Poultney minutes book proves timeless

Author: Kaylen Baker

Last Tuesday, Jan. 15, a large, polished and curious crowd of people, including many townspeople, turned up to hear Silberman Professor of Jewish Studies Robert Schine speak about a small slice of time in Jewish history. Schine's lecture, titled "Yiddish, German, and Hebrew in Poultney? Vermont's First Jewish Community," centered on the oldest documentation of Jewish life in Vermont, a minutes Book, written in German, Hebrew and Western Yiddish.

Impressive as this sounds, at first I found myself disappointed to learn the book only held lists of town leaders, births and deaths, business transactions and holiday preparations from a small Jewish settlement around the 1860s. What? No scandalous gossip about a vixen schoolteacher, mysterious deaths or even a blot of market mischief? Nope.

From my perch on the floor, I could glimpse a slide displaying a page from the minutes book - a list of congregation leaders' names on a yellowing page. And yet, with this simple list, Schine was able to reveal an interesting history of the town.

In a refined and articulate yet enthusiastic manner, Schine spoke of how Poultney was founded by young, adventurous men from Germany in the 1830s, and grew through chain immigration. "No Jew is the first Jew in any town," he explained. The townspeople were simple peddlers and merchants, not well educated, and were devoutly religious.

Shifting in my seat, I realized that a few of the local folk around the room had probably come to discover something about the town that their own ancestors grew up in. Perhaps the woman knitting one row to my right was a Cane, a Theisa or even related to Solomon Mineberg, the first documented congregation leader.

Mineberg, as Schine related to us in his soothing voice, was a butcher by profession, with a wife, a child and enough money to afford a small temper. Apparently he caused quite a scene at one documented meeting. The purchase of a torah scroll was being discussed the curtain for the torah scroll had already been purchased for 98 cents shared equally, and Mineberg proposed to pay for half of the scroll, if all the town's citizens would promise to go to temple every week.

No-one made the promise. Mineberg then added, smugly, I imagine - that he would take the torah scroll with him and no one could use it. Still, no one promised to attend weekly service. Outraged, Mineberg proclaimed he "wanted nothing to do with the Poultney sefer torah"… He was "finished for the day," and stormed from the room.

Schine detected all this and a great deal more from the minutes book. Amazingly, with only the brief notes and lists recorded, a lot of research and a great audible passion for the subject, Schine has been able to delve deep into the history and culture of this old Jewish community.

He is both an inventive and meticulous observer - he noted that, following the torah scroll incident, each congregation leader signed his or her name in agreement. A fuzzy "Mrs." is barely detectable before the Mineberg surname, which Schine speculated the butcher's wife had signed when her proud husband refused. Feeling foolish when he saw what his wife had done, Mineberg later crossed out the 's.'

From changes in handwriting, Schine deduced that the leadership in the town had rotated. (Unlike Mr. Mineberg's, Mr. Hiseman's penmanship is quite excellent). Schine also researched a great deal on the different languages present, in her book calling it a "linguistic time machine." That demonstrates what informal Hebrew sounded like back then, when Poultney people misspelled words based on phonetics.

Besides providing a restful atmosphere, Schine unknowingly inspired those present to learn more about Jewish culture and languages. He mentioned that languages are constantly changing and described a man whose goal was to preserve Hebrew, "the holy tongue," in all its beauty. Schine should know he, too, is making a huge contribution in this regard.