Isaac Tessler, 21, is home again after his precarious adventures none the worse for his eight days’ experience with what he claims to be “missionaries” who kidnapped him and tried to convert him to Christianity. But Isaac, who was a Yeshiva “bochur” for three years remained immune to the promises and enticements of the “missionaries” and has returned to the solace and comforts of his tefilim.
According to Isaac, he was selling neckties on Broadway, somewhere between Spring and Grand Streets, when an automobile drew up to the curb. Thinking the man who was beckoning to him wanted to purchase a necktie, Isaac approached him, and that is the last clear recollection he has.
He remembers only vaguely of being confined to a room, and during various intervals of consciousness being coaxed into adopting the Christian religion and foreswearing Judaism. He was always treated kindly, though he insists that after each meal, he felt dazed and drowsy. For this reason, and to assert himself in some manner, he went on a hunger strike, until the “missionaries,” becoming aware of the uselessness of their efforts, released him.
So that at six o’clock Tuesday morning when the milk-man was making his daily deliveries in the tenement house where Isaac’s parents live, he found Isaac unconscious, and his eyes blindfolded with one of his own neckties. He is now confined to his bed though his condition is by no means serious.
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.
