The Hospital Service Club at the Educational Alliance on East Broadway held a “get together” meeting the other day. Primarilly a society functioning as an outlet for a desire on the part of old immegrant wives and mothers to perform “mitzvahs” or good deeds, it is also their common ground for social contact.
Mrs. Celia Kamelman, who for twenty-five years has supervised some fifteen hundred mothers in sixteen clubs at the alliance, invited a Bulletin reporter to visit the meeting.
About fifty were present, The secretary read a short report on the committee’s recent visit to an old people’s home, where girts had been distributed among the sick and needy. This was greeted with much applause, and after some more business relating to services of a similar nature in a Jewish hospital was discussed, the members relaxed. The chairlady, a woman of ample proportions and a brusque voice, called on several of the women to entertain.
Yetta, who Plucks chickens all day in a butcher shop on Attorney street, was the first volunteer. She excuted a song (you might almost say literally), with fire and vigor. Her voice belied her shriveled appearance and doleful face. Maybe it was a bit squeaky and off key, and the burden was robust. “You gotta have ‘it’ to get away without paying the landlord his rent,” she sang to her audience in Yiddish. The audience listened to her, approved, and joined in the chorus with good spirit.
BLESSED EVENT
A gentle old lady, a pushcart peddler, got up to anounce an important event in her life. Her yougest daughter, married to a school teacher, was about to give birth to her first child. Hearty congratulations and applause ensued. Mothers with single daughters eyed Sister Sarah enviously.
Rachel, a waitress in a vegetarian restaurant, had a bit of news, too. Her sonf was to be confirmed, next week, and she invited members to gather right here in the classroom, on that happy day, to celebrate with wine and cake. The hub-bub that followed almost gave the chairlady apoplexy. She beat her gavel to no purpose. Finally Mrs. Kamelman had to ask for silence. It was time to go, she said. The members rose obediently, sang the Star Spangled Banner, and dispersed.
In the hall they formed little groups, a colorgul arrey of women, many in shawls, This meeting, held once a week, is a highlight of their lives. It costs five cents a month to be a member but it is worth it, considering all the useful things they do with the money, and the gossip they squeeze into two hours.
Even now Malkeh, a spry little figure, related a tale that made their eyes sparkle with delight. It seemed that until recently, whenever she had attended the English classes held at the Alliance evenings, she was accustomed to hide her books under capacious apron. What! Let the Neighbors know she had to go to school yet? She, the most efficient housewife in the neighborhood, the best tsimmes cook on the cook on the East Side, and the shrewdest customer to drive a bargain at the pushcartsm must still learn from books, like a child!
But she wanted to know how to speak the language. When her grandson talked to her, she understood not a single word. So she swallowed her pride and sallied forth secretly in the evenig to her destination. Not even her own husband, busy with his lodge, the synagogue and his factory work, know where she went. She was afraid that he would laugh at her.
But wonders, it seems, never will cease, He discovered her books one day, hidden under a feather bed, and instead of making sport of her, he was so delighted and proud of her belated ambition that he actually kissed her for the first time in twenty years; kissed her right on the mouth.
Members left the Alliance building, made for their various homes satisfled,–their mitzvahs accomplished,– their mitzvahs accomplished,– and their social duties at an end.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
