me you were not sick. Sarah drew her daughter into an embrace, holding her throbbing, whimpering young body against herself.

"Nu shah, maideleh. Don’t cry my little bird."

Lifting her hand to stroke Esther’s hair, she noticed two chicken feathers still clinging to her fingers and blew them away; watching how they floated with the dust motes before they drifted downward.

You think I don’t know, she said, still holding Esther against herself. You think I don’t see how eager you are to go to Reb Hindel’s store? And when you don’t forget, you come home with only a few potatoes, only two onions we should quickly use up so you can go again. You think a mother cannot understand how her child can fall in love? He’s a nice looking boy, Chaim Hindel, handsome even.

This time Esther stood back and looked directly into her mother’s eyes.

Mama, she said, I am in love with Chaim Hindel.

So with this information I am already well acquainted. But what are you planning to do about it? How long can you keep running to the store to buy only a few potatoes, onions, turnips that you forget and have to go back again?

Please, Mama. It’s not time for making jokes. It is time for being very serious. I am pouring out to you my heart. I want to marry Chaim Hindel. I tell you truly how I feel. If I can’t have Chaim for my husband, I don’t want to live anymore.

Sarah moved to the cutting board and began to cut a carrot and some celery for the soup.

That you love Chaim Hindel, I understand. That you feel you cannot live without him, even that I understand. But that you hope to marry him, my dearest child, how do we come to the Hindel family? In wealth, in station, they are above us. The richest families in Tromsk are offering a fortune to make for their daughters a match with Chaim Hindel. The poor dowry your father and I have gathered together for you would not even equal half of what is being offered.

Esther stirred the soup with a big spoon then looked at her mother with watery eyes.

No other girl could love Chaim as I do. Why should someone else have the privilege of being his wife just because she has more money? It isn’t fair.

Fair! Sarah shaped matzo balls then placed them carefully into the soup so they wouldn’t splash.

Since when is anything in this world fair? I understand that if you accept the unfairness in this world without complaining, you can expect in the next world to be treated fairly. But if you wait in this world for fair you’ll wind up an old maid with no husband at all.

Esther bit down on her lower lip.

I would rather be an old maid than be married to any boy but Chaim.

"Shah. Her mother put her finger against Esther’s lips. You are not to talk that way. You’re upset now and you don’t know what you’re saying."

I do know. Esther began grating cabbage. I’m telling you how I feel.

How you feel. Sarah waved a soup spoon. Maybe you think the world revolves around how you feel. I can tell you it does not. And if you go on thinking it does, you will have your heart broken many more times than it would under ordinary circumstances which, believe me, is more than enough in anyone’s lifetime.

But how? Esther asked in rhythm to the cabbage grating. How can I go against my feelings? I know what I feel. I love Chaim. You think I can tell myself I don’t love him, I love some other boy? You think I would believe it if I told myself that?

"Oy vey. Sarah let out a deep sigh. Feelings shmeelings. All of a sudden are the young people so blinded with feelings that they can’t see reality anymore, and they are living only in dreams. Believe me, when I was a girl I didn’t know from feelings. Nothing I knew about such things. The papa would consult a shadchen, a matchmaker, and together they would consider the eligible young men of the village in the same class as the family; the contract would be signed and, with the help of God, the marriage would be blessed with mutual respect and happiness."

Always, Mama?

Her mother looked up toward the ceiling, measuring the size of the lie she was about to tell.

Usually, she said at last. What can be a hundred percent when you’re dealing with human beings?

Well, that was then, Esther said, and this is now.

Now is no different, her mother replied. People don’t change. They only think up new ways to break their hearts, to create for themselves more problems. The old ways are the best, my child, believe me. They have worked for many years and we know of their success.

For you, Esther said. Not for me.

Sarah hesitated for a moment before speaking.

"Now that we have brought up the subject, I can tell you that your father wants you should marry soon. You don’t think we want grandchildren to bless our older years? There are plenty of nice boys in the shtetl.

"Listen to me, Esther. Don’t turn away.

Plenty of nice boys whose parents are looking for a match; maybe not so rich, maybe not so handsome but fine, intelligent young men. Zhame Stern, the tailor’s son has expressed an interest in you. His father has already spoken to papa about arranging a match. And Mitka Shtarg, the son of the shoemaker—a fine boy, a devoted boy. Such a boy you could grow to love, and after a while you would forget about Chaim.

No! Esther protested vehemently. "I could never love anyone but Chaim! I will never marry if it is not Chaim standing beside me under the chupeh. I would rather die than be the wife of some other man."

"Shah! Sarah covered her daughter’s mouth with her hand. It’s a sin to talk like that. Life is sacred, a gift from God."

She made a gesture of spitting three times without releasing saliva. The tip of her tongue darted in rapid succession between her lips. In accord with the popular superstition, this would cancel out the death wish and prevent it from happening.

Well, if God is so generous to give me the gift of life, why can’t He give me the gift of Chaim too? Esther demanded.

Her mother looked up as if to see if God were listening.

The Lord-God has worked greater miracles than that, Sarah announced finally. "There is only one thing to do.

What? Esther grasped at her words as if they were a spear thrown to her as she was drowning.

We must pray, her mother said. We must pray with all our heart and soul. I will pray with you. God hears especially the prayers of a mother. If He means for you to marry Chaim Hindel, He will give us a sign.

Esther considered her mother’s suggestion carefully. The soup in the big pot boiled. Finally, she raised her head and turned to her mother.

Very well, she said. I will trust in the Lord. I have faith in Him, because I know He means for me to marry Chaim. I will pray to Him. I will beg Him to give me a sign.

Esther and her mother put down their cooking utensils and covered their heads with prayer shawls.

Pray, her mother said. Open your heart to God, and make of the Almighty your solicitations.

Esther closed her eyes. She listened while her mother intoned the ancient, sacred words; her voice intense and heartfelt.

"Eleheinu Vdlohei Auteinu . . ."

The prayer moved within them. Esther trembled with the intensity she felt. She heard her mother whisper, "Hear our prayer, oh Lord of Israel, and grant us a sign that we may know Thy will."

When their prayer was over, Sarah turned to her daughter.

It is in God’s hands now, she said. "Have faith. He will show you what is best for you. Now we must think about tonight. Your father and your brothers will be coming soon. We must begin the Sabbath and the dinner is not yet finished. Your little sister has been playing all day in the mud with her friend. Bring in Chaileh. She needs to be washed and scrubbed from all the pies she was making from the mud. For the Sabbath let her wear her good dress with the ribbons.

Go, Estherleh, help your mother to prepare for the Sabbath and God will smile upon you.

Esther kissed her mother’s sagging cheek. If you smile upon me that will be enough for now.

Through whom do you think God smiles? her mother asked as she blew upon the spoon.

CHAPTER THREE

The village of Tromsk, located approximately twenty-five miles from the capital of Warsaw, had been home to Esther’s people for generations. The Jews of Tromsk did their best to follow the covenants and traditions circumscribed by their religious laws, yet they were not spared the struggle against merciless odds for the bread upon their table or the roof above their heads. Each year of survival was credited to God, for alone they never could have surmounted the trials He had placed before them. No doubt, He was testing their strength. It was only occasionally that they silently questioned His almighty wisdom and wondered: How long, oh Lord, must we endure?

Since the first of three treaties of partition, signed in 1772, all of Poland had been under the dominance of Russia. Severe measures were taken to Russianize the people. The obdurate, nationalistic Poles did not bend easily. As a result, they were tortured, imprisoned, and deprived. Nevertheless, their martyrdom was mild compared to the oppressive, inhumane treatment of Czar Nicholas II against the subjugated Jews.

In 1791, Catherine the Great established the Pale of Settlement for the confinement of her Jewish subjects, acquired by the partitions of Poland. They were comprised of fifteen state governments (gubernias). Five million people—half the world’s Jewish population—had been forced by imperial decree to live in the Pale which was, except for the Crimea; a monotonously flat, barren, arid prison that dominated 313,000 square miles. The plain (about the size of Texas) stretched along Russia’s western border, sustaining only scrub pines which produced harvests scarcely worth cultivating.

Life in the Pale was never easy. Even where the land was fertile, crops were destroyed by the drought. Sometimes, water had to be carried from as far as five miles. But it was here in the eight hundred and eight shtetlach (townlet), that Russian and Polish Jews found not only the strength and fortitude to endure, but a spiritual reserve that made them flourish; attaining the highest degree of inwardness in an era since referred to as the golden period in the history of the Jewish soul.

Jews of generations that followed can recall the reminiscences of grandparents, which carried strains of longing and nostalgic affection for shtetl life; even as they insisted that no other place in the world could be so dirty, so exposed to jeopardy, so unbelievably poverty stricken as theirs.

The restrictions and punitive measures levied against the Jews in the shtetlach within the Pale were incalculable. Ownership of property was prohibited. Brilliant scholars of the Talmud and Torah, blessed or cursed with ambition, found themselves barred from entering the universities and schools of higher learning, even if they were able to afford it, because of a quota permitting entrance to only a miniscule percentage of Jews in proportion to the Russo-Polish student body. As a result, professions such as law and medicine were unattainable goals with only rare exception.

Special taxes were imposed upon the Jews by the imperial government. As though it were not enough to confine them to the Pale, the government attacked them as well through the externals of their religious life: The candle tax on Sabbath lights, and the box tax, divided into two classifications—general and subsidiary. The general tax was levied on every ritually slaughtered animal or bird, and on every pound of kosher meat. The subsidiary tax applied to the rents of houses or shops, business profits, inheritances, and clothing especially worn by Jews. To wear a yarmulke (skullcap) for instance, one had to pay a tax of five silver rubles a year.

The expense of buying immunity from police harassment added still more to their burden. In the Russian code of laws, there were 650 measures directed specifically toward Jews. Each restriction was another bribe for the Russian police.

But that was still not the worst of it. An American report on the profusion of Jewish immigrants to the United States attested that the Russian government deprived them of the most elemental conditions of life and property: ". . . let but the pogroms cease and the emigration of the Jews will immediately and considerably diminish."

Pogrom is a Russian word whose literal meaning is devastation and destruction. At times, the ringleaders of the pogroms were a road company of tough, mean tramps, recruited from the slum warrens of the cities, known as muziks. Arriving at a railroad station slated for a pogrom, they would proceed to sow rumors of Christian sacrilege perpetrated by Jews, inflaming the already anti-Semitic populace