Page 129 - The Legacy of Abraham Rothstein - text
P. 129

Immigration and sweatshops

        a  gain  for  their  group,  an  increase  in  the  diversion  of  giving  and
        receiving news of friends and relatives in the old country. After living
        for years in the hustle and bustle of New York, one longs to hear
        from  the  old  home  and  feel  himself  transported  as  if  on  a  magic
        carpet to that native soil where he knew everybody and everybody
        knew  him—even  if  he  were  just  a  pawn  on  the  home-town
        chessboard. Here, when one passes on to the beyond, even if he is
        the president of a synagogue, how many fellows will shed a tear over
        his grave—or even hear about it? But at the funeral of his father, a
        poor man uneducated even in Torah, almost the whole town came,
        and the women shed tears as if it had been their own son.
           It really was a marvelous country, to which a man could venture
        from  ten  thousand  miles  away,  without  relatives  or  acquaintances,
        with only a few rags on his body, and in a short time be able to make
        a living, establish a home and family, even sparing a little money to
        help others. Lodging was not as big a problem as it is today in this
        country.  When  it  happened—and  it  did  happen  many  times—that
        four ships arrived from Europe the same day in New York harbor
        with ten thousand immigrants, all who landed found shelter, more or
        less, and the next day it could happen again. Everybody lodged one
        or two men in their homes, in an extra room or the front room or the
        kitchen, to sleep one or two nights before going out to find work. In
        the Laws of Moses, there is a commandment, practiced by our people
        throughout  their  wanderings:  “And  thou  shalt  love  the  stranger,
        because you yourselves were strangers in a strange land.”
           We  arrived  in  Manhattan,  and  boarded  a  horsecar  that  circled
        around half of the island. Our getting on the car was not impeded by
        luggage, as I did not have one ounce of baggage with me. I had just
        the clothing on my back: an overcoat, an old faded second-hand suit
        I bought the day I left Warsaw, and those mismatched shoes—which
        my sponsors replaced for a dollar and a half that first day. My feet felt
        like they were expanding after those old vise-like shoes. They took
        me to Itzshe’s place, where I stayed two days; then I moved over to
        the house of another landsman, Yankele Gutterman, where I boarded
        and lodged for about two years. The next day they also bought me a
        suit,  a  cheap  one  but  fairly  nice-looking;  they  then  concluded,


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