Friday, April 24, 2015

Shalom from NYC

Hi, to all my dear family, friends, neighbors, and all who are interested in reading.
I said , why not ? Why write my letters only  from Israel ? After all, I am not, as yet,  finished telling all the "Good" family stories. I must credit Tanya, (my daughter), who continuously asks me to write the "stories" I tell her.
This event, for me, started in the year 1947, about one year before the establishment of the state of Israel.
My Uncle, Chaim-Dovid, as he was called, came from America.  Suddenly, I had an uncle, and no less but from America. Uncle Chaim-Dovid was my mother's brother, second child to a family of 13 children.
Never, until his arrival, did  I remember his name  mentioned.  My Uncle came to visit his son Yankev, as we called him (Yaakov-Jacob).  Cousin Yankev was married to Yospa, and they had two children, Moshe, and Noorit.
Yankev arrived in Israel at the end of the 1920s, as a pioneer with the left Zionist movement of HaShomer HaTzayir.
Though Yankev was my cousin, he was a bit older than my mother, she told me. Chaim-Dovid was 26 years my mother's senior. In our entire family that year, we counted  18 people, and now, an uncle came and we were 19.  At his arrival, we were invited and we all gathered at Yankev and Yospa's apartment in Tel-Aviv.   I was in awe, seeing this beautiful uncle from America. In my eyes he looked tall and large, with a shock of blond hair and a mustache.  While Yankev had gray hair, father and son looked more like brothers.  He wore a white cuffed shirt and a bow tie. What a beautiful Uncle from America I had !
During this visit, he gave presents, mostly to the adults. My mother received a red short sleeve cardigan made from, then, the new knit synthetic fabric. What was unique to the cardigan was the small gold color metal beads attached to the left side, chest area, in the shape of a crab(!)  You can tell by now, this was not my mother's style, and I was given this cardigan. It was my prize possession for years, until I was about 16 or 17 years old, and the crab on my chest grew up with my new figure as a young woman (!!!!!)
Back to Chaim-Dovid.  His grandson, Moshe, was celebrating his Bar-Mitzvah on this occasion.  I am not sure of the amount of time Chaim-Dovid spent in Israel during this trip . My parents told me he flew on an airplane for 3 days from America to Israel, with several stops over on the way.
One year later, after the establishment of the state of Israel, Chaim-Dovid came again, this time with a lady name Suralae. There was no mention if she was his wife or just a lady friend.  On this trip, Chaim-Dovid and Suralae used a boat as their means of transportation.
Again, I remember him beautiful, with his blond hair and his bow-tie.
The years that followed, my parents communicated with him by mail, where I learned he lived on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx.
I also learned he worked in the garment district of NYC, traveling daily two hours on the subway.
Some time during the 1950s, Yankev and Yospa moved to the USA, and my Uncle Chaim-Dovid did not come to visit Israel any longer.
During the time between Yom-Kippur and Succot, in 1961, the news of his death was told to my mother by Moshe, the grandson, who was already married, having stayed in Israel in spite his parents moving to America.
At the request of  Yankev, who was not religious,  my father said the customary Kaddish three times daily for one year. I remember, when I came for a holiday visit the eve of Succot, I was pregnant with my son Avishay.  I observed my mother in her stocking feet and I was surprised to see my father returning from the market with a the Chalot  (The Shabbat & Holiday bread).   I asked about the unusual situation (my mother not wearing shoes,
my father doing the family shopping), when my mother said: " I don't have a brother any longer."   After that, I  cannot recall ever discussing my uncle Chaim-Dovid again with my parents.
Years later,  when the family grew to more than 19 people, the story of Chaim-Dovid was told at a family gathering. It seemed every one in the family knew the story but me.
In the early 1920s , my uncle, living in Poland and married with three children, told his wife one evening that he was going outside to close the window shutters for the night. ( Window shutters, in those years, were closed from the outside). Chaim-Dovid never returned to his home, abandoning his family behind. 
Yankev, the older son, joined the youth pioneering Zionist left labor movement, Hashomer HaTzayir, and immigrated to Israel (Palestine at the time).  No one heard from Chaim-Dovid again until 1946-1947,
when second world war ended. Chaim-Dovid and Yankev  survived the Holocaust, while their other family members who were left behind in the small city of Wengrov, Poland  went to Treblinka.
Once Chaim-Dovid was sure that he would not find his family he left behind while he went for a moment to close the shutters, he got information about his surviving son. And then, he arrived in Israel, and I inherited a red Acrylic cardigan with a jeweled crab on the left chest area.
My dear mother, Pearl, who distanced herself from gossips, never mentioned this story.
I must conclude this writing in a different note than I usually do in Israel.
Yes, I still miss you all who live in Israel, This story does not belong only to Israel.
With love to you all,   Ima, Savta, The Shvig, Estherika, Ludmilla, Me, Esther.

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