The Kafkaesque Ride on the Belz – Marienbad Express

I will fulfill my promise and publish another chapter in the Richard Svandrlik’s collection (see On the Marienbad Nuremberg Axis with Richard Svandrlik). For the purposes of this post, let’s call Yissochar Dov “the father” (you can enlarge all the photos).

The gabbay on the left, holding the Rebbe’s hand, will hold the hand of the son (below). The gabbay has a demeanor of a bouncer, which was exactly his job description.

In many of the (Marienbad) photos the Rebbes look overweight (perhaps even “unhealthy”). In addition to the job requirement of going in a spodek even during the week, there was the diet full of sugary carbohydrates plus the secluded indolence bubble.

And here is the chapter from Richard Svandrlik’s book 1910-1932 Franz Kafka and the Belzer Rabbi (PDF)

In that meeting between Kafka and the Belzer there was a curious asymmetry. On one hand there was a person who foresaw the tragedies of the post industrial modernity and changed the course of the western literature. On the other hand there was a man who denied modernity and was blind to the future. On one hand a lonely and holy recluse with a message that the people would not hear on the other hand a man surrounded with the thousands of admirers and no message. The Belzer’s achievement was saying no to everything, no to Zionism, no to every form of the Jewish political organization, including the Agudah, etc. In that sense the Betlzer was not much different from the Lubavitcher, for example. Which brings me to this unique photo of the great Jiri Langer.

As you would expect the penetrating stare and the veil of the endless sadness. Let mes say few words about Mordechay Langer. This man deserves all the posthumous derision in the world for opening the retched gates to the modern BT movement. Before Jiri Langer (or even Gershom Sholem in his youth) people didn’t know that you can take the hyper sensitive sophistication of the high European, post-Freudian culture and project it on a tribe of the bucolic and exclusively boorish peasants.

At least Gershom Sholem woke up and transferred that high European ethos from the bad Buberian bubblegum to the brilliant meditations on the cathartic history of the spirit.

But enough, I want to jump over to the Belzer son now. I have been contemplating, thinking about these photos for months.

Here is the Wikipedia entry:

“Aharon was the first child born to his parents, Rabbi Yissachar Dov Rokeach and Basha Ruchama Twersky, after 12 years of marriage. He was named after his mother’s great-grandfather, Rebbe Aharon of Chernobyl, although his father later revealed that he intended to name the boy after Rabbi Aharon of Karlin. Aharon had a younger sister, Chana Rachel, who later married Rabbi Pinchas Twersky of Ostilla.

Aharon’s mother died on 18 March 1884 when Aharon was 4 years old. His grandfather, Rebbe Yehoshua Rokeach, the second Belzer Rebbe, took the boy under his wing and oversaw his spiritual development… [His father] Rebbe Yissachar Dov remarried to Chaya Devora Pecsenik and had another seven children. Rebbe Aharon was 22 years old when his half-brother Mordechai was born… When he came of age, Rebbe Aharon married his cousin, Malka, the daughter of his father’s elder brother Shmuel, the Rav of Sokal. After his marriage, Aharon lived with his father-in-law for several years… He and his wife had five sons and four daughters. Several apparently healthy children died at birth, while those that survived were sickly and weak. Two daughters were both hearing- and speech-impaired. One daughter, Mirel, died in 1938; the rest were killed by the Nazis with their families.”

The Belz was a new dynasty. So naturally they were forced to draw upon the evil Ukrainian Twerskys (and later upon the equally evil Friedmans, the relocated Ruzhiner Romanian offspring) for their marrige prospects. And they doubled up on the Twerskys in each generation. When I was contemplating this photo it reminded me of Carlos (Charles) II of Spain (see The Inbreeding Fall of the Spanish Royalty). There is the oversized forehead, the small frail body of an old man to go with the young smile.

Wikipedia continues on the escape from the Nazis:

“The Rebbe, his attendant, and Rabbi Mordechai, shorn of their distinctive beards and sidelocks, were disguised as Russian generals who had been captured at the front and were being taken to Budapest for questioning. After spending eight months in Hungary, the brothers boarded the Orient Express to Istanbul, and finally arrived in Israel in February 1944.

Both men lost their entire families to the Nazis. Rebbe Aharon’s eldest son, Moshe, was burned alive in the Przemyslany shul at the same time as Rebbe Aharon was in hiding in that town. Later, Rabbi Moshe’s wife and five children were murdered. Rebbe Aharon’s eldest daughter, Rivka Miriam, and her husband, Rabbi Shmiel Frankel, both perished along with their seven children. Rebbe Aharon’s other daughters, Adel Twersky and Sara Bracha Rosenfeld with their children, and two other sons, Rabbi Yisrael and Rabbi Yehudah Zundel with their children, were also slain.”

When I was in Yeshiva and the subject of a Kennedy would come up, people would wink knowingly and say that the “Belzer cursed them”. A very strange thing to say at the backdrop of the fate of the Belzer family. They might be only good with the curses… In fact when you hear a chassiddic story it usually a lie unless proven otherwise. One of the stories is the escape of the Aharon Rokeach and his half-brother Mordechay dressed as “Russian Generals”. I mean look at the man, what do you people think of the Russian generals? Finding a Russian general’s uniform in Galizia was like finding a shidduch for Jiri Langer there.

But seriously, as I was thinking about what really happened during the escape I became terrified with the significance of the event. The Belzer Gabboyim indeed might be the extraordinary people. As their civilization collapsed they were preparing a human time capsule. In that capsule they put the current Rebbe and his half-brother, his 22 year junior as a “sperm bank”… The story is worthy of the biblical Lot.

Richard Svandrlik emails:

“On many images of the Belzer rebbes are the members of the Leitners family – they were owners of 4-5 hotels for orthodox rabbis in Marienbad. With some of them I am in email concact. Mainly Benny Leitner in London helped me with information on many pictures. The daughters of David Leitner (who organised amongst others the Kenessio Gedaulo and was murdered in shoa), married some important rabbis too. For example Rabbi Munk of Berlin, etc. And today the Leitner family has connection to Belzer rabbi in Israel. The last photo on on the rail station: this young man with the small moustache, fourth from left – he is Kurt Leitner, the father of Benny L. from London. This Kurt Leitner, young hotelier is on many pictures with the Belzer Rebbe. I found photo of him as small boy in a museum Marienbad… I am also in email contact in N.Y. with the the son of Rabbi Munk, Judah Munk… Another of my sources source is a young yeshiva student David in Ashdot, very close to the present Sadigura Rebbe, he helped me for years with identifications of Rebbes and collecting of scans. He is my biggest help – my history pillar. Then Pini Dunner, in London too, collector of old rabbi photos helped me from time to time.”

There is something strange about the last photo. They appear on the same rail crossing. But the Yitzhak Nohum Twerski of Shpikov, the Belzer son-in-law, switched to the right, it’s suddenly windy and the Belzer Rebbe is wearing a different coat. Unless they stopped to pose for a picture in the previous photo and then it got windy and they put a winter coat on the Rebbe on the same spot. This is the same coat the Rebbe is wearing inside the rail wagon.

By the way the man to the right of the Rebbe (left in the previous photo) was identified by Richard Svandrlik as Yochanan Twersky of Rachmastrivka, but David Assaf tells me it’s Yitzhak Nochum Twerski of Shpikov. The same man who wrote the bitter letter at the prospect of being married into the backwards Belzer family. Do they look the same?

Also the man between Yitzhak Nochum Twerski and the Gabbai Aaron Landau was identified by Richard Svandrlik as Rebbe of Chortkow (Czortkow) Yisrael Friedman. I am told it’s another young Belzer Gabbay in training.

Commenting on the money exchanging hands to the right of the Belzer Rebbe Richard Svandrlik writes in the book:

“It goes without saying that in Rokeach’s companion’s hands the money flowed only one way. For a fifteen Crown note a guest was immediately admitted to an audience. One was allowed to shake hands with the Rebbe and receive blessings for a ten Crowns.”

I keep returning in my mind to the image of the man in lower left corner (photo above) in the polish cap. What was his fate? Why was he and the crowd extracted and mislead?

In the upper right (photo above) are the smiling and joking women. Even Hitler couldn’t accomplish what is done today by the modern hareidim – erase women from all the photos. As a matter of fact they crop everyone except the Rebbes, just to be on the “safe side of history”…

I want to conclude with this photo that is thematically different from Marinbad Spa. According to Richard Svandrlik it shows the Belzer Rebbe in Warsaw. I don’t believe Richard published this photo yet.

Belz is an interesting case study. The fundamentalist “startup” came out of nowhere and eclipsed the traditional chassidik dynasties with the simple marketing strategy. At the time of the great ideological upheavals in Europe remain the frumest SOBs on the block. The prewar obstinate brand was so strong that after they lost everyone, they still attracted all the surviving Hungarians rachmono l’zlan. I mean those Hungarians that didn’t witness or know about the Belzter pulling the second shameful desertion from Budapest.

The “product” that Belz sold in the pre-war Europe was strength. The strength to stand the ground against all the threatening waves of history. And when the big wave came, they just perished. Well, death happens to the best of us. But what was left behind in Belz was murky at the “miraculous”.

Further reading:

• The Two Hour Ride from Sokolov
• On the Marienbad Nuremberg Axis with Richard Svandrlik
• The Moment of Der Moment

Tagged as: europe, history, holocaust, jews, poland, religion, Richard Svandrlik