el Ozer shouted even louder. “The children in the Hebrew Tarbut School are also freezing. I am after all the older brother. So what if you saw this gentile first? I have been hanging around here since dark”.
Now they were both shouting at the same time. One louder than the other. Avrom Moishe cursed his brother. People started to gather around. The circle grew and people began to take sides. Who knows how this would have ended if Yosl Khemes had not appeared.
“We must do something,” repeated Avrom Moishe shouting loudly as usual and looked at the wood with joy.
began to chase one another.
The teachers stood on the porch and called the kids to come inside, they shouldn't God forbid catch a cold. It was so noisy the children could not hear them. Then they realized they could ring the bell. Recess was cut short.
It was quiet around the school. In the stillness you could clearly hear the voice of the teacher Leybl Frenkel. He was reading “If Not Higher” by Yitzkhal Leybush Peretz. A song from the Hebrew Tarbut School could be heard from the marketplace: “Little boy come to the window, a beautiful bird flew by”.
This all poured out in chorus together with the Talmud melody coming from the Yeshiva.
Late at night Avrom the recluse walked home from the House of Study. In the streets you could still hear echoes of the last songs sung by the teenagers who walked through town like flocks of birds.
Soon all was quiet. Only Shneour the night watchman walked through the marketplace guarding the circle shops. He walked with heavy steps. He held a lantern in one hand and a thick stick in the other. He soon became bored and was chilled to the bone. He banged his stick on a metal sign which echoed through the entire marketplace.
A person appeared on the sidewalk near the houses. Maybe someone from the Society to Spend the Night with the Sick was going to spend the night with a patient?
“Who's there?” asked Shneour, bored with nothing to do.
Tzalie the barber, the clown, already thought of a prank.
How many pranks did he already pull?
He already woke up Leyzer the butcher in the middle of the night and informed him that his mother in law died as he stood in the corner laughing watching Leyzer run around for no reason.
Tzalie was not lazy. One summer night he secluded himself in the new cemetery and lay there in a white shroud until late at night. When the teens calmly lay on the ground beside their horses, Tzalie crept out from behind the graves and slowly trudged toward them.
The next day Tzalie told everyone how the kids abandoned their horses and ran recklessly to town.
“I'm here” replied Avrom (in biblical Hebrew as if responding to God's calling), in a quiet frightened voice. Tzalie could not believe it.
Reb Avrom stood there, pale with his eyes closed. He raised his trembling hands in the air as his lips quivered.
Tzalie was overcome with fear.
Tzalie did a lot of thinking that night. 
Zhetl's scribes supported the revolution with the same passion Avrom had for religion. With the same fervent belief Jews prayed in the Houses of Study and Yenkl the Hasid danced in the Hasidic prayer house. With this passion they built the Yiddish School, the Tarbut School and the library.
Friday nights, while the Sabbath candles burned in all the windows, the teenagers went behind the town, to the Novogrudek highway.
Saturday nights, when the first stars appeared in the sky and the Havdalah prayers were said to end the Sabbath and begin the new week, there was singing on the Slonim highway. Boys and girls, set free from school, would gather in the political party locales and sing out their longing and faith.
These songs carried over the fields and gardens, back to town where their grandmothers were murmuring: “God of Abraham”, the prayer to usher in the new week.
This is how I see you, my small town of Zhetl.
This is how you have remained alive in me.
A quiet summer morning. The sunrise is in a hurry, it's Friday in town.
Zhetl's Jews still have to earn a little, but God forbid not to be late for candle lighting or receiving the Sabbath with honour.
At Maytchik the baker's you can already smell the fresh Challahs and the tempting sweet smell of the rye bread. You can see Maytchik's mother standing with her hunched back, her kerchief over her eyes and her clothes covered in flour. When you look at her you realize she also works.
She looks into the street, maybe she'll catch a bargain, a wagon full of birch wood from the gentile farmer. She's always rushing, but today the holy Sabbath will arrive and she will be able to rest her weary bones.
“Perhaps today I'll have a customer for the two coats that Khaya Sorke sewed.” At this time he can't seem to get rid of them. Later, he takes his prayer shawl and goes to the House of Study.
A little further on, Feytche's son stands with his hands in his pockets and looks out onto the street. There are already a few gentile women shopping in Khienke's store.
In the circle of stores. Dovid and Mariashke opened their store and first thing in the morning they were already jealous that Khienke already had customers. What could they do?
Mikhl, with his greasy pants, a newly rich man, runs with enthusiasm to open his shop. A rich man has luck.
Ida Leybke's children run to sell leather, but unfortunately, in the summer, the earnings are weak. The gentiles walk barefoot. The daughters, thank God are all ready to be married, we need a lot for dowries, but here are no prospects.
Arkin the iron dealer, bent over, skinny, with his glasses on his nose, walks without any enthusiasm to his iron shop, even though it is the season for his products. But he has no luck. On top of this he is a man burdened with many children.
Libitchke opens her store with ease.  Her husband Zaydl, with his eye glasses, is short and thin (he is writing a Torah scroll) looks like he is her servant. She is never lacking customers in her store.
The stock exchange is always on Hendl's stoop. The gentiles from nearby villages sit there and wait for work.
Slowly all the stores open and the daily struggle for existence begins. All the tables are set up and the wagons arrive from Slonimer, Novoredker and Hoyfisher Streets.
Today is a bit of a holiday. Its' noisy and everyone is shouting: “Come on in!” It seems that all the voices are shouting together: “May God grant us livelihood”.
 The sun begins to set and the Gentiles leave. The marketplace is empty.
Jews sweep the streets for the Sabbath and lock up their shops. They hurry home, some with their “Haynt” newspaper under their arms, others with “Moment”. They will forget about the bleak weak.
The circle of shops is covered with darkness and the other side of the street the balconies are filled with the Divine Presence of the Holy Sabbath. Sabbath candles are flickering from every corner. Reb Moishe Tentzer with his beautiful beard hurries to the synagogue, Yisroel Ozer catches up to him to chat before prayers begin. The blond Kalmen, Yosele Mendes and Reb Avrom the Pious all go to the House of study, and they all pray together for good health and subsistence.
It is quiet in town. It is a Friday night of those Jewish Fridays which will never return.
The first Jews in Zhetl settled on Slonimer Street, the road which led to Slonim. This Jewish settlement began like all others with a Jewish steward of an estate, an innkeeper, a lessee, a shopkeeper and a blacksmith.
Over the years the street grew and almost one third of the street was inhabited by the Krakhmolnikes (Starch makers) family. The great grandfather of the Krakhmolnikes leased the estate and one of his children opened the first starch factory in Zhetl, which was passed down through inheritance from one generation to another.
In time, more Jews arrived, the settlement grew and they began to think about a House of Study.
The first House of Study, which by the way existed until the last days was the place of worship. From a distance, from the other side of the lake, it looked old and tired, bent over, as if it were about to collapse. The established men from Slonimer Street protected it like a precious piece of jewelry. Every year they repaired the old walls, inside and out, just like you dress up a beloved old grandmother.
Although over time the residents of Slonimer Street changed, people married and left the street, sons in law came and went, they still protected this house of worship.
Slonimer Street stretched from Shushnen far far until Khadzhelaner Road almost until Glovotzken. It was the liveliest street in town. Everyone in Z