Jack Nachshen 1899-1996

Eulogy: Gary Nachshen. April 1, 1996

Speech at Unveiling: Issie Nachshen Sept 11, 1996

Eulogy: Gary Nachshen. April 1, 1996

My grandfather, Jack Nachshen, played many roles during the ninety-plus years of his life. He was a witness to history, a participant in revolution. He was a battler against great odds, a survivor of terrible adversity. He was a devout Jew, an ardent Bolshevik, and a not-so-reluctant capitalist, all rolled into one. Zaide was a man of few words but stubborn conviction and a person of indomitable will. He was a character.

Zaide Jack had a prodigious memory. Names, places, dates, events of long ago: he could recall them all decades later with astonishing precision. Because he delighted in recounting his experiences to us, and because he was one of our last links to a time and place which now seem so remote but which continue to mark us today, I would like to ask your forbearance while I scroll back over some of the events in a life that epitomized the grand sweep of 20th Century history.

Yancel (rhymes with ankle) Nachshen was born at the turn of the century in Pogrebishch, a tiny shtetl not far from Kiev in the Ukraine. He was the third son of Moishe Nachshen and Sarah Ramenek. As best we can reconstruct events, he was born in January 1898, but he always insisted that he was actually born only in January 1900. Right until the end, he was intent on shaving two years off his age. A real character.

Yancel studied at the yeshiva in Skvira until his bar mitzvah. He then went into the wholesaling business with his brothers, transporting goods by train through Czarist Russia during the dark days of World War One. Which is how he came to be in the centre of Moscow on the evening of October 25, 1917 and witnessed the storming of the Kremlin by the Bolsheviks. As I said, truly a witness to history.

Three-quarters of a century later, the average person might be forgiven for thinking that the Russian Revolution was over with a few shots in October 1917. Not true. Throughout 1918, Russia was torn by civil war, and many took advantage of the chaos to persecute the Jewish minority. At the time, the Bolshevik Party led by men like Leon Trotsky seemed like the only force friendly to the Jewish population, and so my grandfather and 120 other Jewish boys from Pogrebishch formed a self-defence unit which was absorbed into the Red Army. Like I said, he was a participant in revolution.

My grandfather's military career did not last very long. Typhus swept through Red Army ranks, and by mid-1919 he was one of the only members of his unit still alive. He contracted typhus himself and was discharged. No sooner did he arrive home in Pogrebishch than the White Army launched a pogrom in the village. Zaide was too weak from disease to hide, and some soldiers broke into his room and stood poised to stab him. But one of them said to another: "This one is so sick he'll be dead soon anyways," and they left him alone. They slaughtered 375 other Jews in Pogrebishch that day. My grandfather eventually recovered from his illness. He had battled and survived against nearly insurmountable odds.

Now by this time the Ukraine did not look like the most promising area to build a future. So in 1920, Yancel and his older brother Avrum made their way to the Romanian border, found themselves a boat, bribed a border guard with some vodka, and paddled across the river one night to start a new life. They spent four years operating a small kiosk in Kishinev, trying to save enough money to join a cousin who had emigrated to Detroit. Unfortunately, the U.S. government decided to "close the gates" to further Eastern European immigration in the mid-1920's. So when the Canadian government agreed to admit 5,000 Jewish refugees from Romania in 1924, my grandfather gave up on his American dream and decided to move instead to some strange country called Canada.

My grandfather was the first member of the Nachshen family to come to Canada. We are truly honoured and fortunate that he took English lessons before his departure, just so that he could step off the ship in Halifax on May 29, 1924 and solemnly inform the immigration official that his family name was to be spelled "N-A-C-H-S-H-E-N". That's right - "C-H-S-H" - four consonants in a row. The rest of us have been suffering the consequences ever since.

That's not all my grandfather's foresight and planning accomplished. Back in Kishinev, people knew of only one city in Canada, namely Montreal, and that's where all the Jewish immigrants wanted to settle. The rule in those days was that unless you could point to a relative or close acquaintance in Montreal, the government would ship you off to Toronto, Winnipeg, or some other God-forsaken town. Now as I said, Zaide was the first member of our family to come to Canada, so by rights he should not have succeeded in staying in Montreal. But somehow or other he contrived to come up with a contact here who satisfied the criteria, and he was permitted to settle in what we now call the Plateau Mont Royal. As I mentioned, a man of stubborn conviction and indomitable will.

My grandfather made the most of his new life. Through the Roaring Twenties he was a fearless leader of the union movement in the hat manufacturing industry and a fearless investor in the stock market. He lost a bundle in the market crash of 1929, but that didn't keep him down for long. Right around that time, he met a young lady named Polly Garber, and they were married in 1931. Talk about true love and devotion; they would have been married 65 years this coming April 17.

My grandparents had three sons. The oldest was my father Sam, and the second was my Uncle Larry. A week after their youngest son was born, Zaide was dispatched to the synagogue to register the birth under the name he and Bubby Polly had chosen. That name was "Bernard". About an hour later, he arrived back home. "So?" Bubby asked. He looked at her and spoke three words: "I decided Brian." What a character.

Around this time, Zaide Jack also decided it might be fun to learn how to drive a car. So he signed up for driving lessons. Unfortunately, depth perception was never his strong suit, and after one 30-minute lesson the petrified driving instructor beat a hasty retreat. This setback didn't discourage a stubborn Nachshen like my grandfather one little bit. No sir. He bought an old Dodge and taught himself to drive by bouncing off the walls in the lanes between Clark and St. Urbain. When some poor driver would complain that Zaide had sideswiped his car, Zaide's usual retort was: "You call that a car?" A real character.

In his later years, Zaide became a devoted fan of the Montreal Canadiens. To his last days, he would stay up late each winter night watching hockey on TV. If the game was particularly important and particularly close, he would get so nervous that he had to shut it off every few minutes, convinced that his cheering brought the Canadiens bad luck.

Jack Nachshen had a special bond with each member of his family. With his father and his oldest brother Muttel, he shared a devotion to Judaism. Well into his 90s, he ran a traditional Hebrew seder at Pesach like no other, though I have to admit that his already speedy rendition of the Exodus from Egypt really went into overdrive when his beloved Canadiens were playing a Stanley Cup playoff game that night. With his brothers Avrum and Grisha, he shared an affinity for Bolshevism and for quasi-Communist activity that got him banned from the U.S. during the McCarthy era. His Bolshevik affinities did not prevent him from spending 30 years operating his own fur business or from bringing up two sons who grew up to be very successful chartered accountants. Those sons, my father Sam and my Uncle Larry, were with him every step of the way during his last five difficult years, as were my mother Anne and my Aunt Margaret. The same is true of his caregivers, especially Nati.

Zaide was also very close to his sisters Fera and Tanya, and he stayed in touch with his youngest brother Mutzi, who was unable to leave the Soviet Union. He shared with his youngest son Brian a willingness to strike out in new directions, a fiercely independent mindset, and a dry but devastating sense of humour. I personally can testify that he was a wonderful grandfather, regaling Eileen, Johanna, Mark, Jennifer, Brian, Julie and me with stories of his younger days and instilling in us a deep sense of pride in our heritage. In the final year of his time with us, his two great-grandchildren, Robert and Sasha, were the great joys of his life. And as I mentioned a moment ago, he shared 65 years of devoted marriage with my Bubby Polly.

Let me close this tribute to the old Bolshevik with a line from a poem about some of the other young men who fought for freedom in Europe 80 years ago and who did not return. Zaide, you've slipped the surly bonds of Earth, to touch the face of God.

Godspeed, and may your soul rest in peace.

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