Starting on his second century today, Joshua Finkelstein, blind but cheery, wants naught but his pipe and a tin of fragrant tobacco.
“Grandpa,” as his cronies at the Yonkers Home of the New York Guild For the Jewish Blind like to call him, is the oldest inmate of the Home, but he is not aware of it. Last October, when he rose to the position of patriarch on the death of his dearest friend, Hirsch Smulowitz. it was deemed inadvisable to inform Grandpa. After all, his heart isn’t as strong as it used to be.
“Good old Hirsch.” Joshua would say, “there was a friend for you. Too bad he had to go to another institution for treatment.” For he thinks that his friend is still living and is being treated for ailing feet at another institution.
“Will Hirsch be at my party today?” he asked. No, Grandpa, Hirsch can’t come. His feet hurt a little more than usual today. Maybe next year.
REMINISCES ON KISHINEY
Usually he sits quietly in a corner smoking a pipe. He daydreams often. Sometimes he grows excited at the memory of the Kishiney massacres which he witnessed before his sight failed. “Mama! They’re breaking the chairs!” he mutters brokenly, “Oy, Gott the dirty muzhiks!” He lives again through the pogrom in which his inn, his sole means of support, was razed to the ground. He trembles and brandishes his cane at the invisible foe.
For him there is a real foe. He refuses to venture outdoors, for he fears the imminent attack. The massacre is the most poignant picture in his memory.
“A birthday party for me?” he asks modestly when informed his centenary is being celebrated today, “So much bother for me?” It seems to him that he must have passed the century mark–well, at least four or five years ago. But he admits that his memory isn’t what it used to be.
So, at three o’clock this afternoon, “Grandpa’s” numerous progeny and friends will sit around the table while he feels the heat of 101 cheery, blazing candles atop a birthday cake. Granda commences his second century. He sees not the banal world, but his own. He is blind but content.
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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.
