Ellis Island: Three Novels

by Joan Lowery Nixon

  Rebekah knew she should rejoice for Nessin, who left work in the early evening in order to be on time for his classes, but each time he left the house she fought back a pang of bitterness, wishing that she were the one who was going to school. This was supposed to be a land of freedom, yet for her it was not.

  On Friday, soon after the first half of the order of boys’ pants had been picked up, wrapped, and taken away to be delivered to the manufacturer, Anna—who was usually too busy to visit them—came by to share their noon meal.

  “Anna,” Leah said, “the Shabbas meal tomorrow noon will be ours to share with you and Avir to thank you for your help.”

  Anna looked startled, then her gaze slid away. “We have no time to keep Shabbas, Leah. Avir doesn’t even go to synagogue much.”

  Rebekah was as shocked as her mother. How could they not keep Shabbas, the day of rest?

  “Anna! There is no question about keeping Shabbas!” Leah cried out.

  Anna still didn’t meet her sister-in-law’s eyes as she explained, “The sewing shops operate seven days a week. They have to. If our workers were not paid for seven days, they would leave us and work for someone else. And how could we possibly close down early on Friday? It is not just the blessing and the lighting of candles twenty minutes before sundown. It’s all that must be done to prepare beforehand. You know it takes time to clean the house and do the ritual washing.” Her tone became pleading as she continued. “Avir has been able to get some large orders, but the companies want the garments to be completed quickly. The sooner they are ready, the sooner they can be sold. Don’t you see, Leah? This is the way it must be, at least for now.”

  “For you and Avir it can be this way, if this is what you want to do with your life, but why should it be that way for us?”

  Avir’s voice startled Leah as he spoke from the doorway. “It must be that way for you as well. It is exactly as Anna has explained. Merchants are always in a hurry to have their orders filled. If we do not work seven days, as the others do, then we will get none of the orders and we will starve.”

  “Papa?” Jacob whispered.

  Elias, who had remained silent, twisted in his chair. “Sit down, Avir, and we will talk,” he finally said.

  As soon as his brother was seated Elias stated firmly, “We have always kept Shabbas. You and Anna—in Russia you kept Shabbas. It is our way and our obligation.”

  Avir looked down at his hands. “I would like to again,” he said, “but you have to understand, Elias, that many, many people are coming to this country. There are more people than there are jobs. When Anna and I first came there were many days we went hungry. I could never explain to you how frightened we were!”

  “You wrote that you were doing well,” Leah broke in.

  Avir and Anna looked at each other. Anna’s face reddened with embarrassment, but Avir shrugged. “You warned us not to go. Father thought we were wrong to leave Russia.”

  “The rebbes who warned against going seem to have been right in your case,” Elias interrupted.

  Avir impatiently shook his head. “We haven’t lost our faith. We were forced to adapt to the situation in this country. Listen to me, Elias. We were hungry. We could have starved, but I was fortunate to get a job in a sweatshop, while Anna …” He looked down at the floor. “For a while Anna scrubbed floors in an office building. It was honest work, but we were not happy. How could we be?”

  “But we saved our money,” Anna said, and she put a consoling hand on her husband’s arm. “And Avir was able to buy sewing machines and begin his own shop. We are doing well, now. We are able to give employment to others. We have been able to help you. We are not heathen, but our views are different now. We’re more American.”

  “By working seven days a week,” Elias said, “by not keeping Shabbas you have become American? Are there no days of rest and respect?”

  Avir jumped to his feet and excitedly waved his arms. “We are here in a free country!” he cried. “And you are here! We no longer have to be afraid for our lives just because we are Jews. Here Jews live next to Christians without killing each other. What more do you want, Elias!”

  “I want my family to keep Shabbas,” Elias answered.

  “You praise God every day through your prayers.”

  “Avir,” Elias said quietly, “Shabbas is our testimony of hope. What would life be without hope?”

  Avir sighed and dropped back into the chair. “Did you keep Shabbas on the boat to America? No, because of the circumstances you did not,” he said. “Again, it is the circumstances of how we must work that prevents us from keeping Shabbas. Someday we will keep it again, but if we worked only five and a half days, instead of seven, it would take us longer to complete our work, and the manufacturers would stop giving us orders. We would starve, Elias.”

  “What of those who work in the factories?” Elias asked, but Avir shook his head in frustration.

  “The factory workers keep almost the same hours and earn much less than we do. The factories are like death traps—no ventilation, no air or space.”

  Rebekah knew she should remain silent and allow the adults to settle the problem. A girl, even in the family, had no right to interrupt, but she quietly asked, “Why can’t the workers explain to the manufacturers about the importance of Shabbas?”

  Avir answered with a hoarse laugh. “The manufacturers know about Shabbas and our other holy days. Do you think they care? All they want is to make money.”

  “What if all the workers joined together?” Rebekah went on. “If they all refused to work until the working conditions were changed, then wouldn’t the manufacturers have to agree?”

  “My niece is an organizer and she’s only just arrived! I have heard talk of workers organizing,” Avir answered, “but it is nothing but talk. Nothing will come of it. Nothing can. With the hordes of people arriving in this country each day, the manufacturers can fire the workers they suspect of causing trouble and hire new workers. But you, Rebekah, must learn your place.”

  Impatiently dismissing Rebekah, Avir turned to his brother. “I have been fortunate to have my bid accepted for a large order which we will share—two hundred men’s coats—and we must work quickly to finish them by the promised date of delivery. You do understand, don’t you, Elias? As my brother I ask you to do only what I would do myself.”

  Rebekah held her breath as she waited for her father’s answer. Shabbas, the day of rest. Rebekah loved the Saturday full of prayers, forgiveness, and family closeness. Suddenly she thought of Aaron’s family. Was this why they had changed, too?

  Finally, Elias raised his head, but he spoke to his family, rather than to Avir. “When our people were enslaved by the Egyptians and forbidden to practice their faith, they kept their covenant with God, and eventually He led them out of bondage. Until we are established here in New York, until we are able to find a new direction in our lives, we will work on Saturday, but we will trust in God to guide us. We will keep our covenant with Him and hope God forgives us this trespass.”

  Avir let out a sigh of relief and climbed to his feet. “A wise decision,” he said.

  But Rebekah wondered what was wise anymore.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  AS soon as Avir and Anna had left, Elias told the others, “Work quickly. God knows that in our hearts we have prepared for the welcoming of Shabbas, so we will at least make time for the blessing and prayers.”

  Rebekah’s fingers flew as she stitched, and even the pair of brothers who worked for them were intent on their work, pleased at being included in Elias’s plans. When it was time to pick up Sofia, Rebekah ran all the way to the public school and tugged home her reluctant little sister.

  Leah had placed on the kitchen table two white candles in her silver candlesticks, loaves of challah covered by an embroidered cloth, and the kiddush cup, but all in the room were bent over their tasks, and Rebekah immediately went back to work.

  No one spoke during working hours. There wasn
’t time for social conversation, so Rebekah had paid little attention to the workers, aside from returning their polite greetings each morning; but when Elias announced it was time to wash and prepare for the lighting of the candles, Rebekah saw pleasure in their eyes.

  They all worked together to tidy the room as well as they could, then used the pitcher and basin to wash the black lint from their arms, necks, and faces. They gathered around the table. Leah covered her hair, then lit the candles as she recited the blessing.

  “Shabbat shalom!” Leah said to Rebekah, and the others repeated the greeting to each other.

  Elias led the Shabbas psalm, and they joined in singing Shalom Aleichem.

  Although Rebekah twice saw her mother glance nervously in the direction of Avir’s apartment, even Leah soon lost herself in the warmth of Elias’s blessings as he held the filled kiddush cup.

  After the ritual washing of hands, they sat at the table for the breaking of the challah and the festive meal. By the time the prayers after the meal had been said, Rebekah had heard from Asa and Mischa that they had come from Poland with their wives more than a year before. Mischa and his wife had a ten-month-old baby, and Asa’s wife was expecting a child within four months.

  “Born in America,” Mischa said proudly, and Asa grinned. “Not greenhorns!”

  “Born in freedom,” Asa said.

  This is freedom? Rebekah asked herself, but this was not the time nor the place for rebellious thoughts. She smiled, wished them mazel, and went on eating.

  Rebekah was thrilled when a little more than a week later a letter arrived from Kristin. Her words were like sunshine, and as she read the news of a new life, Kristin’s energy and enthusiasm gave her hope.

  “Father bought a farm, complete with a farmhouse, near the little community of Scandia. I have to admit that the countryside is beautiful and looks very much like Sweden. This part of the country is like being home since everyone around here speaks Swedish and decorates their houses the way they did in Sweden. My mother says it’s easier to be around our own kind.

  “Minnesota reminds me so much of home. At first I thought I would die from being homesick, but then a wonderful thing happened. I met a woman from Minneapolis. You should see the wonderful cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul! We saw the cities mostly from the train, but they’re exciting. I can’t wait to return someday and explore them!

  “Enough about the cities. Sigrid Larson is the woman I’ve met and she is unique. She is in Scandia visiting her sister. My father doesn’t like her because she says women can do as many things as men.”

  Kristin ended her letter, “Oh, how I miss you, Rebekah! Write to me! Tell me what you’re doing! I haven’t met any girls our age I like as much as you. Write soon!”

  Rebekah wanted to write. She missed Kristin and Rose, too. But Kristin lived in a beautiful town, much like the one she’d left in her own home country. Rebekah was embarrassed to tell her about New York’s Lower East Side and the kind of work her family had to do in order to survive. Before Rebekah fell asleep each night she’d begin to compose letters in her mind, only to toss and groan and discard each miserable attempt.

  Rebekah grew more and more impatient at the drudgery of her work, which caused an ache that spread from her lower back through her shoulders and into her neck. Toward evening her eyes burned and her vision blurred as she plied her needle in and out of the rough fabric with tiny, almost invisible stitches. Twice she brought up the topic of schooling to her mother, but on both occasions Leah sighed loudly and begged Rebekah to wait to even begin to think about such a thing.

  “There is so much we must adjust to,” Leah said, but her explanation didn’t satisfy Rebekah. Like so many of the other women who were crowded into this neighborhood, Leah wasn’t making much of an attempt to try to learn English. Elias firmly refused to listen again to Rebekah’s hope that he would break away from Avir’s sweatshop and try to find work as a tailor of quality garments.

  “This is not the time,” he had told her. “We are not ready yet to make such a drastic change.”

  “But when will we be?” Rebekah implored.

  Elias’s voice was gentle but firm. “Your grandfather must be sent for, we must pay back our debt to Avir, and we must support your brothers’ studies—especially Jacob’s—so they can make us proud.”

  Rebekah saw her dream fading, like the morning mists that had drifted so briefly over the sea. She ached with despair. If only her grandfather were there. And where was Aaron? Had he forgotten her already? Why hadn’t he come to see her? Was he caught in a trap like Rebekah’s—one from which he could find no escape? Would they both be condemned to lives of drudgery?

  The Levinskys had lived in New York City almost two months before a letter dated mid-June arrived from Mordecai. The sewing temporarily halted as Elias read the letter aloud.

  In his fine, spidery handwriting Mordecai reported that he had arrived safely in London. His cousin Samuel had not only taken him in, but had found him work with a book publisher who was in need of a Russian translator. The publisher was pleased with Mordecai’s work, and Mordecai was pleased with his new job.

  “The pay is not much above what I consider to be a fair weekly contribution to Samuel’s household,” Mordecai wrote, “but my needs are few, and I am thankful I’m able to save toward my next passage to the United States.”

  Mordecai sent his love to each member of the family with a note for each one. To Rebekah he had written, “Through your daily work and prayers, I hope you keep your dreams in mind. Someday they will come true and I hope to be in the United States to see them happen.”

  As tears flooded her eyes, Rebekah thought, Grandfather doesn’t know what it’s like here. How can I keep my dreams in mind when no one will listen to me?

  During the rest of the day, as Rebekah worked, her grandfather’s words kept returning.

  That night, before she went to bed, Rebekah wrote to Mordecai, pouring out all the frustration she felt at the horrible life they had to lead and at her parents, who seemed content to follow this endless path forever. “What can I do, Grandfather?” she wrote, hoping with all her heart that Mordecai would have the answer.

  Rebekah sealed the letter, and in the morning when she took Sofia to school, she mailed it. It wasn’t hard to convince her father to part with the money for postage, but she knew that every penny counted.

  She had been told how to find the post office by the school clerk, and she paid careful attention to the streets she had to cross. Remembering her earlier experiences, Rebekah was determined never to become lost again.

  She left the post office and strode to the corner, where she stopped, waiting for a large, heavily loaded horse-drawn dray to pass.

  “Please help me! Miss! Oh, Miss! Help me!” a voice called in Yiddish.

  Rebekah whirled toward the whispery voice and saw a woman clutching a husky baby boy. The woman’s face was white, and she struggled to focus her eyes, frantically reaching out toward Rebekah.

  Rebekah took the baby, then with her right hand she firmly gripped the woman’s shoulder—leading, supporting, and pushing her toward the steps of a nearby building.

  “Sit here!” Rebekah said. “Put your head between your knees.” She kept her eyes on the woman but felt the eyes of the little boy silently study her.

  “I’m sorry. For a moment I felt faint,” the woman mumbled in Yiddish, her head nearly buried in the folds of her faded and patched skirt. Slowly, she raised herself to a sitting position and leaned against the wrought-iron railing.

  Relieved that a little color was coming back into the woman’s face, Rebekah asked, “Are you hungry?” She fingered the two pennies left in her pocket.

  “No. It’s not hunger,” the woman said, and she glanced away, gently resting a hand on her slightly rounded abdomen.

  “Where do you live?” Rebekah asked. “Are you near your home?”

  “Please could you walk with me a short way? Just to the Henry Street
Settlement?”

  Rebekah’s look must have revealed her ignorance, so the woman explained, “That’s the place Lillian Wald set up to help Jewish immigrants. Last winter, when my boy ran a fever, her nurses gave him good care.”

  “The Henry Street Settlement is a hospital?”

  “No. It’s a clinic. Miss Wald is a nurse who comes from a wealthy family. They are German Jews not Russians, but she and her nurses live in the Lower East Side so they can help poor people. Each day her clinic does hundreds of mitzvahs.” For the first time the woman smiled, and Rebekah could see a gap at each side of her mouth where she’d lost a few teeth. “What you are doing for me is a mitzvah, as well, and I thank you.”

  She struggled to her feet, took a long, deep breath, and led the way to the Henry Street Settlement. Rebekah carefully took notice of landmarks: the house with its brown paint peeling, a flower pot in a third-story window, a sign offering room and board tacked to a front-door post. A new street, a new adventure.

  Each day I’ll go home a different way. I’ll travel a different street, Rebekah promised herself.

  She would have to work late to make up the tasks she was neglecting, but she knew her parents would agree that the performance of a good deed was of the highest importance.

  Inside the waiting room of the settlement were seated many women, most of them with babies and young children. There was a great deal of activity in the crowded room, as a line of women waited to register at a desk while nurses in starched white dresses arrived and departed, leading patients to other areas of the building.

  Rebekah was startled when a smartly dressed woman in a tailored blue suit suddenly stepped up to her and asked, “Have you registered your baby yet?”