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To Climb the Mountain
By Irwin H. BenjaminAuthorHouse
Copyright © 2012 Irwin H. Benjamin
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4685-2378-2Contents
Introduction..........................................................ixDedications...........................................................xiiiPreface...............................................................xv1. Daddy And His Family...............................................12. Mama And Her Family................................................53. Mama And Daddy Meet................................................114. Growing Up With History............................................155. Getting A Job......................................................436. My Secret..........................................................577. The Last Tzetel....................................................638. Daddy's Red Bicycle................................................719. The Little Rowboat.................................................7510. Fathers And Butterflies...........................................7911. The Battle........................................................8712. The Window........................................................9513. The Game..........................................................10114. Harry The Barber..................................................10915. The Life Of A Jewish Court Reporter...............................11316. My White Hat......................................................12517. Mesivtha Tifereth Jerusalem 100th Anniversary.....................13518. The Great Escape..................................................14319. The Shul..........................................................14920. Just Another East Sider (Edie Goldman)............................15921. The Telephone.....................................................16322. The Garden Cafeteria..............................................17123. Just Another East Sider (Nate Berkowitz)..........................18124. Harry Horowitz....................................................19125. Perceptions.......................................................19726. Two Neighborhoods.................................................20127. Just Another East Sider (Harry Webber)............................20728. Links.............................................................21329. Roses.............................................................21930. Tiger Lilly.......................................................22931. Premonition.......................................................23932. The Chavrusas.....................................................24933. Bear Yaakov.......................................................25734. The Burden........................................................26735. The Chance........................................................27736. The Debt..........................................................29337. The Final Mission.................................................30338. My Casio..........................................................31139. Posters...........................................................31940. The Mailbox.......................................................32941. The Cat...........................................................34142. Her Name Was Tiller...............................................35943. Paradigm Shifts...................................................36944. The Patch.........................................................37745. The Guest.........................................................38546. The First Shas....................................................39347. The Dentist.......................................................39748. Jellybeans........................................................40749. The Postmasters...................................................41750. Pebbles...........................................................42751. The Future........................................................43552. It Happened In Geula..............................................43953. Rabbi Yosef Mansour...............................................44354. The Making Of A Levi..............................................44755. His Black Hat.....................................................45156. Redemption........................................................45957. The Week That Was.................................................46358. The Moon Landing..................................................46759. My Friend, Al.....................................................47560. The List..........................................................48161. Colgate...........................................................49162. Ali Baba..........................................................49563. Me And Him........................................................50164. The Traitors Among Us.............................................50765. The Jewish Club...................................................51566. The Answer........................................................51967. The Jewish "Passion"..............................................52368. Water Carriers....................................................527Postscript: The Last One..............................................537Acknowledgments.......................................................539Glossary..............................................................541About The Author......................................................555
Chapter One
Daddy And His Family
London, England (1891)
It was a hard but good life. Israel Benjamin (Yisrael Reuven) enjoyed his job as cap maker in the bustling East End of London. He was proud of his fine family of four boys and two girls. And above all, he loved his wife, Rachel. Good Rachel, so beautiful, so devoted to him and to the family. Even in her final month of pregnancy, she was standing over the washbasin washing the children's dirty clothing, carefully trying to scrub them clean without tearing them any more than they already were. They had to last until summer. As it turned out, she was worrying about a summer that was not to be hers. She died on June 4, 1891 at home while giving birth. Just as Rachel of the Torah died at childbirth giving birth to Benjamin, the new infant was likewise given the name Benjamin. Forty-five years later Benjamin Benjamin was to become my father.
Although his heart was broken, Israel Benjamin had no time to grieve. He had to be strong. His children needed attending to. Jobs were scarce. Many people waited in line hoping to get his job at the slightest sign of a problem. His job at the cap factory had to be kept if his large family were to eat and survive. Eleven hours a day bent over the sewing machine rendered him exhausted at the end of the day. The older children tried taking care of the younger, but they were hardly old enough to take care of themselves. Something had to be done.
On September 15, 1891, a mere three months after the death of his precious Rachel, a marriage was arranged with Sophie Silverstein, a widow of two years with four daughters of her own. Although still grieving his wife and heavy with sadness, the arrangement had to be made were he and the children to survive as a family.
Of course, Sophie was nothing like Rachel, but she was strong, and anxious to have another husband who could support her and her family. Sophie immediately took charge of the household, allowing Israel to work, bring home the money, go to sleep, and return to work the next day.
Sophie was a tough disciplinarian who lived by the rule "an idle mind is the devil's workshop." However, that maxim seemed only to apply to the Benjamin children, not the Silverstein's. The Benjamin children were put to work as soon as they returned from school. If the work they did was not done quickly enough or was not done to her liking, they felt the end of Sophie's broomstick across their backs. Her wrath was constant and plentiful, while the food was meager and sparse. With twelve people to feed, there was little food to go around. Sleeping was a nightly battle, each child trying to position themselves for a corner or an edge. The Silverstein children naturally received the most favorable spots. Benny (my father-to-be) usually wound up sleeping on the second shelf of the milchige kitchen cabinet.
Although Sophie's harassment and torment of the Benjamin children was equally distributed, little Benny felt it the most. Many times he felt he could not take it much longer. His sole source of comfort was his nightly dream of running away from home and making a new life of his own. His clothing was always torn, his belly was always empty and his back was always red from his stepmother's constant beatings. He received no compassion from his father, as his father was forced to side with his wife in order to maintain peace in the rather large and divergent household. As a result, Benny felt very much alone.
With the rapidly approaching turn of the century and the world hurtling toward the start of the new millennium, one could see the astonishing scientific advances everywhere: Electric lighting, petroleum-driven vehicles replacing horse-drawn carriages, and even magic lantern moving pictures.
When January 1, 1900 finally arrived, the excitement was palpable. There was electricity in the air. Never before in its history had London experienced such excitement. People from all over, from every economic sphere congregated in squares and parks and in the streets themselves. Horses and carriages with brightly colored ribbons loudly proclaimed and announced the year 1900. Clowns of all shapes and sizes walked up and down the streets with the year 1900 emblazoned on their hats, handing out sweets to all the children. The frenzy was high-pitched with the children screaming and singing unashamedly in the streets. The pubs were packed. It seemed the carnival atmosphere would never end.
Benny was caught up in the mood as well. While he and his brother Harry ran up and down the streets getting as much of the free goodies as possible, Benny was thinking. Even though he was only nine years old, he felt he had to do something about his life. He couldn't continue the way things were going.
Being an island, England's main industry was shipping. It was natural that its main source of commerce and industry were things particularly relevant to the seas. Whether it was longshore work, cargo, or dry-docking, most everyone worked in one capacity or another in areas related to ships and the maritime industry. Passenger vessels going to the Islands, Canada and America were, as well, a bustling business.
Little Benny tried to get in the happy mood of the times, but he couldn't. He hurt too much. The only thing that gave him pleasure was dreaming of leaving home and starting a new life elsewhere. As he wound his way aimlessly through the docks and wharfs surrounding London's east harbor, he noticed a huge white cargo ship with the name printed in big black letters BLUEBEARD MARU. The mate who was charged with watching the gangplank to keep away unauthorized people had stepped away. The mate, too, was caught up in the high-pitched frenzy. He left his post for a few moments to speak to a young lady accompanying a tall clown, who was headed for yet another parade in the Piccadilly Circus section of London.
This was crazy, thought Benny. Can I get away with it? Impossible. But maybe this is my only chance, he thought; "strike while the iron is hot" was his motto. What do I have to lose? Only my head, he said, with a slight chuckle. The horrible fate that awaited stowaways was common knowledge. Throwing all caution to the wind, and without giving it another thought, Benny took a deep breath, looked to make sure the mate was still engaged with the young lady, and sprinted as fast as he could up the gangplank. He was still walking up when the mate turned back, but because Benny was already on the high, upper rungs, the mate did not see him. Benny gingerly walked onto the empty deck. He quietly lifted a square hatch cover on the starboard side of the ship and climbed down. He then replaced the hatch cover over him. It was dark and stuffy, but Benny endured. This is my chance, he said. Miraculously, he survived the 15 day-trip.
For the next ten years my father-to-be made his home in Montreal, Canada, "living by my wits," as he was fond of saying. Many years later, during one of his many story-telling sessions, we would discover what he meant by that.
And then in 1914, at the outbreak of World War I, at the age of 23, he returned to England to join the Royal Air Force. He served for one year until he contracted tuberculosis and was forced to accept a medical discharge. The three friends who joined with him were all killed.
The Great War waged on until 1918. Londoners celebrated Armistice Day with all the meager strength they had left from the punishing, exhausting, debilitating and disastrous war. And then, when everyone thought all the grief and death was behind them, the great Spanish flu epidemic struck with a fury, killing hundreds of thousands more. My father would always refer to the back-to-back catastrophes, the Great War and the Spanish Flu epidemic, as the darkest days in Great Britain's history.
Chapter Two
Mama And Her Family
Riga, (White Russia), Latvia
In 1848, bloody revolutions rocked the foundations of royalty across Europe. Smoke and flame, gunpowder and steel scarred nobles and peasants alike. In the Latvian town of Riga, however, it seemed as if the Russian empire would last forever. While murderers and bandits ruled Riga, honest citizens tried to coax a living from the stingy land. Farmers trudged into the fields before the sun rose into the bleak sky and returned to their huts after the sun itself dropped from exhaustion.
As if it were taunting them, the land rewarded them with little: a bit of potatoes, beets, wheat and sour grass. And life went on.
The winters were brutal, the work hard, and the wages almost non-existent, but it was the only life they knew - backbreaking physical labor. It was an agrarian society: working the hard, stubborn land, cutting down trees, working as blacksmiths or hunting animals for pelts. Lawyers, accountants, stockbrokers and financial consultants were practically non-existent.
After developing one layer of blisters over another, an almost inhuman hard shell formed on the palms of most men. Those rough, thick hands became a symbol of the times they were living in.
However, there was talk of one person living in Riga who did not have the common callused hands of most men. When people visited Riga they always made a point of visiting Reb Yosef Rabinowitz, "the man with soft, smooth hands." The reason for the soft hands was simple. Yosef Rabinowitz did not work the land like the others. He devoted himself completely to learning the holy Torah. From morning to night he toiled not in the fields or woods or with an axe in his hand but in the vineyard of Hashem, never seeking monetary gain or material pleasure. Yosef Rabinowitz was my maternal great-grandfather. Some 120 years later, when we were looking for a name for my youngest son, my mother told me this story and we decided to name my son Yosef.
Yosef Rabinowitz married and had a large family. His seventh daughter, Eta Raiza, born in the spring of 1870, was my Bubby. Yosef Rabinowitz taught Eta Raiza to read and write Russian and Hebrew, skills usually reserved for men. Although the entire town disapprovingly viewed Eta's education as an assault upon tradition, Yosef continued to instruct his daughter.
Eta Raiza shared her knowledge with other women in town. One woman embraced my grandmother and cried because she now could read the ancient prayers and pray in synagogue. My grandmother later became Riga's first "zoger." This meant she repeated the prayers to the women in the women's section.
At eighteen, Eta Raiza married Yitzchak Hillel Friedman, (my namesake), the son of Boruch Ben Zion Friedman. Yitzchak Hillel and Eta Raiza had seven daughters. My mother, Frieda Friedman, born in 1895, was the oldest of her sisters, followed by Jenny, Molly, Frances, Dotty, Pauline and Louise.
As the oldest daughter, Mama not only had privileges but responsibilities as well. Once a month my mother accompanied her mother (Bubby) to the mikvah, venturing into the woods to find a private section of the river. Even on the freezing Russian winter's harshest days, they needed flowing water. Mama, still a young girl herself, climbed up a tall tree, grabbed a large branch, breathed deeply, summoning all her strength and snapped off the branch.
Back on the ground, Mama swung the branch at the icy river bed, shattering the top layer of ice so that Bubby could immerse herself in the water. (Many years later, when people would tell Mama what exceptionally good children she had, she always referred back to this time and said it was in that zechus that she had such good children.)
Yitzchak Hillel Friedman (my grandfather) was a talmid chacham, who sold fur pelts to the neighboring villages. It was Riga, White Russia, and the date was January of 1903, one of the harshest winters this town ever remembered. It was a time of pogroms, a time when cruel Russians freely roamed the Jewish streets with impunity. They entered small Jewish homes with big horses, trampling and trashing whatever meager belongings and furniture were in it. My mother's baby sister, Pauline, only three years old, was trampled to death by one of the horses.
When my grandfather, Yitzchak Hillel Friedman, did not appear at the Mincha minyan, everyone worried. Reb Yitzchak had never missed davening b'tzibur since his bar mitzvah. The normally sleepy town on the outskirts of Riga suddenly came alive with frantic activity. Patrols and search parties formed, candles distributed, as the elders of the town argued about which strategy was the best to pursue in order to find him.
After three hours of painstaking and methodical searching, Yitzchak Hillel was found. His head had been battered by some blunt instrument, the fur pelts he had been selling were gone. He was lying dead, face down in a puddle of his own blood.
After the shiva period, Eta Raiza Friedman, my grandmother, gathered her six remaining daughters together.
"Kinderlach," she said, and then began to sob, "When your father was alive we spoke many times about leaving Russia to get away from the cruelty of the Russians, but at least your father was here and would stand at the door, so the hoodlums thought twice about crashing into our house. But now that he is gone, there is no more "hittel in hoise," there is no more man in the house to protect us, and once it becomes known that there are no men here, we will have no rest. And so we must leave. We have no other choice. I have a cousin in America, and he will sponsor us if I ask him."
"But Mama, America is so far. How can we go, we only speak Yiddish and Russian?" asked Frieda, my mother-to-be and the eldest daughter.
"Mein teiyera kind, what can I tell you? I was blessed with seven daughters, but these are bad times in Riga. There's hardly any food. The pogroms keep coming; one stops and another begins. They come and go where they want. No one is here to stop them. And now without a man in our house, we will be tormented every day. We have no choice. We have to leave, and we have to leave at once."
"But we don't know anyone there," cried little Jenny, the youngest, her big brown eyes wide open in despair. "Where would we live?" she asked, hugging the flowered cotton apron of her mother.
"We'll find a place; don't worry your pretty little head. It'll be exciting," said Bubby, trying to soften the terror she saw in her children's eyes, "Look at it as an adventure. America! A new country, a new start, a new beginning! You'll see, allas vet zayn gut" (everything will be fine.)
And that's what happened. My mother's family, the Friedmans, came to America. After going through Ellis Island, they boarded another ship and settled where the ship landed, Augusta, Georgia. After several years of difficulty adjusting to their new country, and a new language, they slowly settled in. They worked hard, eventually accumulating enough money to open a bed and breakfast style rooming house.
In the summer of 1915, when she was twenty, Mama married her first husband, Benjamin (Binyamin Beinish) Golubofsky, son of Rabbi Zalman Tuvia Golubofsky. Binyamin Beinish was a part-time bookkeeper and custom peddler. He shortened his surname to Golub. His father, Rabbi Zalman Tuvia Golubofsky, had left Russia, but had settled in Manchester, England where Binyamin Beinish was born and raised.
Fear of military service drove the Golubofskys out of Russia. Young men were always eligible for the draft and a tour of duty up to 25 years. After getting out of service – if they ever did – their Jewish identities were usually lost forever. Young men were known to maim and cripple themselves to avoid this terrible draft.
When a young man reached draft age, his frantic family tried to spirit him out of the country any way they knew.
The government responded with strict emigration laws. Only one son per family was allowed to emigrate. To get around the government's edict, brothers in the same family took on different surnames.
New York's first chief Rabbi, Rabbi Avraham Aaron Yudelovich, was actually Rabbi Zalman Tuvia Golubofsky's brother.
After the marriage of my mother to Binyamin Beinish, a rare feeling of confidence, security and tranquility once again reigned. There was now "Ah hittel in hoise."
But that changed. In the winter of 1918, the Spanish Flu hit America. It was one of the most devastating plagues ever to hit the United States. People who were perfectly well left their homes, went to work, and never returned. One bright April day, my mother's husband patted his three little daughters on the head, kissed each of them goodbye and never returned home. He collapsed on the street and died, along with hundreds of thousands of people who died that year, the year of the plague of 1918.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from To Climb the Mountainby Irwin H. Benjamin Copyright © 2012 by Irwin H. Benjamin. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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