Mr. Monday and other tales of Jewish Amsterdam

20 Adr. Monday and Other Tales of Jewish Amsterdam

met and whom he knew only from the weekly Bund newspaper. He put a scrap of paper into my hand on which he had written in Hebrew characters the name of a very rare book.

"If you should get to Vilno, ask in the Straschun Library whether they have a copy of it," he instructed me, handing me a title slip.

When I was in Vilno I went to the Straschun Library right away. In a back street, leaning against the wall of the old synagogue, I found two small rooms, shacks really. There, in an old bookcase, were kept the hand writings of Gaon, the famous sage—handwritings for which famous collectors offered to pay a king's ransom.

But Vilno was the Town of the Book, and the Jews are the People of the Book. They did not sell their ancient manuscripts.

Dr.Rubinstein, the librarian, looked carefully at the scrap of paper that Mr. Monday had given to me.

"Do you have that book?" I asked.

"No, I am sorry, but no. But you come from Holland, don't you? There is a copy in Amsterdam, owned by a certain Mosejekofsky of Moskosofsky or Moshekofsky or something. In short, this Mr.Rubinstein knew that Mr. Monday possessed the book. It was the rare book Mr. Monday had shown me in his cupboard of Judaica.That shoemaker of ours, sometimes he could be a vain man!

From Poland I wandered to Pods in Karpatho Russia. The area had been Russian, then Czech, and is, I believe, Russian again today. I travelled through Rumania too, back through Bukovina and northward, with a detour via Munkacevo, to Pods once more.