Daniel Fink
This is Shimon Finkelstein, my great grandfather's brother. Like my great grandfather, he was born in Kovno. His father, Judel Finkelstein, was a Keidaner. But alas, I have no pictures of Judel.Shimon Finkelstein and his wife, Soreh and his father, Yitzchak. were burried in Keidan.. His father, Yitzchak. And several generations before that. . .
What are we doing on this river, wrestling with wind and water and history? Why have we returned to the land that my great great grandfather, Rabbi Judel Girsch Finkelstein, fled with his family over a century ago? In 1874, he taught Torah in the shtetl of Babtai, here on the Nevezis.
Keidan is a special place for my family. I began this journey with a visit to the gravestone of Rabbi Yehudah Tzvi (Judel) Finkelstein in Queens. He spent out of his life in Kovno/Slabodka, but he was born here in Keidan. Here's how his son, Rabbi Shimon Finkelstein tells the story:
My father was descended from a long line of rabbinic scholars who had lived in Keidan, a town noted in our district for rabbinic learning.I would have remained in complete ignorance of the distinction of his ancestry had I not early in life met a cousin, the daughter of my famous aunt, Chaya Etta of Kovno. My aunt was one of the few Jewish women of her country and generation who had broken through the conventions which barred her sex from public life and had graduated as a nurse from a St. Petersburg school. She had received a medal from the Tsar for excellence in her studies, and in my time was known everywhere in Kovno not only for her eminence in her profession, but also for her wide influence in the community, where she was credited with having been the decisive factor in the selection of various rabbis. Her daughter, who she reared in her own profession and who also attained unusual distinction, was my informant regarding family history. Despite my father's reticence about his forebears, except when he quoted "their Torah," he was aware, as I now understand, of his obligation to them and very eager that his sons should measure up to their standards of learning.
My own father, Arnold Fink, always expressed pride in our Keidaner ancestry. Apparently there was good precedent for this. In his memoir, "Worlds Gone By", Dr. Chaim Yakov Epstein notes: "Keidan was not just another Lithuanian town. It was a city with a noble lineage. Proud was the Jew who, when asked, "Where do you hail from?" could stand up tall and respond, "Ich bin Keidaner--I am a Keidaner."
The city boomed in the 17th century, under the patronage of the ruling Radvila family. Unlike most Lithuanians, in this very Catholic country, they were Calvinists, and big believers in religious tolerance. Keidan attracted Germans and Scots--and Jews. The Jewish community here were merchants and brewers and weavers--and also farmers, who cultivated fruits and vegetables and sugar beets. And Keidan's cucumbers, grown by Jewish farmers, were famous throughout Lithuania--and beyond.
It was also a place of deep Jewish learning. David Katzenellenbogen was a famous rabbi here. In 1727, a six year old boy arrived in Keidan from Vilna. His natural talent stunned the rabbis of Keidan, who saw his potential and educated the lad. He would become Rabbi Eliyahu--the Vilna Gaon, one of the greatest Jewish scholars who ever lived. His wife, Channa, was also a Keidaner.
Over the years, this town raised many eminent Jews--religious and secular, Zionists and Talmudists and Bundists and communists and more. Among them were the Hebrew writer Moshe-Leib Lilienblum, a Hebrew writer and poet and leading light in the awakenings of Zionism.
But there was also the stuff of daily life, as described by Boruch Cassel and Chaim Epstein in their memoirs of life in Keidan:
A Saturday night in Tammuz (June/July). After a hot day, the evening has called things off a little, and with the new moon in a clear skyline, the whole city is outdoors. The old bridge is packed with strollers, mostly young people. Girls go with girls, and boys with boys. They walk in pairs, in groups of three or four or more in a row, usually of the same age. The line of boys follows after a line of girls, making jokes at their expense, but the girls give as good as they get, laughing and throwing wisecracks of their own back in the boys direction.
. . . It was was not a long bridge and could be crossed, back and forth, many times, thus giving young men and women many chances to meet.
Who knows? Perhaps my great-great grandparents, Yehuda and Soreh, met on this bridge--which stood in exactly the same place over the Nevezis River where Rosa and I passed into town yesterday.