Translation by Naomi Cohen:

Tel Aviv, 24.12.72

[from the Hebrew]

The Mlawa Emigrants Organization

Tel Aviv, Remez Street

To Yerachmiel Zahavy – Shalom rav (hello)

Please forgive me for not visiting you in your mourning of the untimely death of your brother Eliezer, z”l [of blessed memory]. I was on my way to you when I did not feel well, so I returned home immediately. We also sent a condolence letter to your brother’s home.

I also had the letter of your relative Zakai Zecharia in the matter of your sister, z”l.

Since I didn’t manage to come – I will copy his letter here and write to me or phone me to let me know your opinion about it.

[from the Yiddish]

Forgive me for not answering right away. All in all, there isn’t much to write. Khavtshe (my cousin, I was named Zecharia Zloczewer in Dobrin bay der Vaysl [Dobrzyń nad Wisłą].)

Khavtshe, like so many other youth, tore herself away from the ghetto in antisemitic Poland and went to America in 1911. Three years later, with a little help from her, I myself fled the army for America.  We didn’t come here to make money, but simply to live freely in Jewish culture.

Khavtshe, or Evelyn Adams, was a mercurial girl, red curly hair, actually wearing pants. Short hair, aggressive, learned English very quickly. Was a sort of novelty girl. In Yiddish/Jewish circles, circulated among writers, for a time was close to the poet Menakhem.[Note 1] She was a suffragist, a bit of an anarchist, a bohemian, was close to a lot of social leaders. She didn’t become a citizen. What does an anarchist need citizenship for? In the end, she was expelled from the country about 1928 because she had opened a sort of teahouse in a bohemian hub, where homosexuals used to gather ... and she herself had actually written a pamphlet in English about lesbian love. In the end, she was deported from the country to Mlawa. I saw her in Poland in 1929 and gave her a little money. Later she went to Danzig. Then to Paris, where she worked in the bohemian restaurant [Café de la] Rotonde. At the beginning of the war, she deteriorated and died.

So lived and died a creative person, a very interesting person, who believed in a better world and was herself corrupted.

Thanks. Zakai Zecharia.

[From the Hebrew:]

In my opinion only the phrase “פארפוילט געווארן”[Note 2] needs to be changed. It doesn’t fit here. It is a negative phrase and it should be replaced with a positive phrase.

I have been in Jerusalem and searched about her together with Dr. Yehuda Rosenthal in the university library. We didn’t find anything.

Prof. Dov Sadan advised us to approach someone from the פארווערטס [Forverts] to find out more about this original character. We shall see.

I have been in Jerusalem and searched about her together with Dr. Yehuda Rosenthal in the university library. We didn’t find anything.

Prof. Dov Sadan advised us to approach someone from the פארווערטס [Forverts] to find out more about this original character. We shall see.

Best regards to your wife.

With friendship,

Yaakov Shalto  [last name not clear][Note 3]

Note
NOTE 1: Menakhem Boreysho (Menahem Boraisho)
http://yleksikon.blogspot.com/2014/11/menakhem-boreysho-menahem-boraisho.html

Note 2: literally ‘became spoiled’, i.e., decayed or decomposed -- I translated it as deteriorated in the first instance and corrupted in the second --Naomi Cohen

Note 3: Eran Zahavy says: The person who is sending the letter to Yerachmiel is Jacob Alter who was of the founders of the Mlawa organization in Tel Aviv and who edited the Malawa memorial book" in 1984. http://www.zchor.org/mlawa/shtetl2.htm