Why all the Political Indifference

Originally published in 'Brooklyn Daily Eagle"

The other day, I was collecting signatures for a political club I’m a member of to put candidates on the ballot. I was given the task of trying to accost passersby and lead them to our table, where the petitions were stacked. 
Over and over again, I asked people, “Are you a registered Democrat? Do you live in New York City?” Several people were interested, but the great majority, about 19 out of 20, weren’t interested. Some were tourists, some didn’t speak English, some were Republicans, some were Democrats who didn’t live in New York. But the great majority just ignored me and kept walking. The most disconcerting thing is that, by and large, the younger the passersby were, the less interested they were.
Let’s look at how short-sighted many of these people were. What would have happened if there were no student loans? Some of them would never have gone to college. Well, most student loans are sponsored by the federal government, and would never have come be if not for the political process.
What if they decide to go into a restaurant? In most cases, they don’t have to worry about suddenly getting sick, or eating contaminated food. Why is this? Because of pure food and drug regulations, again, an outgrowth of the political process. It took more than 20 years of struggle to pass the Food and Drug Act of 1906, which was a centerpiece of President Theodore Roosevelt’s administration.
If these people keep walking, sooner or later they’ll have to cross the street. They have the political process to thank if they’re not menaced by a railroad train. That’s right, a railroad train. Once upon a time, in both Brooklyn and Manhattan, railroads ran at street level. It took a lot of agitation in both state and city legislatures to mandate that they run either above or below ground level.
I realize that politics isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, in the same way that physics, chemistry and math aren’t my cup of tea. I also realize that not everyone is a member of a political party, not everyone votes in primaries, and many people don’t vote in elections. For an increasing number of Americans, the only times they pay attention to politics are during presidential elections and when something affects them directly, such as the building of a tall building across the street from one’s home.
Still, the fact that in one of the most informed, most educated cities in the world, only one out of 20 people or so were willing to even talk about the petition is a bad sign. After all, we weren’t from a fringe religious group, selling a new variety of flavored coffee or promoting one of those “day spas” one of my fellow Eagle staffers writes about. We were from a major political party, and our petitions clearly identified us as such. Even if more people stopped to debate – which happened twice, once with a pro-life Republican and a second time with a radical socialist who called the Democratic Party a sham—that would have been more welcome than people totally ignoring us.
Perhaps someday, when martial law is declared and civil liberties are a thing of the past, these same people will finally develop an interest in the political process. But then, it will be too late.

Moish--short story, about the working-class Jewish Bronx, 1940-41

 

The five-story tenement at 792 East 175^th Street was the most rundown building on the block. It was built shortly after the subway came to this part of the Bronx, around 1905. That was 35 years ago, so now the building had irregular heat and hot water, mice, roaches and creaking floors. And of course, Moish and his mother had to live on the top floor. That was a problem whenever Moish’s mother sent him out to buy groceries. Not that they had much money to spend--she’d been on home relief for years.

Moish had always given his mother grief. When he was in grade school, the teachers told his mother that he was “slow” and left him back twice. In high school, he tried to concentrate, but it was like bees buzzing around inside his head. He never graduated. He had a seasonal job as a “hackie,” driving neighborhood families to and from the Catskills. But like every year, the guy from the hacking company had laid him off at the end of the summer. So he was sleeping late today.

Moish yawned, put on his clothes, washed up and went into the kitchen.  On the wall were a yellowing magazine portrait of  President Roosevelt, a Jewish calendar from a local synagogue, and a long-ago photo of old-country relatives in beards and black coats. The landlord finally gave them a second-hand refrigerator last year, but Ma still called it “the icebox.” As usual, Ma was sitting at the table, listening to her Yiddish radio station and inhaling her asthma powder, with its sickeningly-sweet smell. Moish lit up a Lucky.

“Hi, Ma,” he mumbled. “I’m goin’ out to the luncheonette.”

She looked up. “If you don’t stop eating dat greasy treyf food, your hair vill fall out.”

“Yeah, ma,” he said dismissively. “Like your tuna croquettes, canned peas and mashed potatoes are any better!”

“Who you gonna meet? That trumbanick, Shmooey?”

“Yeah,” he admitted. “What of it?”

“Dat guy’s a bum!” his mother nearly screamed. “He alvays vas a bum, and he’ll make a bum out of you!” Moish ignored her tirade and went out the door. Shrugging her shoulders, his mother lit up another handful of asthma powder.

Reaching the ground floor, Moish opened the mailbox just to see what was there. Aha! He smiled. A letter from his older brother, Artie. That was one guy he couldn’t figure out. Artie had always wanted to be a newspaperman. But when he graduates from CCNY, does he get a job on the Post or the News or the Journal-American? No, he goes up to Boston and starts working for some tiny magazine called the New England Grocer. Well, Moish told himself, I’ll look at the letter when I get home. He closed the mailbox and headed toward Tillie’s Luncheonette.

“Hi, Tillie,” he said, sitting down on one of the revolving stools at the counter. Tillie, a fiftyish woman with a pockmarked face, was a character. She had a German shepherd, smoked cigars, drank vodka straight and carried a gun.

“Your friend said he’ll be late,” Tillie said as a commercial for Shredded Ralston came over the radio. “What’ll ya have?” There was no point in looking at the menu. The luncheonette had a limited menu – eggs, burgers, BLT sandwiches, grilled cheese sandwiches, warmed-over Campbell’s soup, tuna fish, fries and the special of the day, which was usually hot pastrami or corned beef.

“ I think I’ll have a grilled cheese with tomatoes, fries and a Coke,” he said. He glanced at the rack of newspapers and magazines. “Trial of Christian Mobilizers Begins” was the headline on the Post. He boiled with rage. He hated all those Nazis, Christian Fronters, Christian Mobilizers. Those fuckin’ anti-Semites! If he could just get his hands on them, he’d tear them limb from limb....

Just then, Shmooey walked through the door. Moish forgot his anger, smiled and waved to him.

Moish and Shmooey had been best friends since Moish’s family moved here from the Lower East  Side. They had played hookey together, cheated off the smart kids together, and even had their own “stealing service” in which, for a fee, they would steal comic books and candy bars. This worked fine until the owner of Zimmy’s Candy Store discovered the scheme, threw them into the back room and beat them up. Even now, 10 years later, they weren’t welcome at Zimmy’s.

“So, what’s doin’?” Shmooey, who was a head smaller than Moish but much stockier, asked, “You wanna go to the track tomorrow?”

“Naah,” Moish answered. “I’m not workin’ now. I got no dough.”

“What about the Fair? I hear the World’s Fair is still on for a few more weeks. Always something doing at the Fair!”

“I told yiz,” Moish answered, getting angry. “I got no dough!”

“Hey, Moish,” Shmooey said, nudging his pal with his elbow. “Jake, who lives downstairs from me, was telling me that some of them rich girls on the Grand Concourse is more liberal than the ones around here! That means they put out!”

Moish turned to Shmooey and looked at him with disdain. “Them girls don’t want anything to do with guys like us! To be with them, you gotta be some kind of intellectual! Or someone studying to be a doctor or a dentist or an accountant!”

“Yeah,” Shmooey said, “I guess you’re right.”

“Hey, you two Lotharios,” Tillie said. They turned around, even though they had no idea that word meant. “We’re having a pinochle game in the back tonight. We’re only playing for loose change. Even you guys can afford it!”

“Sure thing,” said Moish. Maybe he’d get lucky.

At that moment, a new Packard sedan – a rarity in this neighborhood – pulled up to the curb, and a man with a wide-brimmed hat, an expensive suit and spats walked in. Everyone knew who he was. He was Mr. Finkel. No one asked him where his money came from. They knew better.

‘Hey, Mr. Finkel,” Moish said, trying to be friendly. “I was readin’ in the paper about Lepke and Gurrah and Abe Reles. You ever work wit them guys?”

“Sure, kid,” Mr. Finkel said. “I worked with all them guys. I worked with Lucky Luciano and Frank Costello too. I worked with Schultz, back in the Prohibition days! You name ’em, I worked with ’em!”

The phone behind the counter rang. Tillie picked it up and handed it to Mr. Finkel.

“What? You can’t make it? He can’t make it either? Oh, shit! I got a delivery tonight” He looked around. “Wait, I got an idea. I’ll call ya later.”

Mr. Finkel walked up to Moish and Shmooey. “Listen, yiz guys,” he said, “I got a job for you!”

“What is it!?” Moish asked, learning forward. He hoped they could get to do a big job, maybe even rubbing someone out!

“Nothin’ like that,” said Mr. Finkel, as if he could read Moish’s mind. “I want you guys to go to this address on Third Avenue under the el,” he said, giving each of them a slip of paper. “You take the Tremont Avenue streetcar to Third Avenue, then take the el down to 149^th. Then you tell ‘em that Louie sent you. Uncle Louie. Ya got it? Just take the package they give you and bring it back here. By that time the pinochle game will be starting. I’ll be there!”

“What’s in the package,” Shmooey asked.

“Never you mind,” answered Mr. Finkel. “Don’t ask so many questions!”

“Uh, Mister Finkel,” said Moish, “My ma’s cookin’ dinner tonight. What do I tell her?”

“Never mind about your mama,” Mr. Finkel answered. “I’ll go up there and tell her you’re busy. On second thought, I’ll send a kid. That way, she won’t be suspicious!”

Moish and Shmooey went to the address -- a second-floor office above a shoe store -- picked up the package and went back to Tillie’s. Mr. Finkel gave each of them a ten. They couldn’t believe their luck.

Soon, they started making deliveries for Mr. Finkel on a weekly basis. Moish’s demeanor became more self-confident. He stopped smoking Luckies and started smoking Chesterfield Kings. He ate dinner at Fu Manchu’s. He and Shmooey went to see the football Giants at the Polo Grounds. They went to a dance at the Schiff Jewish Center, although, as usual, they both struck out.

“Hey, vere you getting all dis money?” his mother asked him one day. “You henging out mit gengsters?”

Moish was startled. How did she know? He said the first thing that came into his head. “No, I’m, uh, repairing bicycles! At a bicycle store!” His mother looked at him suspiciously, then took another hit of her asthma powder.

After a few months, the moment they had hoped for finally came.

“How would you like to do a big job?” asked Mr. Finkel.

“Sure!” said Shmooey. “What’ya got in mind?”

“You know Bummy Schwartz’ auto body shop?”

“Who doesn’t know it?”

“Well, Schwartz is on vacation for two weeks and closed up the shop. He keeps a lot of money in that cash register of his. We want you to break in and get that money. I swiped the key when he wasn’t lookin’.”

“Doesn’t he have an alarm system?” asked Moish.

“Yeah, but we got a secret weapon! We know this kid, Dino Petrocelli, he’s an electrical genius. He’s in college right now, studying to be an electrical engineer. He can disable any alarm system in a minute!”

“Dino. What the fuck kinna name is that?” Moish interjected.

“It’s a good guinea name! But don’t worry about that. He’s good people,” answered Mr. Finkel. “Now, you come here at 11 at night tomorrow, you’ll meet Dino, then you go out.”

Dino was a kid a few years younger than they were. He was short, dark and better dressed than either of them. “So,” Moish said awkwardly, “You with the outfits?”

“Naah,” Dino answered. “I’m gonna be an engineer. Strictly legit. But my mother knows some of them guys because she works as an operator in the garment center.”

“Hey!” Moish said. “That’s what my ma did, too, before she got sick.”

“Good. We have somethin’ in common. Anyway, those guys helped to pay some of my tuition at NYU. So, once in awhile, because they did us a favor, we do them a favor.”

“Hey, Dino,” Shmooey asked, “Where ya from?”

“I’m from Arthur Avenue! You guys know where that is?’

Moish knew. One day, when he was 13 years old, he wandered into that neighborhood and found himself surrounded by a group of Italian kids who called him a dirty Jew and a Christ-killer. He hadn’t gone back there since.

“Now, I got a question for you,” Moish asked. “They still like Mussolini over there?”

He had expected Dino to be embarrassed, but Dino just laughed. “Naah! Some of the older people, they still have his photo in their wall, but most of us, once he signed that pact with Hitler, we washed our hands of him!” That was exactly what Moish needed to hear. He shook Dino’s hand. Now he had a new pal.

When it came time for the job, they put on the gloves that Mr. Finkel had provided, walked over to Boston Road and circled the block three times to see if there were any cops in the area. Looking near the front door, Dino found the metal panel that contained the alarm system.  He took out a screwdriver, started fiddling with it, and told the guys, “Now it’s OK.” He took out the key that Mr. Finkel had stolen, opened the door and walked in. Moish and Shmooey looked at Dino with awe.

Once inside, they found the cash register, but couldn’t figure out how to open it. Moish was about to throw it down when Dino said, “Allow me!” He pushed a couple of buttons and the drawer opened. “I used to help out in my aunt’s dress shop,” he explained. They counted the money. Two hundred and twenty four dollars–not a bad haul. They scooped it up, went out the back door and headed back to Tillie’s.

After that it was back to delivering packages, although Moish and Shmooey didn’t mind. It was money. One night, Mr. Finkel had them go out to the Rockaways to burn down a vacant bungalow for the insurance. They laid out some oil-soaked rags, poured a trail of gasoline leading to them and lit a match. They were thrilled when the place went up in flames – just like in the movies! Moish would have stood there watching endlessly if Shmooey hadn’t nudged him, reminding him that they had to get out of there fast if they didn’t want to get caught.

Although they never did any jobs with Dino again, they did see him a few times. Once, he asked them, “Hey, either of you boys ever have real Italian spaghetti?”

Moish shrugged his shoulders. “I had spaghetti a few times at Bickford’s Cafeteria. Nothin’ special.”

“WHAT?” Dino exclaimed. “Bickford’s Cafeteria? That stuff is to real spaghetti what a White Castle hamburger is to a real hamburger!” Before you knew it, he called a cab and took them to Rocco’s Trattoria, where he watched in amusement as Moish shoveled down three plates of spaghetti and meatballs.

Once, at the beginning of March, Moish met Heshie, the guy who owned the hacking company, on the street.

“Moish!” Heshie said. “We’re gonna be starting our cars to the Catskills again in a few months, and we’d like to have you with us again. You’re a good man, Moish!”

“Are you kidding?” Moish replied, blowing smoke at him. “Me havin’ to be nice to those fat mamas and their bratty kids just for a lousy 10-cent tip? Those days are over. I’m going places!”

“Very well,” Heshie answered. “But if you change your mind, let me know.”

A few weeks after that, Mr. Finkel called them in.

“OK, you guys, I’m gonna give you a bigger job. See whether you can handle it.  We control Local 49 of the Bakers’ Union, and it’s been very good for us, bringing in a lot of money. So now there’s this young kid who’s making trouble for us, trying to get up a slate to run against our candidates in the union election.”

“Is he a Red?” Moish asked.

“Naah,” Finkel answered, waving his hand. “You don’t hear much about them Reds nowadays, ever since they started playin’ footsie with Hitler. No, this is just some college-kid punk who wants everything squeaky-clean, thinks honesty is the best policy. You know the type–they think they’re better than us!”

“Yeah!” Moish shouted. His own loudness surprised him. In his answer, he expressed his hatred not only of this punk but of every smart-ass “A” student who ever made him feel humiliated.

“So,” Shmooey asked, excited, “You want us to rub him out?”

Mr. Finkel laughed. “You been seein’ too many movies! We just do that as a last resort. We just want you to rough him up a little. Don’t break any bones or leave any marks where people can see them. We don’t want the cops to get involved. Just kick him in the shins a few times, and hit him in the kishkes with THIS!” He reached behind his desk and took out what looked like a bundle of rags, but contained several metal rods inside.

Shmooey and Moish were fascinated. “What’s that?” Shmooey asked.

“That’s called a schlammer. We used ta use it in the Garment Center all the time! So take it–here’s a canvas bag you can put it into. Now, he gets out of work about 10 o’clock–bakers work all kinna crazy hours–so he’ll get home around 10:30. Before that, I want yiz to catch a movie at the RKO Chester, so I can keep track of you. The movie gets out at 9:45, so that’s plenty of time. Here’s a piece of paper with the guy’s name and address: Abraham Bernstein, 1580 Crotona Park East. Put it in ya pocket, and DON’T LOSE IT!”

Seeing a movie seemed like a pleasant way to kill time, especially before a job. The day’s feature was “How Green Was My Valley.” Moish frowned: a serious picture. He hated serious movies. Give him a musical, with singing and dancing and dames kicking their legs. As a matter of fact, the last movie he saw was “Sun Valley Serenade” with Glenn Miller and Sonja Henie. Now THAT was a movie.

After the movie ended, a Daffy Duck cartoon came on. That was more like it. Moish and Shmooey laughed hysterically at the antics of the screwy duck as he bounced around the screen, taunting and evading the hapless hunter. Next on the program was a comedy short. When he saw the familiar Columbia logo, Moish hoped it would be the Three Stooges, his favorite. However, it was Andy Clyde, who was a close second in his book. Moish almost split his sides laughing. You had to admit – Andy Clyde was tops.

Then the newsreel came on, and the mood changed. Scenes of destruction and agony flashed on the screen. “Last week, the Luftwaffe bombed Liverpool, England for six days straight, resulting in 360 deaths and untold injuries and property damage. German planes also bombed Belfast, Northern Ireland, where several shipyards and factories helping the war effort are located. The Luftwaffe didn’t target only the factories–they bombed at least 20 churches, government buildings and even hospitals. And, in a shocking move, the Nazi planes attacked Dublin, the capital of a neutral country, killing 28 people and leaving over 400 people homeless.....”

Moish gritted his teeth and banged his fist. He could barely stop himself from shouting. He should go to Canada, he though, join the RAF and then bomb those Nazi bastards out of existence! But he didn’t know how to fly a plane! “Who ya kiddin,’” he thought....

Shmooey tapped him on the shoulder. “Time to go,” they said. They went into the lobby Moish reached into his pocket–where did he put that piece of paper? He frantically searched his pockets. It must have fallen out! “What are we gonna do?” he whined.

“We go back to Mr. Finkel and get it again!”

“Fuhgedaboudit! He’ll start yelling a mile a minute! I remember–Crotona Park. Here’s a phone booth,” he said, going in. He leafed through the phone book and searched for “Abraham Bernstein” and “Crotona Park.” Aha! Abraham Bernstein, 750 Crotona Park North. That must be the one!

In front of the building, they got the sense that something was wrong. A group of 14- or 15-year-old kids were standing around, talking about going to an ice skating rink. That could be trouble. They didn’t want any witnesses. Moish and Shmooey were relieved when they left. They waited for 10 minutes, 15 minutes, a half hour. “Hey,” Moish said, “I thought this guy comes home around this time! Maybe he went to buy his wife a present or sometin.’” Shmooey put his finger to his mouth and made the “shhh” noise.

Out of nowhere, a young man in his twenties walked down the street and headed into the building. Moish and Shmooey approached him.

“You Abraham Bernstein.”

“Yes,” the man answered politely. “Why?

They grabbed him, and he trembled with fear.“What’s, what’s wrong?” he stuttered. “Er, what is it you w-want? You want money? Here, I’ll give you money!”

“This ain’t about money,” Moish growled, trying to sound as tough as possible. “It’s about you tryin’ to take over the union!”

“What?” The guy panicked. “I tell you, you got the wrong guy!”

“Tell it to Sweeney, ya fuckin’ bum!” Shmooey answered, clamping his hand over Bernstein’s mouth. Moish reached into his canvas bag and raised the schlammer.

* * **

The day after Moish saw the New York Post article, he knew he was sunk. The article read:

 

“Mystery Attack in Bronx.

 

“An up-and-coming swing drummer was beaten up in front of his home in the East Tremont section of the Bronx on Thursday night in what police believe was a case of mistaken identity.

 

“Abraham Bernstein, 27, who goes by the professional name of Al Burns, described his assailants as both having dark eyes and dark hair. One was about 6 feet tall and thin, the other was described as 5 foot 6 and stocky. Bernstein, who was in stable condition at Fordham Hospital, says one of them mentioned something about a union dispute.

 

“Last summer, Bernstein had a two-month engagement at the Wigwam Inn, Loch Sheldrake, N.Y. Since then, he has been playing weddings, parties and other private engagements. Next week, he was scheduled to start a two-week stand at the Rustic Cabin, Alpine, N.J., with another outfit, Harry Hirschberg and his Hotcha Five. Bernstein also teaches music at Herman Ridder Junior High School in the Bronx.”

 

When Mrs. Friedman came in from next door and told him there was a phone call for him, Moish knew who it was and where he had to go. When he got to the back room of Tillie’s, Shmooey was already there, flanked by Mr. Finkel, Tillie, and Tillie’s German shepherd. In the background, the radio was faintly playing “The Breeze and I.” Mr. Finkel banged the table.

 

“All right,” he said. “So by now, you know ya got the wrong guy. If you lost the paper, you should have come to me, ya fuckin’ dim-wits! Sure, I woulda gotten a little angry, but nowhere near as angry as I am now!

 

“So here’s the way it’s gonna be. You guys don’t work for me no more. You’re finished! Don’t even see each other for the next two months. If someone sees you two together and remembers what happened, they might put two and two together. Whatever clothes you guys were wearing when you did the job, just burn ‘’em! Yeah, that’s what I said, burn ‘’em!”

 

“But....”

 

“Hey, there ain’t no buts! And don’t come in here, either. If Tillie sees either of you guys, she’s gonna throw you out on your ear, and don’t think she can’t do it either. If you want someplace to hang out, there’s always Max’s Deli up the block. Now, GET OUT OF HERE!”

 

Meekly, Moish and Shmooey rose from the table. Just before they went out the door, Mr. Finkel had one more thing to say.

 

“Oh, if it makes you guys feel any better, when the REAL Abraham Bernstein heard about this, he was so scared that he got in touch with us, and we cut a deal. The bakers and the drivers get a raise and shorter hours, and he gets to put two of his guys on the executive board. But we keep control of the local and the pension fund.”

 

* * *

 

The next two months were hell for Moish. No more Chesterfield Kings – it was back to Luckies. He went back to the hackie company and begged for his job back, but Heshie told him they were all full for drivers this summer. “We need someone in the office,” Heshie said, “but let’s face it, you don’t have those skills.”

 

Moish went to the factory in the Garment Center where his mother used to work, hoping someone would remember her and give him a job out of pity. But no one who knew her worked there anymore. He went to the WPA office on Tremont Avenue, but even they weren’t hiring. He got so desperate that he went from store to store, asking if anybody had work. Finally, he got a part-time job at Old Man Feigenbaum’s butcher shop on Mohegan Avenue. He swept the floor, carried heavy sides of beef from the delivery truck and plucked chickens. He especially hated the fact that Old Man Feigenbaum sent him out for coffee and bagels. Mr. Finkel had also sent him out for bagels, but at least there, he felt like he was part of something.

 

He spent more and more time at two places. The first was Max’s Deli. The waiter didn’t even have to ask what he wanted–he always got a hot dog and a potato knish, the two cheapest things on the menu, along with a glass of hot tea. Just like the guy who always asked for “One Meat Ball,” he thought, sadly.

 

The second was the Bijou Theater near 180^th Street, because it cost five cents less than other theaters. The Bijou showed two- or three-year-old features, “B” westerns and crime thrillers, and occasionally Yiddish films. The neighborhood kids called it “The Itch,” because it you went there, you never knew whether you were coming home with lice.

 

In June, he finally made an appointment to see Moish at the deli. But that morning, Mrs. Friedman knocked on the door and told Moish there was a call for him. He went into Mrs. Friedman’s living room – which was furnished 100 times better than his mother’s – and got on the phone.

 

“Yeah?” he said.

 

“Hey, it’s me.” It was his brother, Artie, calling from Boston. “Why the hell does Ma have to be one of the last people in the building not to have a phone?”

 

“Ahh,” Moish responded, “you know how it is. She just doesn’t have the energy to arrange it! I don’t think Home Relief would mind. At least she could order her groceries that way and have ’em delivered. So what’s goin’ on?”

 

“Nothing. We went to shul for Shavuos.”

 

“You went to shul? For cryin’ out loud! Next thing ya know, you’ll be growin’ a long beard!” Both laughed.

 

“It’s not like that,” Artie said apologetically. “It’s just that Arlene’s father is old-fashioned, and he’s sort of strict that way. If nothing else, you do get to meet a lot of people there. Anyway, that’s not the reason I called.”

 

“So what is it? Shoot!”

 

“I read in the Boston Globe, and I’m sure it’s in all the New York papers, that the Bethlehem Steel shipyard in Staten Island got a government contract to build ships for the British. I’m sure you know about the Lend-Lease act they passed earlier this year, right?”

 

“Sure thing! I seen it in Life Magazine.”

 

“Anyway, they’re hiring nonstop for two weeks. They’ll be interviewing thousands of people every day, and most of them, they expect to get jobs. Again, I’m sure it’s in the New York papers. And it’s a union job.”

 

“OK, I’ll take a look!” This appealed to Moish. Not only would he making good money, he’d be working to defeat Hitler. And it would be the first time in his life he would have a union job. Like 99.9 percent of the people in the neighborhood, Moish was pro-union.

 

“You oughta come up to Boston sometime,” Artie continued. “We live in a big Jewish neighborhood, just like our part of the Bronx, but there’s smaller buildings, more trees. It’s, uh, more nice. The area’s called Brighton.”

 

“I still can’t figure out why you went up there!”

 

“If I told you once, I told you 1,000 times,” Artie repeated. They both joined in on the familiar answer: “TO GET AWAY FROM MA!” They laughed.

 

“Hey, I just remembered something,” Moish said. “You remember when those old graybeards was sayin’ tashlich in Crotona Park, you know, the prayer before Rosh Hashanah, and we got these cherry bombs and other firecrackers and put ’em in old oil drums, and threw them in the lake? Remember that explosion and the water shootin’ up? I never knew those graybeards could run so fast! Hey Artie, did we have a lot of fun when we were kids, or what?”

 

“Yeah,” Artie answered. “We had a lot of fun. But things change.” Both said goodbye and hung up. Moish went back into his own apartment, looked through the copy of the New York Post on the kitchen table and found the item right away. He tapped his mother on the shoulder.

 

“Uh, ma, I got somethin’ to tell you.” He turned off ma’s Yiddish radio program.

 

“Vot is it. You von a million dollars? Or maybe you getting merried?”

 

“No, ma. I found out about this good job. I’ll be building ships and helping the Allied war effort against Hitler. It’s at a shipyard in Staten Island.”

 

“Oh, now you’re goin’ up to Kennadeh?” she asked. Ma was beginning to lose her hearing lately on top of everything else. “You’re joining the Army up der? Vot did fighting ever get anybody? Look at your uncle Morris, ohav hasholem, who volunteered in de foist var. He vanted to be a hero, too. And vut did he get? A bullet in his tochis!”

 

“No, ma, I’m not goin’ to Canada. It’s in Staten Island. I gotta get to sleep early so I can leave early in the morning. I wanna make sure I’m one of the first ones there.”

 

“And ver are you gonna stay?”

 

Moish hadn’t thought of that. He looked at the floor. “I, um, I guess I’ll get a room somewhere around there,” he mumbled. “I’ll send you money every week.”

 

“You’re leaving me all alone? Vell, I guess it’s fate. First, your fader, he dies in de flu epidemic ven you vas just two years old. Den, I meet Max, dat lousy bestit, but he decides at de last minute to marry somevun else. Den, your bruddeh, he should only croak, he goes up to Boston. Now you’re going to Stetten Island. You’re all rotten to de core!”

 

“You’re a real card, Ma!”

 

“By da vay, meester big shot, are you forgetting dat you’re late to meet your trumbenickishke friend, Shmooey, in de delicatessen?”

 

“Oh, yeah! Thanks for reminding me. Wait till he hears about this!”  He bolted out the door without saying goodbye. She shrugged, poured a new batch of asthma powder into the tin container, then lit the match.

 

* * *

 

Shmooey was waiting for Moish and starting in on a tongue sandwich when Moish got to the deli. “Hey, where were ya? I thought that maybe you went to Cockeyed Jennie’s or something!” They laughed. Cockeyed Jennie was a fictional prostitute, the butt of 1,000 old vaudeville jokes.

 

“No, there’s something big going on!” He motioned to the waiter and ordered a corned beef sandwich and a Cel-Ray soda.

 

“Corned beef! Somethin’ must be up. But first, let me tell you what I’ve been doing! I met Dino!”

 

“You been hangin’ out with him?” Moish asked, taking a drink of water. He was a little jealous.

 

“Naah, I just ran into him on Southern Boulevard. It wasn’t planned or nothin.’ But he told me what was in them packages!”

 

Moish’s eyes widened. “Was it dope?”

 

“Well, once or twice it was dope, and once it was counterfeit money. But most of the time it was joke books!”

 

“Joke books? You shittin’ me?”

 

“DIRTY joke bokes,” Shmooey said, moving closer to Moish. “They have characters like Mickey Mouse or Popeye or Superman, but they’re, ya know, DOIN’ SEX! Some of ‘em are pretty wild – they got ‘em fucking dogs, pigs! They make them in Mexico, den sell ‘em under the counter up here! Strictly illegal!”

 

“Wow!” At that moment, the waiter brought Moish’s sandwich and soda. Moish put more mustard on the bread than Shmooey had ever seen before he bit into it.

 

“Hey, you two geniuses,” said the waiter, “How about tonin’ down the language. There’s kids and old ladies here.” Shmooey apologized.

 

“That Dino, I really envy him,” Moish said, “Once he gets outta engineering school, he’ll be making twice as much money as the two of us put together.”

 

“Hey, whatever he got, he earned it!” Shmooey continued, “Dino also got me a job! “

 

“Is it legit?” Moish asked, suspiciously.

 

“STRICTLY legit. It’s in an electronics store, way down around Canal Street. Dey sell components.”

 

“Components? What’s components?”

 

“Components, ya dim-wit.That means, like, parts! Parts for radios, for vacuum cleaners, for toasters, for anything electronic. Tubes, dials, capacitors, all kinna stuff. The guy’s learnin’ me the business!”

 

“Hey, I’m happy for you, Shmooey!”

 

“And I had a date!”

 

“YOU had a date? That’s the first time in more than a year, right? What’s she like?”

 

“Well, she works in one of the office buildings down there. I met her on my lunch hour in a luncheonette.”

 

‘She Jewish?”

 

“Naah, but, ya know, it’s not serious, just for fun. It’s not like I’m gettin’ married to her. Still, she’s a nice girl, not some hoo-wah or nothin.’ I took her to the stadium, we saw DiMaggio hit one out of the park!”

 

“Great!”

 

“No, it wasn’t great. It was Dom, not Joe! The Yanks was playin’ the Red Sox!” They both laughed.

 

“Let me tell you what I’ve been doin’,” Moish said.” I’m goin’ down to Staten Island to get a job in a shipyard. Ya know, building ships for the British.”

 

“WHAT? That’s backbreaking labor”

 

“Hey, I’m not gonna be carryin’ no sacks of steel on my back. I’m gonna be sittin’ at a bench, doin’ a machine.”

 

“Moish, did ya ever realize that you’re the same guy who had to take the road test four times, when you was startin’ out to be a hackie? What if you have trouble learning the machine?”

 

“Then I’ll ask to learn ANOTHER machine. The fight against Hitler and Mussolini is that important!”

 

Shmooey shook his head. “Moish, I never figured you out to be someone who was tryin’ to save the world!”

 

“Well, maybe somethin’ happened, and that somethin’ is Adolf Hitler!”

 

“Well, to each his own. As far as I’m concerned, all that political stuff is fixed from the get-go. And anyhow, my boss at the electronics shop says that if the U.S. gets into the war, which we will, sooner or later, with the stuff he’s teachin’ me, they’ll put me right into the Signal Corps and I’ll be safe!”

 

Moish was becoming angry. He never figured Shmooey for a goldbricker. “Well, gotta go now. I’m gettin’ up early tomorrow morning, get an early start. It’ll be hard for my ma without me, but she’ll manage. Maybe the landlord will finally put her on a lower floor.”

 

“Sometimes I wish I could move out, too,” Shmooey said. “We got these refugee cousins from Czechoslovakia living with us. Every morning and evening, the place is like Grand Central Station. I’ll be glad when they get jobs and find their own place!”

 

“Cousins, eh? What are they like?”

 

“We’ll, they’re modern. It’s not like they’re from the shtetl 50 years ago or nothin’. But they’re very European. They don’t know nothin’ about baseball, they dress real formal, they listen to that long-hair classical music all day. They do know about American movie actors, like Clark Gable and Gary Cooper, so at least we got somethin’ ta talk about! But I don’t see why they have to be with us anyway!”

 

Moish couldn’t believe that Shmooey couldn’t make the connection between these refugee cousins and what was happening to the Jews of Europe. He guessed he wouldn’t be seeing much of that guy anymore.

 

 Shmooey had been his best friend for years, but, as Artie told him on the phone just now, things change. He walked to the cashier, paid the check and headed out the door.

 

How Hospitals Dealt with the Great Depression

Originally published in Brooklyn Daily Eagle

 

In the last few months, as readers of this paper know, SUNY Downstate has been trying in all sorts of ways to either close or seriously downsize Long Island College Hospital, which SUNY's board members see as a financial drain. Brooklyn Heights and Cobble Hill residents once hailed SUNY as having “saved” LICH from its previous parent firm, Continuum Health Partners, but it now looks like SUNY may have “saved” LICH in the same way that Russia “saved” Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary after World War II. SUNY Downstate itself is in serious trouble – according to an audit in January by state comptroller Thomas DiNapoli’s office, it was losing $3 million a week at the time.

As for Interfaith Hospital, it’s been in and out of trouble so many times over the years that it’s not funny. And looking beyond Brooklyn into Manhattan, many of the political “powers that be” approved the sale of eight buildings of St. Vincent’s Hospital to the Rudin family of real estate developers in hopes that they would at least include an urgent care center in their plans. Well, the transformation of those buildings has begun, but where’s the urgent care center? 

Now, I’m well aware that all this is occurring during a recession, the greatest financial downturn since the 1930s. But this begs the question: How did hospitals fare during the Great Depression?

Wikipedia has a list of hospitals past and present in New York City, and it seems that very few closed during that era. Indeed, the current trend of hospital closures and mergers didn’t begin until the 1970s, picking up more steam in the ’80s and ’90s. According to other accounts online, private hospitals indeed did reduce admissions during the ’30s and also were forced to institute measures like cutting nurses’ salaries and shortening vacations.

One difference is that in those years, communities pulled together to support the hospitals. An online account of one hospital, Lakeside Hospital in Kendalville, Indiana, recounts that during the 1930s, concerned citizens donated food to the hospital’s kitchen. After cafeteria workers were cut, nurses stayed late to prepare food for their patients. “Dedicated employees with a teamwork philosophy, continued Lakeside Hospital during these tough years," according to the account.

 

The business community also pitched in to do its part. In the mid-1930s, concerned business leaders in Chicago pooled their savings and launched a company known as Hospital Service Corporation, which offered a pre-paid hospital insurance plan – a new concept at the time. The idea caught on across the country and eventually evolved into Blue Cross and Blue Shield.

Where private and voluntary not-for-profit hospitals couldn’t keep up with the rising tide of patients and their own fiscal shortfall, the government stepped in. During the Depression, there was a huge growth in public hospitals. Nurses who were “excessed” from private hospitals were eager to work for public institutions. These hospitals, at the time, were well-staffed, affiliated with major medical schools, and supported by the tax base. Pilgrim State, a still-functioning state psychiatric hospital on Long Island, was actually built during the depths of the Depression, The original campus included not only a hospital, but doctors’ and nurses’ homes, a theater, a bakery, a laundry, a power plant and a firehouse.

What was different back then? Many things. Medical equipment was less expensive and less elaborate. But perhaps most importantly, people were willing to sacrifice and still had a sense of the common good.