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'Shares, shmares' By Selected by Raaphy Persitz Tags: Israel News, Yiddish  Since ancient times, different cycles - such as periods of plenty and prosperity, followed by years of depression and scarcity, and vice versa - have impacted the course of human history. Sooner or later, experience shows, periods of economic abundance swell into bubbles that end with a loud burst. In earlier centuries, this was true of the tulip mania, the South Sea bubble and the gold rush. More modern examples include the stock market crash of 1929 and the dot-com bubble earlier this decade. The current real-estate (sub-prime mortgage) and financial crisis sweeping the world is the latest in a long series of booms gone bust. The tantalizing, deceptive natures of the stock and commodities markets were familiar to the renowned Yiddish author Sholem Aleichem (1859-1916), who faced financial ruin at least twice in his life: once in late 1890, when he lost most of his fortune, and again in 1891, when he went completely broke. Although the following excerpts of his work deal with events that occurred over a century ago, they could have been written yesterday. Aleichem leaps marvelously between feelings of elation that spread through the crowd in times of plenty, and the panic and despondency that replace them in times of crisis. (The excerpts are taken from "The Letters of Menakhem-Mendl, Sheyne-Sheyndl and Motl, the Cantor's Son," translated by Hillel Halkin, Yale University Press, 2000; courtesy of The Fund for the Translation of Jewish Literature). What follows is how Menakhem-Mendl, the ever-disappointed dreamer (and Aleichem's alter ego), describes to Sheyne-Sheyndl, his far more practical wife, the exhilaration that gripped the investors of Yehupetz - that is, Kiev - when the market was on the rise. Advertisement (Raaphy Persitz) "The day I arrived, it [the market] had sunk to such depths that stocks were going for a song with nary a kopeck up front. I decided to give it a try. What was there to lose? If the breaks went my way, I might earn some pocket money for the rest of my trip. And don't think I didn't! The market rose, I sold at a nice profit, reinvested my earnings, backed some more winners, and wound up with several hundred rubles in cash ... "Stocks & bonds are not what you think. They come from Petersburg. Putivil, Transport, Volga, Maltzev, etc. are manufacturers. They deal in rolling and floating stock - that is, railroads and 100-ruble shares that go for 300. That's because of the dividends. The more dividends, the more they're worth. But since nobody knows how many there'll be, you buy blind. That's called a bull market: all the Jews are cashing in on it and so am I. You would not believe, my dear wife, how small-time investors have become millionaires! They live in huge dachas, travel to Europinian spas, drape their women in silks and satins, speak French, play the piano, eat jam, and drink jewlips all day long. Their children have governesses and ride icicles. A ruble means nothing to them. They live high and the sky is the limit. And it's all from stocks & bonds! "Today a new issue of Putivil 187's arrived from Petersburg. Well, who doesn't want new Putivils? And since Maltzevs, so they say, closed at 1,350, who can resist Maltzevs? Shares are up every day. On my Putivils alone, praise God, I could clear a few hundred rubles. But you can flog me before I'll sell them. In fact, I'm planning to buy 150 more, 5 Maltzevs and a couple of Volgas - and some Transports too, if all goes well, because the word from Petersburg is, buy Transports for all you're worth! The whole world is holding them: Jews, housewives, doctors, teachers, servants, tradesmen - who doesn't have Transports? When two Jews meet, the first question is: 'How are Transports today?' Walk into a restaurant and the owner's wife asks: 'What's the latest on Transports?' Go buy a box of matches and the grocer has to know if Transports are up or down. In a word, there's money to be made here. Everyone is investing, growing, getting rich, and so am I." Around the corner Then as now, the stock market enthralled compulsive gamblers like Menakhem-Mendl, eager to get rich quickly and forgetting that collapse, disillusionment and bitter reckoning were always around the corner. "The sky has fallen in. The Petersburg closings have knocked us for a loop. It's like being struck by lightning or a bomb. Every broker is in mourning. The Kreshchatik looks hit by an earthquake. And once Petersburg lowered the boom, Warsaw followed suit. It's a disaster, a calamity, a catastrophe! All the investors are wiped out and so am I. The market is finished. The brokerages are deserted. The banks are desperate. It's as bad as the destruction of the Temple! "Just imagine, my dear wife, that my Maltzevs, which I put at 2,000, come hell or high water, have gone and closed at 950! Or take Putivils: never in my darkest dreams did I imagine they would drop from 180 to 67. And don't even ask about Transports - Transports are in the pits, no one will touch them. It's the same with Volgas, with Dons, with every share on the board. "And that's still nothing compared to Warsaw. Warsaw is a shambles, there hasn't been a slaughter like Warsaw in human history! In Warsaw your Liliputs nosedived from 2,450 to 620. And Roads & Rails! They were looking so good we were sure they would break 3,000. What do you think they're worth now? Would you believe 400 shmegaroos? How's that for a price? I tell you, it couldn't be worse. Who would have thought of Warsaw? Up, up, up it all goes and suddenly, out of the blue - poof! Nobody knows where it came from. This person says one thing, that person says another. It's all a question of money - that is, of not having it ... Everyone is ruined and so am I. "There's a saying that wealth follows a fire. In fact, now is the time to buy, since everything is dirt cheap. The best stocks can be bought on full margin. I guarantee you that anyone investing in Warsaw or Petersburg today will be a happy man tomorrow. When all is said and done, you see, I know the market inside and out. Only three things are needed to succeed in it: brains, luck, and money. Brains, praise God, I have as much of as any investor in Yehupetz. Luck comes from God. And money? Go ask [famous Jewish tycoon] Brodsky!" 'What more could you want?' The following excerpts capture the reaction of Sheyne-Sheyndl, the author's wife, to her husband's stock-market exploits. "As for what you write, Mendl, about all the money you're making, you can be sure we're pleased. See here, though: the devil take it if the next time you don't write like a human being! Why can't you tell a body in plain words what you're dealing in? Does it sell by the yard or by the pound? For the life of me, I don't know if you eat, wear, or smoke it. And what are these quick profits you talk about? What merchandise shoots up just like that? Even mushrooms, my mother says, need a rain to sprout. But if it's gained so much value, you should sell. You're not hoping to corner the market, are you? ... "All your winnings make my head spin. Blow me down if I can believe that a man just sticks out his hand and watches the rubles fly into it. What kind of hocus-pocus is that? And you better not touch the dowry money, because my mother will make you rue the day you were born if a kopeck of it is missing ... "I hope to hear no more of your Odessa than I understand about your blasted shorts and hedgerows! ... I wasn't raised in a home where we bought and sold air and God keep me from doing it now. From air you catch cold, my mother says. Who ever heard of a grown man playing in a market? ... You know what, Mendl? Listen to your wife, tell Odessa where it can go, and come home to Kasrilevke. We have a place to live at my father's, you have five hundred rubles, opening a store is no problem - what more could you want? "Are you afraid prices will keep rising and you'll look foolish for selling now? Everyone should only be such a fool! ... For heaven's sake, Mendl, listen to me: sell everything, and pull out now! You've made a few rubles? Quit while you're ahead. How much longer can you go on like this? ... You're a dunce to think it's written in the stars that Menakhem-Mendl has to be rich. Do you think Brodsky has nothing better to do than fly away with his millions to some blasted place beyond the Uropal Mountains just because Menakhem-Mendl has heard that gold and quicksilver are lying on the ground there? It's the old story of the deaf man hearing the dumb man tell of the blind man seeing the cripple run... "Put your trust in the almighty and come on home! ... I'm sending you a few rubles for your carfare ... I beg you to say good-bye to your Odessa as soon as you get this letter with the money. May it catch fire the moment you leave and burn to ashes! "A Jew like you, selling stockings in the market square! You know what you can do with a business like that! I read your letter, dear husband, and I thought: God in heaven! Either you've gone clear out of your mind, or else I have ... A haunt might be talking from your throat ... "Here I am, up to my ears with his lordship's children ... and Mr. Goldfingers couldn't care less. He's off to Odessa, to Yehupetz, to Boiberik! How is that? He's made a great discovery: stockings and bands! Transports! Portfolderols! He only has to shut and open his eyes and he's a millionaire! ... You're a fool to think your big words impress me. Shares, shmares! I'd rather own a rotten egg. No one ever made money by counting on his fingers ... Mark my words, Mendl, all your overnight Yehupetz tycoons will soon by the grace of God be the same beggars they were before. "First it was Lumdums and now it's stockings, Pottyboils, Lilyfoots, portfoderols, Rack & Ruin! For a box on the ear you have to go all the way to Warsaw? God in heaven, find me the wizard who can box the nonsense out of you! "Just imagine what we've come to when Boruch-Hirsh and Leah-Dvosi's Sheyne-Sheyndl has to have a trader for a husband! ... I don't believe one bit in your Yehupetz windfalls, which start with a bang and end with a lot of hot air ... I fear, Mendl, that once you've tried everything, you'll be reduced to peddling matches like Aunt Sosie's son Getzl." Bookmark to del.icio.us   Never walk alone It's safe to assume that Obama won't abandon Israel. Apprehensive in Israel Rightist MK Aryeh Eldad warns 'Israel should be wary of Barack Obama'

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