Page 23 - The Legacy of Abraham Rothstein - text

A birth and a pogrom

his son should live and go to cheder. It brought tears to every Jewish
mother, tears of joy and hope that her son when grown shall be a Jew
observing Jewish law. When my younger brothers were born I saw
my mother cuddling the baby and crying, praying he should be a
good Jew, when those little boys came in to sing Sh’ma Yisrael.
It was my fortune to see the first light of my life in the week of
this pogrom. The Jews expected more outbreaks in the coming days;
fear and suspense gripped the people. On the day of my circumcision
the window-shutters were closed and no loud talking or singing was
permitted. It was the day of a Catholic holiday, and our family was
still in fear of another attack, although we had survived the riot; our
dwelling was south of where it started, and the mob had moved
north, where the better businesses were located. I heard this story
told by my mother over and over again from the time I could
understand speech. When I was small it impressed me so much that I
began to imagine seeing my own b’rit with the shutters closed, me
sitting on the broad window sill and eating cake and sweets. It
became a joke in the household when I persisted in remembering the
occasion; my older sisters used to laugh at me about it, which led to
name-calling and fighting. In later years I realized that imagination
had dominated my reason, and that it was during my brother Joseph’s
circumcision that I must have been sitting in the window.
But I do not doubt that this fear of pogroms left in my mentality a
scar for life. In my youth I was always afraid to go out in the dark and
was timid in school when boys jostled or hit me, and whenever I saw
a Polish boy walking towards me from a distance I went to the other
side of the street for fear he might hit me with a stick or throw rocks
at me and call me names and spit at me. Unlike the Protestant
children in the United States who never think of the Jesus-killing
myth and will play with Jewish boys, over there it was only the
Catholic religion, which imbued their boys with animosity against us.
Fear and timidity were growing within me—and, of course,
pessimism.

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