A Narrative of Personal Events and Ideas

Abstract

I was born in New York City’s Lower East Side in December 1912, in a tenement house on 5th Street off Avenue C; until I was almost thirteen years of age, my family lived longest in a house on that Avenue between 8th and 9th Streets. I still remember riding on the horse-drawn street car through 3rd Street toward Avenue C. Several cultures competed and commingled in the setting of my formative years; the earliest was the Orthodox Jewish. At home, we observed strictly the dietary laws; our mother lit and blessed the Friday night candles; we knew Saturday’s taboo against writing, we were happy at Passover feasts, and gloomy on the Day of Atonement. For seven years I attended classes during the late afternoon or evening at the Downtown Talmud Torah at Houston Street, and later the Hebrew High School. The peddler’s push carts lined our avenue, and five days a week I woke to the sounds of peddlers screeching their wares in Yiddish, beseeching, supplicating, uttering challenges, insults, flatteries; on wintry days, they would burn wood and oil lamps to keep warm, and they feared the policemen’s clubs; they were mostly bearded, and wore strange hats.