Levine Mendle's Bargain

1. Auflage 2024
ISBN: 979-8-3509-4900-1
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 194 Seiten

Reihe: Mendle's Bargain

'Mendle's Bargain' transports readers back to New York City in the early 20th century to life among Jewish immigrants; including starry-eyed idealists and wise guys, romantics and cynics. This novel offers a visit to the productive world these immigrants cobbled together from the culture they carried and the one they found.

Gustav Levine was born in New York on May 31, 1926. His family lived with his grandparents, whose only language was Yiddish. Yiddish was always a familiar sound for Gus and as an adult working in New York's garment center, he spoke Yiddish. When he was growing up, several of his uncles were communists who took him to rallies. He attended high school in the Bronx. As an adolescent, Gus wanted to become a trumpet musician. Through his music teacher, he was admitted to Juilliard, although he decided that being a musician was too precarious an existence. Having many friends who owned businesses in the garment center, he obtained work in the garment center. Consistent with the characters in 'Mendle's Bargain', Gus knew of sons of union organizers who worked in non-union shops. During the time when he worked in the garment center, Gus became friends with Nate Dorfman who established the 'Pathfinders' a group that would set up discussion tables for people to attend at various venues in New York City and then had dances afterwards. Gus recalls this organization always being investigated by the FBI. Through Nate Dorfman, Gus, who never thought of himself as a student, entered college and eventually earned a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Colombia Teachers College. His first job after his Ph.D. was at Creedmoor Institute in Queens, which had been founded by Arthur Sackler who later founded Purdue Pharmacy which propagated the myth that if someone was pain, addiction to opiates was impossible. Gus knew Arthur Sacker and always referred to him as 'the crook.' Since Gus was a researcher at Creedmoor, he applied for and received a scholarship from the James McKeen Cattell Fund to study with Clete Burke for a year learning matrix algebra. The result was the publication of his first book, 'Mathematical Model Techniques for Learning Theories.' Gus then obtained a job in academe in the Psychology Department at Arizona State University. Gus taught at ASU and published several other statistic books. Before retiring to Atlanta, GA where his wife had obtained an academic position, he took courses on writing fiction from Ron Carlson who headed the fiction writing program at ASU. While 'Mendle's Bargain' began as a class assignment in Carlson's class, after relocating to Atlanta, GA, he improved his Yiddish by attending classes at the local synagogue and further developed the manuscript. While Gus was raised in the Jewish religion and did have A Bar Mitzvah, religion was not a prominent feature in his upbringing. Some of the characters in the book were redefining themselves with regard to what Judaism meant in their lives. Gus witnessed similar events in the life of his mother. Only when Gus' mother, then in her 80s, happened to mention that a Passover dinner was her new companion's introduction to Jewish traditions, did Gus learn that his mother's new companion was not Jewish. Jewish culture always meant a lot to Gus. During the high holy days, he always read books on Jewish tradition and the Jewish diaspora. Some of Gus' family continue to keep kosher. Much of Gus' motivation for writing 'Mendle's Bargain' was to honor the memory of the Yiddish culture he loved.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Levine, Gustav

Leseproben

1 Mendle’s formal education began and ended in a religious school, the usual place for a Jewish boy in Lublin, Poland, to learn to read in 1897. The texts were in Hebrew, the teaching and personal commentary in Yiddish. On his first day, put off for a year by a lack of family funds, he had been alternately running and walking to keep up with his father’s long strides. Mendle’s small fingers almost slipped out of Itsik’s smooth, substantial hand as they approached the synagogue, the only intact building in a run-down neighborhood. The synagogue had been constructed a hundred and fifty years ago, when there were some deep pockets in the congregation. It had a pagoda-style roof with a double layer of eaves. An adjacent study hall and classroom had both been demolished in a recent fire. Their more modest replacements were assembled from lumber that had previously seen long service elsewhere. The synagogue’s ornately-carved, tall double-doors were inviting and at the same time intimidating. The boy and the man walked past them to instead cross the schoolroom threshold, Itsik having to bend his head to avoid hitting the lintel. Mendle had pretended to be enthused, but was fearful of what lay in store for him. He was relieved to see a compact room with many youngsters in attendance. Curiosity instantly replaced his concerns. The rabbi hurried to his desk when he saw them enter, briefly turned his back to touch something, then whirled and greeted them with a smile, confusing Mendle by putting a wet finger on the boy’s lips. Mendle’s tongue told him that the rabbi had had his finger in a pot of honey. “Is that sweet?” the rabbi asked. The small head with wide open eyes and a tentatively exploring tongue effected a single nod. “Beginning today, Mendle Rubinski, you are a student. First you will learn to read. That will put a taste in your mouth that is sweeter than honey. Then you will study Jewish Law, and you will find there are tastes that are better than sweet.” The red headed, freckle-faced youngster and his red-bearded father were standing in the front of the schoolroom, near the door, next to the rabbi’s small wooden desk. The smell of wet paint mingled with the odor of snuff. At the back of the room, a few feet in front of a large blackboard, were two long tables at which fourteen boys, ranging in age from five to twelve, sat and read; not to themselves, but out loud to God, whom it had been implicitly suggested was the classroom monitor in the absence of the rabbi’s attention. The boys, in traditional sing-song fashion, intoned individually assigned passages which, by their diversity, produced a sound like a throng of Middle Eastern beggars. The rabbi had left the boys on their own so that he could give his attention to receiving the new student. He favored an individual introduction to the mysteries of the revealed word. Mendle was directed into a chair next to a low desk on which rested an open book. Itsik, standing next to the rabbi, surreptitiously put a coin into the man’s hand. The rabbi pointed out the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and said to Mendle, “This is aleph, stare at it, remember it.” As Mendle stared, the coin dropped on the page. “Oh,” said the rabbi, “An angel must have been watching. He recognized that you are a good little boy who wants to learn, so he dropped the coin from heaven. That’s a good sign. It means you will study hard. Your father will be proud of you.” Mendle looked up at his beaming father, and beamed with him. The rabbi then took the six-year-old to the table with the younger boys, sat him between two eight-year-olds, and Mendle began his love affair with words. Before exiting, Itsik paused to watch the rabbi stand in front of the blackboard and point to a word already there, which began with the letter aleph. The rabbi said, “Mendle, our newest student, already knows this letter. Yankel knows the whole word. Tell him the word, Yankel.” Itsik hit his head on the lintel as he left, wincing only internally, his smile undisturbed. The congregation could not afford both a rabbi and a teacher, so the rabbi taught. This meant that he frequently had to be elsewhere during their lesson-times. On this afternoon the rabbi was called away to console the husband of a woman who had just died in childbirth. As usual, the boys were told to continue studying, but the rabbi’s leaving was a trigger mechanism on an energy bomb that not even the Heavenly Monitor could contain. The skull cap of an unpopular boy was removed. “You’re not wearing a hat, God will punish you.” The yarmulke flew from hand to hand, the boy chasing it while holding one hand on his head. When he looked ready to cry, a student with a kind heart returned it, and they began to play tag instead. After a time a few brave boys ventured outside. Some older ones took Mendle to a deteriorated fence that bordered on Zishe Zelinsky’s back yard, through which they watched Zishe beat his quivering dog. The expression in the dog’s eyes, focused on Zishe, would haunt Mendle’s dreams that night. Many years later he would be startled to see a pair of human eyes look at him that same way. Someone yelled that the rabbi was returning, so they ran back to the schoolroom, where they were all reading vehemently when he entered. On the way home Itsik grinned and waved at passing townspeople. “Good day to you, you should live and be well on this fine morning,” he said, in a voice appropriate to an amphitheater, addressing an acquaintance who was leaning on a fence, holding his boot, staring at a newly discovered hole in the sole. “Rubinski,” the man asked, “What in this miserable world could inspire such a happy mood?” Itsik, uncharacteristically missing an opportunity to commiserate with a vexed friend, joyfully explained. As he continued his walk he sang upbeat songs under his breadth, now and again letting a hummed measure or two emerge. The synagogue was not a great distance from where he lived, but the community consisted of little lanes and alleys that would abruptly end. With no main thoroughfares on his route, he had to proceed as through a maze to get back home.. In the center of the community there was an open section, the marketplace. It was a phenomenon that had evolved over generations, an example of functional chaos. Traders traded, bargainers bargained, lookers looked, and everybody talked and gestured with gusto. The marketplace offered excitement and evidence of life to the town’s chronically overburdened citizens, three quarters of whom were Jewish. Even in the middle of winter, when there was usually little to trade, merchants would sometimes gather without customers and shiver in the cold, seeking some semblance of communal warmth and consensual validation of life’s unfairness, a form of satisfaction often guaranteed for a lifetime to disadvantaged or harassed minorities. In turn-of-the-century Europe, Poland was under Russian rule, so the Jews were oppressed ethnics in an oppressed country. The homes that Itsik passed were mostly pieced-together wooden cottages. A roof would have shingles in one section, and a broad patch of tar in another. The slopes were rarely uniform. Lucky home-owners had a rain barrel, strategically placed to catch water as it rolled off the roof. These buildings were not unsightly to Itsik, who had been raised in such a home, though his marriage to the daughter of a successful boot-maker had improved his lot. He finally arrived at his own well-constructed, wood and brick structure. His wife, Gulda, was minding the shop, which occupied the whole first floor. “Thank God you’re home. I need to go put the bread into the oven and make the noodles.” As she walked upstairs Itsik followed her into the kitchen. “You could have left the shop for a minute, people know we’re around here somewhere,” he said. Gulda shook her head and rolled her eyes upward. “Like you do five times a day. Some businessman. My father, may he rest in peace, never left the shop till sundown. You, lost in your books, you’re not even here when you’re here.” Gulda adjusted the heat in the oven, removed the towels covering the rising balls of dough, touched one ball with her finger, and walked across the kitchen to pick up an egg for the noodles. “You dream of our son becoming a rabbi, though it’s never going to happen, and you try to live like a rabbi, spending your days studying and reading. But couldn’t you spend some time figuring out how to make a living from the shop? So you’re not a boot maker like my father, may he rest in peace. But you could learn how to buy boots that people would want.” “I wasn’t born to be a rich man.” “You weren’t born to be a rabbi either. Words and prayers are wonderful in a synagogue. Men bow and nod their heads when they pray, nobody disagrees with God. But when you ask people to pay whatever for a pair of boots you know they’re going to argue. Why can’t you learn to ask double first instead of insulting them by not compromising?” Gulda cracked the egg with such force it spilled onto the table before she could get it into the bowl. She hurriedly scooped it up with a spoon. Her voice got louder, and she was scowling, “If reading and learning is supposed to make you smart, why aren’t you smart enough to make a living for us?” She bit her lip. “Gulda, my love, these are our neighbors, how can I ask them to pay more than the boots are worth? I can’t look them in the face and lie. They know I’m an honest man. When they need boots, they’ll come, and they’ll pay a fair price.” Itsik went into the bedroom, found a book he wanted,...