The Human Touch

He Arrived, one of an impoverished band of Russian refugees, in Seattle, a year or so after the end of the World War, in 1919 or thereabouts. The shipload of human cargo had come from someplace like Vladivostok or a treaty port in China and were to find some sort of home in the land of the Fourteen Points and of the self-determination of nationalities. They had not eaten very well on shipboard; after all, they were not paying guests. Nevertheless, they struck, after which the menu improved, considerably.

The person who is the subject of this little anecdote had been a Talmud student in the old country. He was a particularly gifted Talmud student; in fact, he might be called something of a Mahmud. But versed as he was in Holy Writ and in the commentaries thereon and able as he was to adjust himself to the most violent circumstances in the life of his time and country, he was no linguist. He knew Hebrew and Yiddish, of course, and little German, culled from his stay in the Berlin of prewar days. Having traveled though China and Japan with a pack on his back. and sometimes not even that, but with no Chinese or Japanese to help him on his way, he had made himself somewhat of an adept in the sign language. But not enough to keep himself out of an uncomfortable Chinese or Japanese cell when some petty officer failed to be convinced of his perfectly honorable intentions.

ONE SILVER DOLLAR

Well, this young Mathmid landed in the new world some time after the end of the war with one silver dollar. He knew nothing about the United States, except that in the old country it used to be known as “die guldene Medina,” and even less about the state of Washington or the city of Seattle. He couldn’t read a sign but he could smell a barber shop when he passed one, and he knew that he wanted a shave. He hadn’t had a shave in a week. He was well on the way to growing a beard he didn’t want, even if he had been a Mathmid. He needed a haircut just as badly but he knew enough about arithmetic to realize that he couldn’t have that too and have enough left over for a bite of food and a bed for the nightfall out of one silver dollar. Recalling what he was able to get out of a mark in the Berlin of 1912, he decided that a shave, with a little tip thrown in, would leave him seventy-five cents for the rest of the day.

He indicated by thumb show that he wanted a shave and sat down. He remained seated for a long time. There was quite a buzz of activity around him. He was aware of someone fussing with his hands and his shoes and with his crop of hair, but he couldn’t always see what was going on, because for much of the time his face was swathed in hot towels and he didn’t want to show too much ignorance by questioning the customs of this strange land. He didn’t want to be taken for a greenhorn, even if he didn’t know the language-at least not too much of a greenhorn.

A NEW MAN APPEARS

But it wasn’t very difficult for them to penetrate his disguise. When all their ministrations were over and the towels had been removed from this too-shaven face, he looked at the mirror and saw, for all practical purposes, a new man. He wondered for a moment whether he was himself. Then the barber put a piece of paper in his hand and he wondered what for. It was later that he discovered that on the paper was written the sum of $3.50, for all of the things he hadn’t asked. When the meaning of the piece of paper was finally communicated to our traveller by shouts and gesticulations and resort to pidgin English our former Mathmid made eloquent gestures with his hands and shoulders. Then one of the men in the shop pointed out that this must be one of the immigrants who had just arrived from the East.

Someone who knew Yiddish was sought. A nearby tailor was summoned to act as interpreter. To him our Mathmid explained that he had only one silver dollar, that he wanted only a shave, that he desired, and needed, other things in return for the solitary silver dollar, and what the devil were they pestering him about anyway?

The whole issue was thrown into a community conference and it was voted that in view of the curious circumstances and the fact that the party of the first part had received so much more than a shave that he was to pay over to the party of the second part the equivalent of one half of his silver dollar, with the other half of which he was to acquire as much food and shelter as lay in the capacity of that half dollar. And so it was done.

LINCOLN MISAPPREHENDED

My Friend Aleph Katz has given me somewhat of a clue to the inclination, habit, or predisposition of Jews to claim non-Jews as members of the race.

When he came to this country it was with somewhat of a shock and he is not easily shocked-that he came to the realization that perfectly non-Jewish men and women acquire Hebrew names, like Abraham, Simon, Gamaliel, Nehemiah, Joseph, David. I recall now that in my early newspaper days a Mormon missionary informed me that a point is made in Mormon families to name one son after a figure in the Old Testament and clergymen, in the Protestant denomination, at least, follow the same practice.

But when he was in Russia, he didn’t know all this, for the names of Russian Gentiles are generally Russian, and have no suspicion of Jewishness. Well, long before Katz came to America, he picked up a book, entitled, in Russian, “Abraham Lincoln” and read about that President of the United States who, having a Jewish name, he assumed to be Jewish. But there was nothing in the context to give definite assurance that this President was a Jew-only his name which, for a Russian Jewish lad, would be called prima facie evidence of Lincoln’s Jewishness. But Katz, even at that time, was somewhat of a skeptic. He reasoned that if Lincoln were a Jew, he would have heard about it before; as a result of which Katz left the matter suspended, until he could acquire evidence one way or another. The first Dickens novel Katz read in Russian was “Oliver Twist,” not because Oliver was ever a Jewish name, but because, flicking the pages, he came across the name of Fagin, which he knew to be Jewish, although Mr. Fagin was not perhaps the most palatable kind of Jew ever put in print. Katz might have thought “David Copperfield” a Jew and read the book after he had reached these states and had realized that Gentiles could and did take their Christian names from the Hebrew Bible.