Page 267 - The Legacy of Abraham Rothstein - text

Reminiscences

because of their past, I guess—they thought the military could do
anything. They didn’t really understand in America the military is just
part of the system and does what the executive branch and congress
tells it to do. So you could tell they came from a country where the
military ruled the place. They thought the military could solve all the
problems, make everyone work harder, be honest, and straighten out
the United States. My father signed the papers for me when I went
into the Navy at seventeen.
My father’s children pulled him into the twentieth century, got
him to travel, to spend money and dress well; but it was a struggle.
You can see in those old photographs the Rothstein brothers all
dressed up in fancy clothes, but that was when they had that clothing
shop downtown. When they got out of that business and opened a
garage, they got out of those clothes, for good. They were all against
Ford: not only was he anti-Semitic, but they hated the fact that you
had to buy Ford tools to work on Ford cars. And none of the
brothers was ever sick; all very healthy, skinny, dark-complected
men—built like spring steel.
They were all honorable people. If they gave you their word, that
was like a contract. They wouldn’t say much, but you could build a
bridge on their words. And if you were a liar, they wouldn’t have
anything to do with you. You find this in the Quakers, the Amish:
farmers, really, who meant what they said. Joe would talk about
fishing, and he would laugh; Abe would wrinkle his forehead and talk
about philosophy; and my father could have a reasonable
conversation about a lot of things. They could all speak a lot of
languages; my father was fluent in Spanish, and could even speak a
little Chinese, German, and Italian, as well as Polish and Hebrew.
So even with all their psychological baggage, they had a lot of
book-learning. They knew who Nietzsche was, and Einstein, and all
the Jewish philosophers; and who the good presidents and
Democrats were. In fact, their talk was very cryptic, almost like they
were all philosophers. Like, “the world is falling apart,” or
“Americans don’t understand the Russians.” Everything was
pessimistic. All three of them collected a lot of stuff, my dad
primarily tools.

263