The Hills That Divide

By Robert T. Cohen

The Hills That Divide transports you to a time between 1848 and 1924 when America represented an escape from persecution, poverty, starvation, and death for 30 million European immigrants. Among them were a Jewish shoemaker from Russia, an Italian sulphur miner from Sicily, and an orphaned son of a tannery worker from Ireland who came to Haverhill, Massachusetts to find work in one of its many shoe factories. The immigrants and their children became laborers, managers, union representatives, or even factory owners.

Haverhill was surrounded by hills that not only reflected the geographic and residential division of its immigrant population, but also their religious, cultural, social, and economic differences. Haverhill was a true melting pot; that was a good thing. But ethnic and religious prejudice, greed, income inequality, and class envy caused the pot to boil with hostility that was further heated by disputes between owners and workers, often resulting in strikes, lockouts, and violence.

While love, religious faith, human kindness, and self-sacrifice helped to lower the pot's boiling point to a more tolerable simmer, the immigrant families had to deal with other challenges, including alcohol abuse, sibling rivalry, teenage rebellion, interfaith marriage, homophobia, betrayal, and tragic death.

The Hills That Divide lays bare the eternal human themes of survival, resilience, love, success, disappointment, prejudice, betrayal, tragedy, and redemption; it reflects the dynamic struggle between the good and the dark side of human nature.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Aug 11, 2020
• ISBN: 9781098327446

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DISCUSSION

CHAPTER ONE:

MERRIMACK SHOE

COMPANY - 1925

Who the hell is calling me on Labor Day in the middle of my holiday barbecue? It can’t be good news, grumbled Fire Chief Kevin Sullivan to his wife, as he reached for the blaring telephone. This better be important, God damn it!

Chief, we’ve got a five-alarm fire down on 266 River Street. Flames and smoke are pouring out of all five floors of the Merrimack Shoe Company. We called Methuen, Plaistow, and Groveland for help. This is as bad as it gets, an excited Assistant Fire Chief Tommy O’Brien told his boss.

It took eighteen hours to extinguish one of the biggest fires in the 285-year history of Haverhill, Massachusetts, the country’s second-largest manufacturer of women’s shoes.

At a press conference the next morning, Fire Chief Kevin Sullivan told reporters from the Haverhill Gazette and other local newspapers that an investigation into the cause of the fire was underway. Fire Marshall Sean O’Connor stated that he could not rule out arson nor murder, noting that the charred remains of two bodies were found on a staircase between the third and fourth floors. When asked what the owner of Merrimack Shoe had to say, O’Connor said that he was too upset to talk with anyone.

At a local tavern one day after the fire, a drunken customer turned to his equally intoxicated friend and said, That Jew bastard owner of Merrimack got what he deserved.

CHAPTER TWO:

THE JEWISH IMMIGRANTS

Was it by choice, by accident, or by the invisible hand of God’s will that generations of Jews lived in Odessa, Russia, a multi-ethnic city founded by Catherine the Great? Secular historians contend it was a combination of circumstances beyond their control and decisions made by a people accustomed to being expelled from hostile countries. Religious Jews believed that everything was God’s plan.

In 1877, the year of Jacob Philip Kahn’s birth, there were 125,000 Jews living in Odessa, one-third of the city’s total population.

Regardless of why and how his parents settled in Odessa, if Jacob, whom everyone called Jack, had free will, he never would have picked December 25th to be born. Like most children, he did not want to share his birthday with anyone else, let alone with someone believed to be the son of God by 20% of the world’s population. For at least one day of the year, Jack wanted to feel special. But sharing a birthday with Jesus was always too much competition. But this apparently was his fate.

As a child, Jack lived with his father, his mother, and his two-year older brother Benjamin on 18 Gospitalnaya Street in a rundown apartment in the Moldavanka district of Odessa, a poor and crowded neighborhood. Like most of their neighbors, the Kahns made just enough money to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves.

When Jack was eight years old, he could remember his mother Rebecca, predictably called Mama by her loving family, standing over a pot of boiling potatoes. He would never forget the sweat from her saturated babushka scarf dripping into the pot. Complaining in a strident voice to her husband Naftali, affectionately called Tata by everyone including friends and neighbors, This apartment is so small, we could put the children’s tiny bedroom into our slightly larger bedroom and stack them into the kitchen like Russian nesting dolls.

Tata, she continued, look at the plaster. It’s peeling off the walls showing studs crooked as a witch’s nose. The ceilings are bulging like your brother Sam’s belly. I’m afraid for our family to walk under them. They are ready to collapse and kill us all, God forbid.

But Mama, Tata responded while stroking his salt and pepper beard. A 55-year old man of short, frail stature, and a conflict-avoider by nature, Tata was not inclined to take on his taller, heavier, and more assertive wife.

Approaching Tata with a menacing ladle in her shaking hand, Mama shouted, Don’t ‘but’ me. You’re a shoemaker. Make more shoes that I can sell so we can move out of this death trap. And, in the meantime, wash those filthy windows. The soot is so thick, I can’t tell if it’s day or night.

Without being told, Jack knew that his family lived in poverty. They ate the meals of poor people…cabbage, potatoes, beets, herring, and as many variations of boiled and fried chicken that you could imagine. No part of a chicken was thrown out. Jack and Ben fought frequent battles over the last pieces of gribenes (chicken skin fried in its own fat). Tata even sucked the marrow out of the chicken’s bones, almost choking to death one time.

One of Jack’s chores was to go to the neighborhood market and bring home a live chicken. Jack never forgot the cacophony of dozens of clucking chickens as he opened the front door of Salinsky’s Meat Market on Puskinskya Street. As if the deafening noise was not bad enough, the pungent odor of chicken droppings was so bad it was enough to make anyone a vegetarian.

On one near-death occasion, Jack turned to the blood-covered owner and told Mr. Salinsky, This place smells worse than a morgue. Then risking a meat cleaver in the head, he suggested with great irreverence, Why don’t you take your chickens out for a walk in the park once in a while? Maybe they’ll crap less in your store. Mr. Salinsky was not amused.

"Jack, geyn dred," countered Mr. Salinsky with the Yiddish request that he go to hell; a fine thing to say to a nice Jewish boy who was running an errand to bring a chicken home for Friday night Sabbath dinner. Wasn’t life in Moldavanka already living in hell?

Along with Tata and Mama, Jack shared his poor existence with his older brother Ben, with whom he competed for the attention, affection, and approval of their parents. It wasn’t enough that Jack also competed for an exclusive celebration of his birthday with the world’s most famous Jew, i.e., Jesus Christ. For these and other reasons, Jack grew up needing to be seen as somebody special. He promised himself that, in one way or another, people would eventually come to admire and respect him.

Jack’s appearance would be described by most members of the fairer sex as pleasing to the eye. Brown eyes. A full head of black curly hair. A straight, but clearly Semitic nose. A lean and muscular build. Not tall, but average height. When asked about his height, Jack would claim that he was taller than what he was. He believed that a man’s height was correlated with athletic ability, leadership, and sex appeal. You’re really cute, Jack were words often used to describe him by women of all ages. Jack may not have been tall, but he was perceptive. He knew instinctively that cute was not handsome. So began his need to compensate for not being as tall, as many women would prefer.

Jack had above average athletic ability. He was fast. But he was also smart and cagey. Football in Russia (known as soccer elsewhere) became popular in the late nineteenth century. Football did not put a premium on height. As a result, Jack fell in love with the game. His reputation for being a very good football player brought the highest compliment from his neighborhood friends; he was among the first to be selected to play. Peer approval made Jack feel good about himself. His self-confidence and positive self-image increased with every precision pass and goal scored. Successfully competing in athletics became very important to Jack. Later in life, he shared his passion for sports with his children.

In school, Jack also distinguished himself as an excellent mathematics student. His logical mind helped him solve problems with numbers. This skill and knowledge would serve him well in business. But Jack had little interest in other subjects like history, which he found comparable to reading an obituary or stories about dead people, as he would lament. Whatever happened in England in 1215 was of no practical consequence to Jack. So what if a King’s divine right to rule was successfully challenged by the English lords? Whatever happened in England nearly 700 years earlier should have stayed in England and be England’s concern, not Jack’s.

Jack spent much of his high school years focused on sports and favorite subjects like math. However, as either fate or luck would have its way, his most favorite subject became Rose Levinson, who sat next to him in his boring history class. What irony! Rose, who was not only loving and kind, but also beautiful. With long black hair, piercing hazel eyes, olive complexion, an ear-to-ear smile framing alabaster white teeth, all resting on a fully-developed curvaceous body, she was the stimulus of many teenage boys’ nocturnal emissions, including Jack’s.

After several months of staring at and dreaming about Rose, Jack passed a note to her asking if she would walk with him the following Sunday through Alexander Park. As an inducement, he even offered to treat her to a blini. Rose read Jack’s barely legible note and replied, Only if it’s a blini with sour cream. The deal was sealed.

That Sunday morning, as he unsuccessfully tried to brush his unruly hair into some form of compliance, Jack was interrupted by Ben, who walked into their shared bedroom and asked, So where are you taking the future Mrs. Jack Kahn on your first date? Jack glared back at Ben with sibling contempt. It’s none of your business.

Jack, I know why you’re so nervous about taking out Rose. She is only the most gorgeous girl in Moldavanka, if not in all of Odessa. And you must be asking yourself why would she go out with Quasimodo? Certainly not for your looks or money, because you have neither.

Having had enough of Ben’s sardonic humor, Jack took full advantage of his athletic prowess and threw his hairbrush into pretty-boy Ben’s nose. Ben’s nose bled like the raging flow of the Don River. Had Jack broken his nose, he would have returned the favor by breaking Jack in half. Jack made his escape before Ben could retaliate, and left to pick up Rose.

The weather that Sunday was cloudy with a threat of rain. But nothing was going to forestall Jack and Rose’s destiny. As planned, Jack found Rose standing next to the Alexander Monument. Rose greeted Ben with a flirtatious grin and said, Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for you to ask me out?

Jack was speechless. Time stopped. Seconds turned into minutes that felt as if they had morphed into hours. Jack collected himself enough to recall his bedroom conversation with Ben. Rose, why wouldn’t I ask you out? I am talking to the most beautiful girl in Moldavanka, if not in all of Odessa. Yes, I took a chance that you would say no to my invitation. But you were worth the risk. The bigger question is, why did you agree to date me? Rose looked into Jack’s eyes, held his hand, kissed his cheek, and said with aplomb, Because we both love blinis.

In 1896, at the tender age of 19, they married one year after graduating from high school. Forever grateful to Ben for providing him the perfect answer to Rose’s question, Jack never stopped apologizing to Ben for nearly breaking his nose. Ben was more than a brother for Jack. They were best friends, despite Ben possessing qualities that Jack coveted.

Benjamin Kahn did have personal characteristics that Jack admired. Ben had an engaging personality, a highly developed sense of humor, self-confidence, a winning smile, and overall handsome appearance. However, being taller than Jack did put some strain on their otherwise loving, albeit competitive relationship.

Neither an athlete nor a student like Jack, Ben was nevertheless his parents’ favorite. Tata and Mama would never admit to that, however. We love you both the same, professed Mama to Jack. We are blessed by God to have the two of you in our lives. That provided Jack some solace. But he sensed the painful truth. Ben was the first born, the prince. Nevertheless, the brothers were inseparable. They played games with one another or with neighborhood children when schoolwork and household chores were finished. They sat side-by-side in the synagogue, and every night shared the same bed in their tiny bedroom summarizing and aggrandizing the day’s events.

Ben, if you fart under the blankets again tonight, I swear, I’ll shove a zucchini up your butt, Jack threatened his brother. Ben responded the same way every night, Okay, then I’ll have to shove the zucchini down your throat once it’s removed from where the sun doesn’t shine. Imagine the unique flavor and aroma. Not the most dignified of conversations. Luckily for both brothers, Tata and Mama hated zucchini and never had any in the house.

Years before Jack met Rose, Ben, the self-proclaimed older and wiser brother, couldn’t resist providing Jack diabolical advice on every teenage subject including courtship. Jack, how long have you been dating Sadie Gorelnick? asked Ben as they lay together in bed one night. Why do you care, Ben? Jack inquired with resentment for Ben’s attempted invasion of his privacy.

Ben responded, Listen to me jerk, I’m your older and wiser brother, and big brothers like me are supposed to look after their little brothers like you. And you are little, right?

Ben, you may be taller, but I’m smarter than you. Be nice to me or I won’t hire you after you finally graduate from high school when you’re 45 years old.

Ben ignored the insults. Okay, wise guy, tell me something, have you felt Sadie’s breasts yet?

Ben, that’s none of your business. Do I ask you why you spend so much time in the bathroom? Could it be that you discovered your middle leg is not just to pee with?

Ben restrained himself and decided to go back to giving advice on feeling breasts. I’m assuming you have not touched Sadie’s twins. If I’m right, take my advice. You must first get the permission of her parents, even if Sadie tells you it’s okay to do so. Otherwise, you’ll be sent to jail for rape, said a very sincere-sounding Ben.

Are you nuts? No way would I ever have the nerve to ask Sadie’s parents if I could touch their daughter’s breasts. Wouldn’t they forbid me from ever seeing her again? Jack asked.

On the contrary. They would respect you for paying them that courtesy. Most guys your age would never do so. And even if they say no, you probably will go ahead and touch them anyway, right? So what do you have to lose? Jack looked at his brother with skepticism, but deferred to his greater experience on this subject.

A few days later, Jack knocked on Sadie’s apartment door. He was invited in by Sadie’s father Reuben. So Jack, what brings you here on the Sabbath? You should be in synagogue praying with your family, exclaimed Sadie’s non-observant, hypocritical father.

Mr. Gorelnick, I’ve come to talk with you about Sadie. I am very fond of your daughter. She is my first girlfriend. And I have no girlfriend experience. I would never say or do anything to hurt or offend Sadie. So I’ve come to ask your permission to touch her breasts.

After Mr. Gorelnick caught his breath, he unleashed a torrent of Yiddish condemnation onto Jack. "Are you meshugge (crazy) asking me such a thing? It takes chutzpah (nerve) to ask my permission for you to treat my Sadie like a nafka (whore). If I didn’t know your father, I would have you arrested for indecency. But I’ll make you a deal. I won’t tell your father about this. But, for the next two weeks, I expect you to be in my apartment by 6:00 a.m. and empty and clean our bedpans. A dirty mind like yours should be very skilled at handling dreck (shit)."

It took Jack three months to forgive Ben. After all, he was his brother. And Ben would give his life for him.

Ben’s humor made people laugh. Combined with his charm and good looks, he had no trouble attracting eligible young women. The very first fair maiden to be smitten by Ben’s sex appeal was Pauline Kniznick, the ultimate winner of his affection.

It was fate and good fortune that they would marry. Pauline and Ben had virtually grown up together playing in the neighborhood, attending the same school, sharing their families’ joyous occasions, sitting with Ben and Jack in synagogue for the Sabbath and Jewish holiday services, and experiencing their first boy/girl kiss. We might assume that Ben learned about breasts from Pauline.

Pauline was a perfect complement to Ben. She was soft-spoken, introverted, logical, responsible, serious, and practical. A great example of opposites attracted to one another. But they shared the most important thing...an enduring love, respect, and admiration for each other. The relationship worked very well, at least most of the time.

Shortly after they married, Ben, with the best of love-filled intentions, bought a surprise for his new wife. Pauline loved music. With money saved over many years, Ben bought a second-hand piano. So what if it had somewhat fewer than 88 working keys? What could be a better gift for Pauline than a piano? Noting that they had recently moved into an apartment even smaller than his parents’, a better gift would have been an apartment large enough to hold a piano. A hard choice had to be made. Either return the piano, or have no bedroom for future children. Pauline’s practicality won out. Going forward in that marriage, Pauline made all of the financial decisions.

Once the piano was taken away, Ben and Pauline shared a mission, i.e., fill the second bedroom with children: Sophie and Chana, two healthy, beautiful, and very energetic girls. To avoid losing too much ground to his older brother, in 1897, Jack and Rose welcomed Nathan into the world, to be followed by Sarah in 1899.

CHAPTER THREE:

SHOES AND GOD

In Moldavanka, making and selling shoes was a Kahn family affair. After graduating from high school, Ben and Jack worked alongside Tata 12-hour days, six days a week. The Kahns made and sold low-cost and poor quality shoes to their impoverished neighbors.

Their so-called workshop was actually three chairs around the kitchen table. In true craftsman fashion, each shoe was hand-made. They did their best with what they could afford…inexpensive tanned-hide leather, canvas, braided cord, and tools of the trade, including tack hammers, pliers, pincers, shears, awls, chisels, needles, scissors, nails, and shoe lasts.

The process had a certain degree of complexity. Using scissors to cut leather of varying sizes from patterns, Tata and Jack made the shoe’s leather parts: the sole, toe box, vamp (upper), throat, lace guard, tongue, quarters, heel cap, etc. Ben punched holes into the lace guards for eyelets with awls, then laced braided cord through the eyelets using needles and pliers. They also chiseled heels from wood. All of them assembled the various components into the final product with tacks, nails, and cord.

Ben, the comedian of the three, often quipped in the Yiddish equivalent, It takes a lot of sole to make a shoe. The groans from father and brother could not drown out Ben’s hearty laughter. Not to be outdone, Jack told Ben in the Yiddish equivalent, Keep up your vain attempt to be funny and we’ll shoo you away. Apparently, the Kahns loved a play on words.

Mama was responsible for selling the shoes. She displayed them on the curb outside their apartment, or worker’s shack, as future historians would describe them. She became quite expert in assessing what neighbors were willing or able to pay for a pair of shoes. Her first clue was the condition of the shoes they were wearing. The poorer the condition, the lower the price. The better the condition, the higher the price.

What? You want 50 kopecks for a pair of shoes that look like the cow had a terrible skin condition? protested a neighbor with shoes ready to fall off her feet.

So…the cow had a rash, which is less disgusting than your calloused feet. The best I can do is 45 kopecks, replied Mama with time-tested negotiating skills.

I’ll give you 40 kopecks. Take it or leave it, responded the neighbor with a caustic repartee.

It’s a deal, and may God bless you, your family, and your feet, said Mama with as much sincerity as she could muster.

Mama considered her flexible shoe-pricing scheme a mitzvah, or a deed of loving kindness. For her, it was like paying an insurance premium. The lower the price for a poor neighbor, the more likely God would find a comfortable place for her in Heaven. Mama believed that all good things come from God. Of course, she was never able to explain from where bad things came or why. But she always tried.

In any event, Mama’s hours of sitting on a stool with her wares by her side were rewarded with just enough money to sustain life with a small luxury every now and then. For example, a luxury in 1905 Moldavanka was a bottle of schnapps, a strong alcoholic drink resembling gin and often flavored with fruit. The Kahn men would have one drink of schnapps while celebrating the Sabbath. Two drinks, however, were considered a shanda (a scandal).

Tata was not as religious as Mama despite the fact that he was a kohan, a descendant of Aaron, the brother of Moses. Kohans, like Tata and his male offspring, were members of the high priest caste, even if they were not rabbis. As such, they would receive coveted honors during synagogue services. For example, they would be the first members of the congregation to recite a blessing over the Torah (the Old Testament). They would also be expected to adhere to special practices like not entering a cemetery if the deceased was not an immediate member of the family.

Because the kohanim have a genetic linkage to Moses and Aaron, they were looked up to whether they deserved higher esteem or not. To a large extent, Tata felt guilty about being a kohan. He should have felt honor and pride. Instead, he felt like a hypocrite because his doubts about God and disdain for many Orthodox practices would not have pleased either Moses or Aaron. A life of hard work, meager existence, personal sacrifice, and witness to the suffering of others made Tata skeptical about a loving and protective God. He was unwilling or, perhaps, afraid to deny there was a God. Nevertheless, his doubts diminished his faith.

But like many Jews, Tata and his family attended synagogue services, observed the Sabbath and Jewish holidays, kept a kosher home, and adhered to many rituals. But they did not believe that strict adherence to Sabbath, kosher dietary and other Orthodox practices were necessary to be considered a good Jew. They believed that a good Jew was honest, trustworthy, kind, loving, charitable, and law-abiding, whether the laws were secular or religious.

The Kahns would become Reform Jews straddling the religious and secular worlds favoring the latter. In the first decade of the nineteenth century, changes in Orthodox Jewish practices were introduced in Germany by leaders of a reform movement. Changes that were abhorrent to traditional Jews included the use of a cantor, organ, and choir during religious services, relaxation of Sabbath and kosher dietary laws, and allowing men and women to sit together in the synagogue.

The spiritual, cultural, and communal center of Jewish life in Odessa was the synagogue. In 1905, there were 70 synagogues. Most of them were small chapels crammed into neighborhood houses. However, some were monuments to the wealth and generosity of rich Jewish merchants and traders. The Kahns attended the famous Brodsky Synagogue on Puskinskya Street pictured above. Even though there were several synagogues closer to where they lived, the Brodsky Synagogue was the first Reform synagogue in the Russian Empire and only a few blocks away. The Brodsky Synagogue had a cantor, choir, and a magnificent organ, the first in Eastern Europe. It was an impressive, almost imposing, two-story limestone building of Gothic Florentine architecture. When completed in 1863, it was the largest synagogue in the southern Russian empire.

All men sat in long, narrow, and worn pews on the first floor of the synagogue, along with many, but not all, women. Mama was among those women who wanted to respect and continue the Orthodox tradition of women sitting separated from the men on the second floor or by a first-floor barrier. Dating back thousands of years to the First Temple in Jerusalem, the rabbis observed that the commingling of the sexes during prayer distracted the men. So they required women to pray separately from men. Reform Jews preferred to pray with their families by their side. Perhaps they started the expression, Families that pray together, stay together.

CHAPTER FOUR:

THE ODESSA

POGROM OF 1905

With few exceptions over their 3,500-year history, Jews have suffered discrimination, violence, murder, persecution, forced conversion, and expulsion from their homelands by Babylonians, Persians, Romans, and other European and Middle Eastern countries. For example, in 73 C.E, after the Romans defeated a Jewish rebellion against its reign, Jews were either brought to Italy as slaves, or forced to flee Judea. Those who fled to the Levant countries including modern-day Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Iran became known as Sephardic Jews. Those Jews who migrated and settled in European countries, including Germany, France, the Netherlands, Austria, Hungary, Italy, and elsewhere later became known as Ashkenazi Jews.

Starting in the sixteenth century, Ashkenazi Jews were ungratefully expelled from their host European countries after developing a merchant class of skilled tradesmen, doctors, lawyers, and educators. As the Jews migrated to Eastern Europe, the Russians, under Catherine the Great, forced its Jewish population to live in what was known as the Pale of Settlement. This geographic territory included modern-day Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Romania, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, and Moldova. Jews in the Pale of Settlement were frequent victims of both non-violent and violent anti-Semitism by local townspeople and/or government authorities like the police. Hatred for Jews was motivated by jealousy of their economic success; their foreign language, customs and dress; their tribal instinct to protect themselves by not fully assimilating into their host country’s culture (assuming that they were allowed to do so), and the Catholic Church’s condemnation of Jews as money lenders, Christ-killers, and other pejorative canards.

First recorded in 1882, the Russian word pogrom was used to describe the violent attacks on Jews that took place in Kiev, Kharkov, Odessa, and elsewhere within the Russian empire. Jews were falsely blamed for the assassination of Tsar Alexander II, inciting riots against them. During these pogroms, men, women, and children were beaten, maimed, or killed. Jewish businesses and homes were destroyed. Surviving families were driven into poverty. To protect themselves from these pogroms, Jewish university students in Odessa were among the first to form local self-defense alliances.

Tata Kahn had a 25-year old nephew Isaac, son of his younger brother Samuel. Isaac was a brilliant student who, despite strict quotas on Jewish admission, was admitted to the Odessa National Medical University. In addition to having an academically-gifted mind, Isaac was also passionate about Zionism and socialism.

In 1897, Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern political Zionism, sought to create a homeland for Diaspora Jews in Ottoman Palestine, later to become Israel in 1948. At the same time, socialism appealed to many secular Jews who believed that the real purpose of Judaism was to help God repair the world with deeds of loving kindness, such as helping the poor and powerless, both of which were in abundance in Odessa. So the focus of these socialist Zionists was not on faith, but action that included arming themselves.

The Kahns often celebrated Sabbath dinner with Tata’s brother Samuel, his wife Celia, and son Isaac. After dinner when the children went to sleep, the conversation turned to events of the day and politics. So cousin Ben, when will you finally admit that we Jews have no future here in Odessa or in all of the Russian empire for that matter? asked Isaac with an air of impertinence. Ben composed himself, waiting for the rest of the interrogation.

"Does a day go by when a Jew is not threatened with death, physical abuse, or asked to leave Russia? You certainly remember the deadly pogroms over the past few years. Aren’t you concerned about the safety and welfare of your family? What will it take for you to grow a large enough set of schnutz (testicles) to stand up to this anti-Semitic gang of bullies? Your daughters Sophie and Chana deserve a better future than what they can look forward to here, don’t you agree?"

Isaac, Ben patiently replied, you’re right. Jews are mistreated or worse every day. But look at the wealthy Jewish merchants and traders who live a prosperous life overlooking the sea. Despite the anti-Semitism, Jews can have a good life here in Odessa. Aren’t you living proof that, if you study hard and do well in school, even a Jew can go to medical school? Yes, there is too much hatred and violence and discrimination directed against Jews. But bad times don’t last forever. Remember how the Sultans of the Ottoman Empire had Jews as their doctors, lawyers, teachers, bankers, and leading merchants? Even today in Germany, the Jewish bankers are invited to dine, drink fine wines, and smoke cigars with the chancellor. Perhaps someday you will be the tsar’s doctor and convince him that the Jews did not kill Jesus, that we do not have horns, and that we do not drink the blood of Christian babies at Passover.

(Passover commemorates the Biblical story of the exodus, found in the Book of Exodus, the second of the Five Books of Moses, known collectively as the Torah, and by Christians as the Old Testament. Passover, one of the most important Jewish holidays, has been celebrated by Jews around the world for thousands of years. They have done so to commemorate the emancipation of the Israelites from slavery in ancient Egypt. Many Jews continue to conduct a service at home called the seder, the Hebrew word for order, during which the story of their ancestors’ exodus from Egypt is celebrated by reciting prayers and eating special foods in a prescribed order.)

Isaac paused and reflected on Ben’s points of view. "I