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Bar mitzvah speech by Emanuel Falk, 1845.
Stephen Falk and Donald Falk, Point Roberts, Washington, USA
“I now know my obligations to God, as well as to myself and my fellow men,” said Emanuel Falk during his bar mitzvah. It took place in 1845 at the Sklower Synagogue, a small prayer house located on the upper floor in the courtyard at Goldene Radegasse 2 (Kazimierza Wielkiego Street near the intersection with Ruska Street). Emanuel’s speech has been preserved in two languages: Hebrew, the sacred language of the liturgy, and German, which in the mid-19th c. was pushing Yiddish out of the everyday lives of even a then-orthodox family like the Falks.