21st Century Bogatyr: With the Best Intentions, On a New World

by Zvi Baranoff

Rifka Leeba began her schooling a bit younger than most kinder in Moskve on Planet Shney. Being a precocious and bright meydl helped make her more prepared, perhaps. Of course, she had some familial advantages that also smoothed her integration to the scholastic environment.

Rifka Leeba's grandfather, Dovid, after all, was the driving force behind the initial expedition from Planet Birobidzhan and ultimate settlement on Planet Shney. Planet Shney, like Planet Birobidzhan, had no government to speak of, and certainly no monarchy. Dovid was, however, an honored elder, a natural leader and a recognized ganze macher. In Moskve, he was sometimes affectionately referred to as Dovid Melech, King Dovid. By such association, that made Rifka Leeba a princess. Of course, there were already several similar princes and princesses attending the school, her gaggle of cousins. She certainly had no problems fitting in.

Baruch and Shmuli had an arrangement with Dovid concerning the education of his descendents. Rifka Leeba's tuition was covered by the arrangement. She was also willingly accepted as a student at a tender age that others with less connections may have encountered some discouragement.

Rifka Leeba enjoyed attending school immensely. She excelled in her studies. She quickly learned the Aleph Beis and became a voracious reader. She also flourished in the social settings of the lunchroom, the playground, the school library, and the extra-curricular activities.

When she left school each day Moskve offered her lots of options for passing the time until dinner.

Her father's office and pool hall was just a short walk, a skip and a jump from the school. At first, she was a bit short for the pool tables but she wasn't a bad shooter if she stood on a crate. Besides learning pool from her father, Nes taught her how to play poker, palm cards, deal off the bottom of the deck, and other such tricks which she found entertaining. However, as much as she loved being around her father, she usually only went straight to the pool hall one or two days a week.

Sometimes Rifka Leeba would visit with her grandfather, Dovid. She loved her grandfather from the first encounter on the tarmac when she and her parents landed on Planet Shney. Dovid adored the meydl at first sight. It is true that Dovid was by then quite old and a bit slow but he always had treats in a secret pocket to share. He would pinch her and address her by the pet name, Tamar. Dovid would tell Rifka Leeba elaborate tales of Moshe Pipik, a child that lived on the Home Planet long ago, a child who built a rocket ship from a wooden crate and a variety of junk, flew to the moon, and beyond into distant space although he always made it home in time for dinner.

Dovid assured Rifka Leeba that she was as sweet as a date and that was why he called her Tamar. The meydl had no reason to disbelieve her grandfather, but his reasons were more complicated than that. Rifka Leeba was named after Nes’ mother, Dovid's first love and favorite wife. Dovid mourned the loss of his wife. His heart would break every time if he were to call this child Rifka Leeba. Besides, Tamar is also the name of Dovid's dearest progeny and the meydl was the spitting image of his beloved daughter.

Rifka Leeba had dozens of cousins in Moskve, particularly the gaggle of kinder of Aunt Tamar's sons, Perez and Zerah. Several of the cousins were not much older than she and attended the same school. She was always welcomed to join them after school, playing games, studying, hiking and exploring, eating in their homes, and sometimes just hanging out.

By far, Rifka Leeba's favorite place to be, was in her Aunt Tamar's upstairs apartment above the bakery adjacent to the school. When classes let out, she could exit the school through the back door and climb the stairs to find Tamar. The apartment was cozy and filled with musical instruments. Tamar would often be practicing her violin when Rifka Leeba arrived. Soon, the child began learning to play the fiddle as well, lessons from her favorite aunt. Between lessons, they drank tea or schnapps, ate kikhlekh or majoun, and shared confidences.

Shprintza Freyda was glad to have Rifka Leeba enrolled in school, allowing her to pursue her own interests. She was pleased to be living in Moskve, a shtot that was diverse and sophisticated compared to the provincial shtetl where she was raised. And, if she gave it much consideration, she was glad that Nes had the pool hall to go to rather than haunting around the house as he had done for too long.

Six mornings a week, Nes walked Rifka Leeba to school and then he went to his office, and Shprintza Freyda was free of both husband and child. Shprintza Freyda went to the cafés, the library, and the theater.

If Shprintza Freyda had remained in the shtetl on Planet Birobidzhan and married the same sort of man as her mother had, she likely would have a house full of children and no personal life to speak of.

In Moskve on Planet Shney, it was not so unusual for women to bear far fewer kinder than those that lived on Planet Birobidzhan. The women of Planet Shney were interested in other activities beyond breeding and raising children. The founders of Moskve were not so much under the sway of rabbis or religious doctrine as those of Planet Birobidzhan. They assuredly had no obsession with being fruitful and multiplying. The women that had arrived on the Hatikvah had broken free of many of the restraints of the world they had left behind.

The original settlers were the passengers of the retrofitted Hatikvah. Their flight transcended the void for nearly a decade before the eight hundred or so pioneers disembarked on Planet Shney. They were families, bound together on Planet Birobidzhan, gathered carefully by Dovid, chosen for their specific skills and with cohesion reinforced by common visions inspired by the Mushrooms of Planet Shney.

The population of Planet Shney increased through childbirth at a very slow rate. The population growth of Planet Shney was mostly the result of new immigrants. However, when the first of the shuttle flights arrived twelve years after the Hatikvah, the passengers were disproportionately male. They were men who came to a new world seeking their fortunes.

Any change to the demographics of immigration was dependent on Nes’ scheme. The proof of his plans was yet in the unseen mists of an uncertain future. A great distance hung between the planets and the time required to travel between the two worlds was far from inconsequential. Nes was confident that his associates on Planet Birobidzhan would follow his direction with a minimal amount of skimming from his investments. That faith did not make the waiting so many years for a return any less frustrating.

It was a two year shlep before his plans would reach his confidants on the distant world. It might very well take some time and finesse for the incentivization actually resulting in a significant increase in female emigration from Planet Birobidzhan and then another two years shlep back to Planet Shney. In the meantime, only a trickling of wives arrived on Planet Shney to join their husbands that had preceded them.

Month by month, each shuttle arrived, mostly filled with men on their way to Sibir to seek their fortunes. And, month by month, the gender imbalance on Planet Shney increased. This would have been immediately disruptive if the new immigrants had remained in Moskve. Most of the new immigrants, however, dispersed into the wilderness of Sabir. There, the menschen worked hard, mostly on their own, and consoled themselves with schnapps when they found that life difficult. This postponed the inevitable social crisis of demographics that was unfolding on Planet Shney.

While there certainly wasn't much to do in Sibir besides work and drink, Moskve also had a dearth of entertaining distractions, even though it was the only shtot on Planet Shney at that time. Nes’ pool hall helped to fill that void. There were enough locals that came to play pool and enjoyed a hand or two of poker to macht a leben but the real gelt came from gold miners with their ore and trappers with their pelts, men that had been out in the harsh wilderness of Sabir for many long and lonely months. Schnapps and a fast spinning dreidl were very effective means of separating excess gelt from miners and trappers.

Nes tried to keep his mind busy with his small gambling house, which proved itself profitable. He even had to hire on some help with the place, ostensibly so that he could spend more evenings with his wife and daughter. That really was his intention, but his restlessness and shloflozikayt were only temporarily contained. Before long, his nocturnal wanderings began once more.