Page 272 - The Legacy of Abraham Rothstein - text

Reminiscences

Jordan (AR’s grandson)

He used to come over to our house on 48th Street at least twice a
week, maybe more; and we’d go to his house, maybe once a week. In
those days we didn’t have television, and people went to visit each
other more often. And kids didn’t have their own transportation and
go running around like they do today. A lot of things have changed in
fifty years. We went to the beach a lot. All the families did that, even
during World War Two.
Every time he came over I had to read. In fact, Hebrew was the
first language I could read; I think he started teaching me when I was
two years old. It turned out he taught me to read it with a Polish
accent, because most people I’ve met in Los Angeles who’ve heard
me read Hebrew say, “what an accent!” I would read the words from
a text, and as we went along he would interpret it. So I could read it,
even when he wasn’t around, but I didn’t know what I was saying
because he didn’t teach me how to interpret word for word. He
always seemed to be more interested in having me read the Hebrew
out loud than in my knowing what I was saying. He told me years
later he didn’t think he was a good teacher. I can remember times my
grandmother came into the kitchen where we were sitting, and telling
him to ease off on me. Once he got angry at me because I didn’t
want to read Hebrew that day; I must have been nine or ten years
old. He had brought me some caps for my cap pistol, and instead
threw them into the incinerator and burned them up. But I did learn
Hebrew well enough to have a bar mitzvah eventually, when I was
thirteen.
When I was a baby, he used to tell me biblical stories, about the
Egyptians, and so forth. I remember lying on the bassinet in the
bathroom while my mother was bathing me, and he came in there
and was trying to get my attention by rapping his knuckles on the
mirror. Another time, when I was a bit older, I was at his house, and
they fed me something that made me feel like I had to throw up. As
he was carrying me into the bathroom, I threw up all over his arm.
But he didn’t say anything or drop me, and I realized that it was very
good of him to remain calm.
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