KADDISHEL
A Life Reborn
to the letters and words, and the lash or cane. Most boys finished their studies at the cheder at age seven. Some went on to study at the synagogue, and others went to the local Pol- ish schools until the age of fourteen. In the 1920s, Ludvipol’s boys were still being educated in traditional cheders, although some had added modern subjects such as mathematics, geography, and liter - ature to their curriculum. By the mid-1930s, however, most boys — and girls — were students at the Tarbut School, which offered a modern Zionist education. Those who did not go to the Tarbut School, but to the Polish school in Selishtch, walked two miles to school. Nachum Feldman recalled that in autumn and spring, they sank up to their knees in thick mud, and in the wintertime, they sank into deep snow. Oth- ers described the Jewish students walking in groups for protection from their Ukrainian classmates, who would ambush them on their way home from school, throwing stones and attacking them with clubs as they walked through Selishtch. Feldman wrote, “We were always on the alert for it. Whenever we left school, each one of us collected stones of all sizes and put them in our schoolbags and pockets, so that if we got attacked, we would have something to hit them back with.” Sometimes the Jewish children sent a patrol ahead to find out where the Ukrainian students were hiding. Then they had to de- cide whether to take a different route back to Ludvipol or surprise the Ukrainians with fists and stones. “Every time we were able to surprise the enemy and attacked them, we knew we would have quiet times ahead for several weeks before they decided to attack us again,” said Feldman. He recalled that the teachers, all of whom were Polish, were especially harsh with the Jewish students. “I remember since I was in the first grade of school that the principal used to smack us with a ruler for the slightest delay or other violation. And while he was hitting us, he used to curse us saying things like ‘dirty Jew, dog’s blood (in Polish, psiakrew).’ We naively thought that this was part of the educational methodology and that we couldn’t be educated
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