One Last Child

Chapter 1

FALLING IN LOVE

New Rochelle, New York July, 1929

Leaf of no known tree

Subject to conjecture

From whom she comes why and where?

What menace might her essence cause

Transplanted though she was

To those who pause

Contemplate and stare.

The first time they saw me, I lay in a small white iron crib in a foster home in New Rochelle. I was nearly three months old and, they would tell me years later, a tiny little thing, too thin, with huge brown eyes staring up at them.

I could not have known then that this would be my last day in that crib but I can imagine the scenario. I could see that the man in gray who peered down at me had a good face, almost handsome, despite his broken nose, his hair was already graying by the time he saw me, with white patches at the temples.

The woman with him was tiny like I have grown to be, but with light blue eyes instead of brown, eyes that must have filled with tears the instant she saw me. Years later, during the long evenings we’d spend together when my father was out at meetings, she would tell me she wasn’t able to move that day, transfixed. She just watched as I threaded the air with tiny fingers reaching.

Nearly eighty years have passed since that autumn afternoon, since the woman who would be my mother was told in no uncertain terms to refrain from touching me. Oh no, please, she heard the voice. Don’t pick her up, just look at her. I’ll bring you to her afterward in the reception room.

My mother remembered how she jumped back then, murmuring an apology and continuing to stare at me. Oh Jack, just look at her hands, I’ll bet she’s going to be a musician. And her eyes, so dark, so intelligent. Oh Jack, she’s perfect!

Jack stared over her shoulder. He saw the round face, the short forehead. And then, dazzled by the sparkling pin at my new mother’s neck, I smiled.

She’s not the best of eaters, the woman who ran the house complained. I have eight others right now, and she’s by far the worst eater. But she’s healthy of course, just a little thin. She’ll fatten up when she’s home.

That’s fine then. If you want her, Ada, it’s alright with me, Jack said. Can we take her with us now?

I’ll just get her ready and give you the preliminary papers, if you’ll wait in the reception room please. Then I’ll bring her to you.

But Ada hated to leave the crib. She would have preferred to let Jack handle all the details and just wait, staring down at the child who, though forbidden to touch, was already hers.

Such emotions ran counter to protocol at this clean, well-ordered home. The Child Adoption Committee of New York, a Jewish agency, came to inspect regularly and their reports were filled with praise for the disciplined care of the orphans, the orderly, timely paperwork. Even in this particular year, 1929, with the economy being what it was and so many children being given up, the home remained the model of efficiency.

It seemed forever to Ada for the official papers to be completed that made me their own. Finally they were about to leave when a tall frame confronted them at the door. It was Rabbi Stephen S. Wise.

Might I bless this child? he asked. The Lord bless thee and keep thee, the Lord make His face to shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee; the Lord turn his face unto thee and give thee peace.

For Ada the rabbi’s blessing had already become a reality. Don’t you love her, Jack? she cried, turning to her husband with shining eyes. As if she’d never been a mother before. As if she’d never given birth to, or buried, four little boys.

Chapter 2

ON MY WAY

Jack’s fingers tightened on the wheel of the blue Packard. A planner, he did much of his musing at the wheel of his automobile and hence was a terrible driver. In his heart he knew it. Today with his very special cargo, with all of their dreams nestled in a pink blanket asleep on his wife’s lap, he forced himself to stare straight ahead as he navigated the roads leading to Boston. Only at the first stoplight did he permit himself a long look. Ada’s face was pressed down to the baby’s tiny head. She was cooing, actually cooing. Suddenly he thought of her laugh, how he longed to hear that laugh again. She had been famous in the family for her laugh … before the boys. Perhaps Sidney would prove to be right after all. Perhaps adopting a child was the answer. It could put his world right again.

Thinking about it, this last Sunday was the first they had not gone together to stand and weep and pray at the four little graves that held their sons. Born so handsome, growing plump and smiling and then each of them, sometime before his second birthday, each little boy would sicken, develop seizures and never be well again. Four times, four boys. He was ashamed that he had been driven out on the street, anywhere to escape the whimpering, the pain that could not be comforted. The oldest, he still could not bear to say his name, had lasted seven years. He was ashamed that he had prayed for them to die, that the whimpering of their pain had nearly driven him mad. He was ashamed of the unknown sin that must have brought this sorrow down upon them, that he was so inept with them, unable to help in any way, that he secretly longed for the peace of emptiness. And for the rest of his life he would be most ashamed that he had been caught stepping out onto the window ledge of his office after the last death, ready to leave her forever, thinking like the coward he never thought himself to be. But Sidney had pulled him back and they had talked for the rest of the day, doing no work, accepting no calls. It had been this nephew, Sidney who, seven years after the last little boy’s funeral, had this brilliant idea: a ready-made child, a Jewish girl baby who would grow up to bring other children into their lives, a healthy child whom Ada could fuss over without fear, who would be sure to grow to adulthood.

Ada hugged the sleeping child to her breast. Could it have been only yesterday she had left Boston in a daze? She had brought nothing with her, not even a blanket. Her mind, senseless as a butterfly, had flitted from thought to thought ever since the phone call that a child was waiting. The letter which followed carried only sketchy details, an infant girl apparently strong and healthy, three months old, given up in the hospital where the mother had nearly died during delivery and was too ill to care for a newborn. The parents? Married but poor and this was their first.

Ada had climbed into the car that morning, half stupefied with fear. She had forgotten such a thing as hope existed. Hope was her enemy. It had been for the past sixteen years. Did she want a baby at all? they asked her when she refused to furnish the empty room that might once again be a nursery. Want a baby? Want a baby? Were they insane? Did she want to breathe? She had delivered four children; none easily, but she had accomplished it, and after the first beautiful son, Nathan, had come, she had been jubilant, but for so short a time. Each one would carry the same terrible defect, a recessive gene they said, from the days of the ghetto. For twenty-three years she had exhausted herself praying, had sat with them, held them, tried any way she could to comfort them. For one hellish year, two of them were dying at once, and their cries … Sleep? A luxury for others, one she could not believe she even deserved.

Now, these seven years the house had been empty. No children at play, but also no children in pain. All that remained for her, besides the photographs of her four sweet little boys and a few old toys, was the house itself, the solid front door, the antimacassars to be straightened every morning, Shabbos dinner on Fridays, Jack coming and going for business and meetings, and their mostly silent meals.

They had not always been like this. There had been long walks in Boston’s Public Garden. Once during their courting days he’d picked tulips and handed her an armful, only to be chased the length of the park from Boylston to Beacon Streets by a huge policeman hurling curses at their heels.

But all these years later, the tulips and their babies were all dust. Now (could she have ever hoped?) she was a mother again. Hugging the child to her, a tiny hand wriggled free. Ada caught it in her own and felt … strong.

If I could have spoken that day in the car, I would have told these two that it was a good thing they hadn’t seen me until then. Three full months had passed since my release from a toxemic womb. At birth I barely weighed five pounds, was badly jaundiced, bruised about the face by forceps and slow to breathe. But strong genes and destiny conspired to bring me to my new mother’s arms in the blue Packard driven by my new, and nervous, father. I may not have had a crib or blanket or even a diaper waiting, but I was going home.

Chapter 3

FILLING THE EMPTY CRIB

My father liked to say that, after I arrived, Ada was like a little girl dressing up her first doll. She nearly bought out Stern’s Department Store in downtown Boston, her first purchase a tiny satin coat and matching hat bedecked with lace and ribbons.

Jake’s nephew Sidney smiled broadly when he first set eyes on me, congratulating himself on his brilliant inspiration. Ada’s sisters prepared a celebration with herring and honey cake, tea and carrot candy, bowls of honey for a sweet life, fresh baked challah and gefilte fish.

Mary, the oldest, put an arm around Ada’s shoulders. A son is a son till he takes him a wife, but a daughter’s a daughter all of her life.

She gasped, worrying if she had said too much, if her simple oft-quoted words had brought back the echoes of disaster. But Ada seemed oblivious to words, curling her hand around my tiny fingers.

That first Shabbos, they named me Yente Sora. At last, a new girl child had come into the family to keep the memory of Yente alive. If she turns out to be a woman like my mother, Jacob said that day, she’ll go far.

And so I became Janice Sarah Rabinovitz, daughter of Ada and Jacob, granddaughter of Yente Sora the indomitable and Nachman the inspired dreamer, and little sister of four martyred brothers.

Ada adored me, that was clear to all who saw us together. But frightened I might take sick at any moment and unsure of her own maternal skills, she hired a nursemaid at once.

Ada was the center of my small world. My day opened with her smile, her fingers were my playthings. My life followed the path of her blue eyes. They drew me into a warmth and tenderness I must have been born craving.

As for Jacob, after a long day at work, he would lift me high on his shoulder, my baby dresses fanning against his chest. In the old snapshots I can see his eyes shining when he looked at me, at the office he’d regale his workers with reports of my exploits, my middle-of-the-night playfulness and baby tricks, father things belonging to a world he had chosen to forget. So that each time his nephew Sidney looked at him, he congratulated himself that I had been entirely his idea.

No one was surprised that I was named after my father’s mother Yente Sora, who had brought six children from Russia where life had been bearable, between pogroms and when the sun shone on the cheek of the Czar, who came to America with still a seventh undisclosed in her womb.

Chapter 4

NOT A REAL RABINOVITZ

She grasped the outstretched hand,

Felt the smooth underside of a wedding ring

And smiled her answer to a mother’s love

Beacon, harbor, in the days of her forever.

At first glance we might have been a pose caught by an old Dutch master. The child and the old woman couched together, framed by heavy garnet draperies, absorbed in a story perhaps, or a lesson. But look closer, for you will see my Aunt Lottie has pinioned me in a vise, her thin strong hand pressed hard into the tender spots of my knee. I wanted to cry out but I did not.

You are not a Rabinovitz, you know, and you never can be! she hissed. You are Jannie somebody and you came out of an orphanage! Up to this point I had been forced to listen to how to roll Oriental rugs in moth balls to preserve them over the hot summer, followed by a treatise on when you get married and go to the market, you will not buy one box of strawberries, but two, one for your family and one for your mother-in-law and you will say to her, ‘See mother I didn’t forget you!’ That’s how to live a good life!

With the sudden change in my aunt’s tone I was not certain I had heard right. But I was six and still shy, and too startled to ask questions. There was no need to say a word it turned out, since my aunt had only begun.

"You came to us because nobody wanted you to be born. You were three months old when Mummy and Daddy took you out of that place and brought you home. But no mistake, you are different, you have different blood. We don’t know what’s in you, what bad things. But they say blood will tell and it will. Hear this now, don’t look down, look at me, if you ever do anything to disgrace my family, anything to cast shame on the Rabinovitz name, I will see that you are put right back in that orphanage, do you hear me?

Do you know what an orphanage is? No? Well I will tell you. It’s not a nice place. There is no Mummy or Daddy, only bad people who don’t want you. If you are cold in the night there is no extra blanket and if you are hungry for a snack you can’t go to the cupboard for a cookie or an apple. They blow whistles to tell you what to do, when to go somewhere, when to eat, when to bathe and when to go to bed, everything is by a whistle. So you mind yourself, young lady. I have an idea for you, follow your cousin Carol. Talk like her, walk like her, watch what she does and do the same and then maybe no one will know you are not really a Rabinovitz. I’m doing you a favor by telling you this, it’s a secret between us. No one need ever know!"

But Auntie Lottie, Carol is only four and I am six.

Never mind, that doesn’t matter. She is a Rabinovitz!

It was at that moment that Thomas the houseman came to the door, a wide smile in his round mahogany face. Your mother is here, dear, and I think she’s in a hurry because she didn’t get out of the car, so come along now Jannie, don’t keep her waiting. I rose from my perch on the divan, my leg, released suddenly, nearly buckling under me. My brain was in a turmoil and my face was hot. Come again soon, child, he said.

What did I know about myself before that terrible day? Just that I was Jannie, Janice Sarah Rabinovitz, the only child of Ada and Jake Rabinovitz, and we lived in a nice two-family home in Brookline, Massachusetts.

I knew also that my father had a lot of ‘self-service’ grocery stores called Stop & Shop, together with his brother, my Uncle Joseph, and his three sons, Sidney, Irving and Norman. Aunt Lottie was Uncle Joseph’s wife.

I was also old enough to know that what my daddy loved best, even more than the stores, after me and Mummy, was taking care of people who needed help, children my age who didn’t have nice houses like we did, who came from far away, who had nothing and needed everything.

I knew that Daddy went to lots of meetings while Mummy and I stayed home. I knew that everyone was excited that he just got to be the president of something called the New England Zionist Organization of America. Zionists were people who cared a lot about a far-away place called Palestine.

Chapter 5

ORPHANAGE IN THE WOODS

But that was before Aunt Lottie told me about orphanages and the whistles. Mummy said I was going to a place called Camp Aviva in Maine. It was a place where my parents knew I would be well looked after, they said, since it was owned by a cousin, a doctor, someone my father was certain he could trust. I had to go to Camp Aviva, my mother told me, because she and Daddy had to meet other Zionists far away in Switzerland. But I knew it really meant I’d done something, something not like a Rabinovitz at all.

Be a good girl, Jannie, my mother begged, her face scrunched up like she might cry too. It’s not so very long, and we have to go, darling, Daddy’s been elected president of…

Like Mr. Roosevelt?

Well not exactly. President Roosevelt is the president of the whole United States of America but Daddy is president, really the first president of a very important organization! He has to go and everyone expects his wife to go too, so of course I have to go with him.

Don’t they let little kids go?

No, Jannie, it’s no place for children. There are meetings in smoky rooms all day, you wouldn’t like it at all. You will be in a beautiful place where there is sunshine and lots of fun things to do and other children to play with.

I knew better than to keep on crying. When I cried, Mummy usually cried too, looking off somewhere as though she saw something really terrible. No, it was much better not to cry. I took one last breath, shuddered and pursed my lips together hard.

Three weeks later, I climbed the steep steps of a bus followed by a duffle bag and a trunk full of blue uniforms, each one had a picture of a pine tree and the words C-A-M-P A-V-I-V-A.

At camp I took the one bed that was left, a bare mattress on a metal frame. I began to put away my clothes on the pine shelves above my bed, but Trish the counselor scolded me, No, no the duffle bag first. That’s where the bedding is! You don’t follow directions very well, do you?

I made my bed and put away my clothes, listening to the other girls talking like old friends, pointing to the old-fashioned toilet, showing each other their dress-up clothes they’d brought for socials. Then I heard the sound. It was as though I had been listening for it all along, the whistle that Aunt Lottie had said would come.

Where is she?

I don’t know, I sent her back to put on a dry suit, she never hung the one from yesterday out on the line and it was still wet.

You know she’s your youngest, barked the senior counselor. You have to keep a special eye on her. Now go on up and find her!

Jannie, Trish called out. Janice Rabinovitz, are you in there. Jannie, answer me! The whistle blew for general swim, didn’t you hear it?

The still-damp bathing suit lay on the floor. The bed was made. But I was not in the bunk. I’d made sure to hide where no one would think to look.

They searched the rest of the afternoon, my mother told me later. The camp director called the local police on the phone. This has never happened before at Camp Aviva, he told them. No, they had no new help, no strange groundspeople, no repair men in camp.

By the time they found me, asleep in one of the stalls at the stable, night was beginning to fall.

From that time on, the stable was the first place they’d look for me, and they would always find me there, curled up in a stall holding a few carrots I begged from the kitchen staff. How I slept there in the stables! I never slept in the bunk at night. The shortest horse, an old mare named Dolly, always got a kiss right between the tops of her front legs where I knew her heart would be. In my deep sleep I was unaware of the pungent smell of manure, the interminable buzz of the horse flies, the footfalls of the animals as they tested the length of the stalls, back and forth. They will never step on me; I told myself confidently, they love me. And most of all there was no whistle. I was safe.

While I was sleeping with Dolly, my parents were far away in Switzerland, standing in the very elbow of history. In this year of 1937, the darkness of Hitler’s bootmen had begun their terrible march in Germany.

The refugees in Switzerland told unbelievable stories of indecency and barbarism. Their voice was the prophecy of the slaughter of six million. There was a split among the leaders of Jewry at the Congress. Weitzman was willing to accept partition of Palestine, while the opposing argument was the concession of partition as a denial of the Balfour Declaration. The American Zionists were backed by Weitzman. When, two years later, the infamous white paper was issued, it became clear the Congress might have saved itself the trouble of debate. The door to immigration, first ajar, closed a little more with each of the several white papers. That part of Palestine which was to have been Jewish, was whittled-away by the British to placate the Arabs. And Hitler’s bootmen stamped on Jews who had nowhere to go.

Jacob returned to the United States, a man afraid. All farsighted men were afraid in Zurich. They were frightened by a nightmare that was twice as terrifying in the morning.

Because it had the unlikely ferocity of a nightmare, no one believed. Even the German Jews, to whom it was actually happening, said no, we are Germans; our own countrymen won’t turn against us…

Chapter 6

WHERE’S JANNIE?

As soon as they returned home, before the windows had been opened and the house aired out, Ada and Jacob were on their way to camp. Seated in the back seat were Max and Lillian Shyavitz. Lillian was the eldest daughter of Ada’s sister, Mary. And Max, her husband, was a doctor. The letter had been waiting for them when they arrived.

What is it? Where’s Jannie? Ada broke in, a departure from her usual reticence. What’s wrong? Where is she? Jake didn’t try to calm her, it would have been useless.

She’s actually in the infirmary, nothing wrong, she’s not sick, said Max. I expect she’s been pining for you, hasn’t been eating as well as they would like, lost a little weight I’m sure. It happens to these young ones you know. I’m sure that when she sees you she’ll perk right up!

Arriving at Camp Aviva, Ada could not get out of the car fast enough. Shielding her eyes from the late morning sun, she scanned the little ones marching by. Finally she noticed a tall figure approaching.

It’s not serious, we are quite sure, but Janice has not been eating well, the director said. The camp doctor assures us that her fever is the result of a stomach ‘bug’ but she lost a little weight and we are somewhat concerned. We have taken the precaution of placing her in the infirmary so that she can be looked after round-the-clock, and also so that she will not infect the other children in case this ‘bug’ is contagious.

I’ll never forget the sight of my two parents rushing into the infirmary. Ada threw her arms around my ribs. When she took a good look at my bony chest, dark-ringed eyes, hands like sandpaper, she gathered me up and carried me out the door, pausing long enough to shout back at my bewildered father, Jack, we’re going to the hospital right away, and to the camp director, send her clothes!

Jack had never seen his wife like this. He was usually the one in command. He hesitated for a split second and then, throwing my clothes into my foot locker, he followed.

In the hospital in Skowhegan, Jake and Ada were told I was malnourished and dehydrated but it was felt I’d recover in a matter of a week to ten days, two weeks at the outside, if all went well.

Ada repeated the words if all goes well over and over to herself. It couldn’t happen again, she couldn’t face it again no, God, please no!

Chapter 7

YENTA’S STORY

RUSSIA 1891

How could I know the life was hard

It was my life. I rose to it, dealt with it

Worked with it, but I was not alone

Like a mare in tether, my love,

My dreamer labored at my side

My leader, my life line to follow wherever…

The way my father would tell it to me a half century later, the days in Malestofky had been surprisingly good days; the wave of pogroms which had terrified the Jews of Eastern Europe in 1881 had bypassed his family’s peaceful shtetel and it lay like a forgotten wagon wheel in the sun, its few stores crowded into the hub, its streets running outward from the center like so many bent spokes.

The six living children of Yente Sora Aaronen were allowed to grow in relative peace, from Moshke, the eldest who was nearing twenty, to Yisroel, still caught in the menacing valley of infancy. Of course they lived in the shadow of conscription, but this was as inevitable as death, and to Jews it was nearly the same. In one of the few stores that formed the hub of Malestofky sat Yente herself, her great skirts stretched about her, concealing a little coal stove that kept her warm in the fierce Russian winters. From her roost in the store, she was to that town mother and midwife, female rabbi, provider of necessities and most of all, businesswoman. It was not thought odd that she should be the principle bread winner while her husband Nachman was the scholar. Such was the custom in the Yiddish towns of Russia. To the scholar went the obligation of securing the afterlife, to his wife the family’s sustenance in the immediate future.

Of Yente’s children, Beyla was the eldest, a tall girl with warm chestnut hair who helped her mother in the store. Golda was blond and petite, a gorottene in the house. Even at fifteen, she had the maids in tow. They cleaned and cooked, mended and nursed, in the fine wood-shingled house with a large parlor. Thanks to Golda, they earned their thirty rubles a year. As for Yente’s four boys, they ranged from Moshke, through G’dalyaw, Yankel and at last, to Yisroel the baby not quite a year.

Chapter 8

LEAVING MOTHER RUSSIA 1892

But now all her dreamer husband could talk about was moving their brood to the holy land, Palestine. It took her back some thirty years to hearing her own father speak of the Eretz Yisroel and the holy act, as he said, of raising kinder in a Yiddish land!

Shain fine. But her children were already half raised. Now is not the time! Nachman and his Chovenei Tzion, wasn’t it the same old thing all over again? His answer to the Czar’s taking every able-bodied Jewish boy in the village, never to be seen again.

She did not hear the stamping of his shoes in the hall or the harsh bang of the huge oak door but dimly, his voice and the urgent familiar pressure of his hand against her shoulder brought her awake.

Ah, Nachman, you are back. Your hands are so cold! Sit. I will bring you tea.

Listen, I’ve thought it all out.

Ah, my Nachman, is it not enough for one night? What else is there to say now? Let’s sleep and think about it tomorrow.

We can get away.

"Yah, yah, to Eretz Yisroel, I suppose."

How did you know?

Nachman, you’re not serious. You’re dreaming!

No, you’re wrong. I’ve stopped dreaming. Now I’m going to do something! You remember Rabinovitch der alta?

Yes. What has he…

We can’t leave under our name. We’ll buy his.

"You’ve gone meshuge."

‘Yes, we’ll buy his name and get out before Moshke’s name is on the list to be taken to the czar’s army. I found out in three weeks they’ll post the list again. We have just enough time."

Chapter 9

BUDAPEST 1892

Family Rabinovitch. Nachman stood at the door. You have rooms?

Frau Steiger had no time to rip off her apron. So insistent was the clanging on her door, she stared through her near-sighted eyes, blinking in the strong Budapest sun.

Rabinovitch and family, Nachman enunciated a second time.

Yes, yes, I heard you, come in. She shuffled out of the way and silently, her mouth forming the numbers, she began to count ein, tsvei, drei…"

We are eight, Nachman spoke impatiently. "We won’t be with you long, just until the next boat leaves for Palestine. I hear that is in five days, on Montag."

Oh my dear, sir, if you think you’re going to Palestine you better start again to think. Why do you suppose my house is so crowded off season? There’s no boat leaving for Palestine!

No boat?

No, no, it’s a new law. The Turks, they won’t let anymore in. Just last week it happened. You’re just a little bit late.

No boat? Nachman echoed hollowly. No boat?

Well, you can’t stand in the hall. I think I can fix you up for the time being. You have papers, of course.

Papers? Nachman asked dully. Great beads of sweat had broken out on his brow. His face had taken the color of the gray streaks in his hair.

My husband needs to rest, Yente broke in. We’ll talk about papers later. You can be easy. There are papers.

Well, all right then, but you have to register. And no one can stay in Budapest without permission. We are already so crowded with foreigners a person can’t walk on the streets anymore. Budapest has become like a railway station. It’s a terrible situation for all of us. Very uncomfortable!

She turned her back and led the way upstairs, her gait irregular because of a slight limp, so that she hopped like a heavy-hearted toad.

Come, come, Nachman. Yente led him, her hand cupping his elbow. It will be all right, you’ll see. A little rest and you’ll have time to think everything out.

Nachman sank to the bed, his eyes focused unblinkingly at the ceiling. What can we do now, Yente asked herself. And, as if in answer, Nachman spoke aloud.

Family Rabinovitch, he cried with a broken laugh. He knew what he was doing when he died, Rabinovitch der Alta. It’s a curse, this name! To rob a dead man of his name. It’s a curse!

"Now, now. It was the Rebbe’s plan. You said it was the Rebbe’s plan, so it was all right. The Rebbe wouldn’t tell you anything wrong."

"The Rebbe! And is the Rebbe always right? Why then was I given a brain?"

You’re right, Nachman. You’re much smarter then the rabbi. He wouldn’t be able to find a way out of this, but you will, you’ll see.

"We’re stranded! There’s no way out! I have no permit to stay here. Budapest has enough Jews. They don’t want any more. You’ll see, I’ll get no permit, and who wants a permit? Did I come out of Russia just to hide in Budapest? Ay, what a world. The Jew in a goyishe velt is Daniel in the lion’s den, ay ay ay. You know, it is a funny thing. Here I am, now history repeats. Moses was running to the Promised Land and he got away from the Pharaoh only to find forty years of wilderness ahead of him. To let the old die off, the rabbis say. We’ll die off and then who will go to Eretz Yisroel – Moshke?"

Perhaps there’s another place?

Another place? What other place wants a Jew!

Well, Chaim’s Yosaf went to America, and they say he is doing so well he is going to send for Chaim!

"Chaim’s Yosaf is a fine example. Hah. Chaim’s Yosaf. There he was, a zaideneh junge mentschik, a frummeh too, tall, handsome, and what a mind he had. When that boy talked, everybody listened. There was talk that the Cohain Godal personally was interested in him. Huh, and what became of Chaim’s Yosaf?

He lost his beard the day the boat landed. He cut his payos to the skin the second day, and a week later he’s just another Americaishe goy in a room you walk up to on some dirty street in New York City. He wrote he’s working as a schneider in a sweatshop. On Shabbos, too, yet. What will he give up next? Payos, beard, Shabbos. God next? What else is there?"

Nachman, Yente went on determinedly. She sat down heavily on the foot of the bed. "Nachman, Chaim’s Yosaf went away from home by himself. All right, he was smart, but he was just a boy. Did he have anyone to tell him what to do, to show him? He went away without a father. But you, it’s different altogether. Who can teach your children better than you? No, no, my Nachman, even in America, they’ll be Yiddish children. Maybe it’s all for the best. What kind of shittach would we make for the girls in Eretz Yisroel? You know, she’s already eighteen, Beyla. It’s time now to think of a shittach. There are plenty of Jews in America. I’m sure all the best families would want our Beyla with you as her father. It could be worse, you’ll see. If we can’t get to Palestine, let’s go to America."

Chapter 10

ON THE OPEN SEAS

Their cabin was a stifling box, where with all heads present, there was room for neither sitting nor standing. Their ears were assailed by the screeching of frightened children, and their noses by the stench of herring. They had indeed entered the gates of Hell.

Golda, turn down the beds. Yente’s voice was calm, her brow wet with perspiration. Beyla, she commanded, undress the children. Moshke, see when we can eat. Here, Yisroel, blow your nose and stop crying. Within a few moments, the improvised regime was running in a semblance of efficiency. Yente had once again