The B'nai B'rith magazine · 1927-06-01 · 9 (6.1927) · p. Seite 374

Thinking Aloud WALKED in Battery Park, New York, and came to the aquarium. Once this was Castle Garden, the landing place of multitudes of our people. And there I met a Jew who was standing outside looking far over the water, and who began to think aloud when I spoke to him. "They have an interesting collection of fish here," I observed. "I don't come here to see the fish," he replied. "About once a year I come here just to look and think." "Of what?" I inquired. "Oh, of many things that fill me with wonder. ... I see the millions of our people coming over this water to this landing place. ... I see my father and my mother. . . . Forty years ago they landed here. . . . On this stairway their feet walked—their feet and the feet of millions of others. * * * "For me this is a sacred way, hallowed by the footsteps of our people, . . . Here they made their first steps in the new land after timeless wandering. . . . Here they came to a home. ... I can see my mother's footsteps here. "Here they landed with little beyond the book of the law and the books for prayer which were wrapped with the bedding. ... I still have the books my father brought. "I turn away from the water and look backward and see these millions of footsteps scattering over the land. . . . The footsteps of my parents turned south. * * * "All poor, huddled immigrants, frightened by the might of the new land, uncouth, speaking no word of the language. They disperse toward many cities and on the way they do not forget the prayers of the morning and the prayers of the evening, though there is much else to concern their minds. . . . The children cry. . . . Eude train attendants distress them. . . . Their hearts weep for the old land. . . . After all, they say, there they were understood; there they had friends. . . . But ' the prayer of the morning and the prayer of the evening were not forgotten. . . . My father told me that in the train he laid his t'fillin. By Urva Porah "I see their footsteps on hot country roads. They carry great packs on their backs. . . . My father peddled tinware. . . . And after a while each in his wandering comes to a community and says, 'Here I will make my home.' . . . And he stops and opens a small store. ... He is the first Jew in the community which regards him with suspicion. "But in a little while they come to respect him. . . . They loved my father. ... In time they made him a county commissioner. ■* * * "I see the millions of others landing here and following the footsteps of my father and of the others who came here forty years ago. . . . So, in this community and that, there appears another Jew and another and another. "My father told me of his joy on that day when the second Jew presented himself in his town. . . . The two of them, out of their own spirits, commence to build a Jewish life. . . . And others continue to come this way to join them. . . . The wonder of it all is not the business success that they built out of their poverty but that in their distant communities they never lost touch with the spirit of their people. * * * "I like to come here to look over the water from which they came and then to turn my face westward and behold the Jewish life that they constructed out of the richness of their spirits, poor as they were of purse. "They brought here meager goods and the riches of character and with this endowment they came to a fine result. "I come here every year at jahrzeit and walk in the footsteps of my parents. Some day I will propose that the Jewish people erect a memorial here on which shall be inscribed these words: " 'Here millions of our people landed to become citizens of this land of promise. Here they came with the riches of their Jewish inheritance in their hearts and out of this they erected a new Jewish life, and even in remote places they guarded their inheritance. Here they walked. Honor their footsteps.' " * * * It was a day when a great steamship was departing from one of the docks not far away. A vast crowd was on hand to bid godspeed to the voyagers and among them were the handsome sons and daughters of Mr. X. Mr. X was returning for a visit to Russia. He had landed at Castle Garden thirty-five years ago and now was going back to his native town, for the single purpose of standing at the graves of his parents. But Mr. X was in great distress. In an hour the boat would depart and Mr. X had forgotten his t'fillin. He must have them. How could he go to his father's grave with the consciousness that he was so careless of his father's teaching as to neglect this essential of devotion? From the beginning Mr. X had been faithful to his t'fillin. * * * He turned to his sons. Their automobile was waiting on the street. Let them hurry back home and get his t'fillin, he pleaded. ... In a half hour they could be back. "Ah, father," they protested. "Why worry about that? You can buy t'fillin when you get over there." The daughters, too, were quite impatient with him. "You are so old-fashioned, father," they protested. "You are still clinging to old ways though you landed here thirty-five years agfr." But Mr. X was obdurate. He must have his t'fillin. If the sons refused to get them for him, he would go himself. And so, at length, they went. Mr. X sighed. "What's to become of the children? They are without Jewishness themselves and they laugh at my Jewishness." Somehow this incident on the boat seemed a sequel to the reflections of the Jew at Castle Garden who looked over the water and saw the millions of his people bringing gifts of Jewish life to the land. "The t'fillin I wear are the very ones I brought over when I came here," said the one who was departing for his native land. "I don't ask my boys to lay t'fillin but only to show a little juedischkeit." 374