“Look at this tray of beautiful herrings. They were just filleted, not more than an hour ago. I have fifty people working in the kitchen; forty of them do nothing all day but fillet schmaltz herring. This is not done by machine but by hand. They are experts. Every piece of skin is trimmed off; every bone removed. I have their hands insured by Lloyd’s of London.” The situation called for some hyperbole.
“I vant you should MAKE me a herring. Now!”
Coming from this customer, “make” was a command of biblical import.
I was losing my patience. She was taking up too much of my time. Filleting a herring is time-consuming work. Customers as well as employees waited for the climax of this Jewish standoff.
I went for the ultimate weapon in my arsenal. “Lady, do you know who I am?”
She looked at me quizzically, one eyebrow raised, waiting to hear who I thought I was.
“I am Mr. Russ.” I expected my pronouncement to end any further challenges.
It took less than a second for her response. “I know you. You’re not Mistar Russ. Your grandfadder vas Mistar Russ.”
She was right, of course. My grandfather, the real Mr. Russ, would have filleted the herring for her. No questions asked. It was, in fact, herring that brought him to America. Herring supported his family. Herring was how the Russ family survived in America. I was defeated. There was no choice but to fillet the whole schmaltz herring. I MADE her a herring. And, truth be told, I was actually happy to do it.
Gathering the Story
From the early 1880s to the mid-1920s, about three million Jews came to America from Eastern Europe. They fled poverty and pogroms, leaving their shtetlach in search of a better life. Among those people was my grandfather Joel Russ, who came from Strzyzov (Strzyżów in Polish), which was in an area known as Galicia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and now in southeastern Poland. While that sounds fairly regal, Strzyzov was a poor village and the Russes were among its poorest families. In its heyday Strzyzov had two thousand residents, half of whom were Jewish. After World War II and the Holocaust, no Jews were left in Strzyzov.
What was life like in the Old Country? Grandpa Russ refused to talk about his life before he came to America. Fortunately, two of the three Russ daughters, my mother, Anne, now ninety, and Aunt Hattie, now ninety-nine, are alive, living in Florida, and as lucid as ever. (The third Russ sister, my aunt Ida, also lived there until she died in 2001 at the age of eighty-six.) They, of course, attribute their mental acuity to eating lots of fish: smoked, cured, and pickled.
Getting them to reminisce requires me to visit Florida. Their gated community has a golf course, swimming pools, and tennis courts, but it still reminds me of Grandpa Russ’s shtetl: those who live within its confines are like-minded people dealing with an ever-present fear, in this case not of poverty or pogroms but of old age and death. Florida is filled with many such shtetlach.
Visiting my mother and aunts was challenging when they first moved south. I was expected to stop at each of the three apartments on the first day of my arrival for a meal—or, at the very least, some rugelach, a cup of tea, and a piece of fruit. God forbid I should turn down anything they offered me. While I ate, they fussed about in perpetual motion, asking me questions, keeping my plate full, cleaning the dishes, and straightening the room—a direct result, I suppose, of years behind the counter waiting on customers, filling in the showcases, and cleaning the scales and knives. I am now their only connection to the business that was such a big part of their lives. They wanted to know if Mrs. Goldberg was still alive, if Mrs. Schwartz was still married to that farbissener (sourpuss) husband of hers, whether the Rubenstein twins ever got married. (“Such a shame, they never had their teeth fixed.”)
Their Florida apartments contain little evidence of the lives they lived as they migrated from the Lower East Side to Brooklyn, then back to the Lower East Side, then to the suburbs, and finally to high-rise condos in Manhattan. There are a few pieces of furniture and a vase or two that have been schlepped along to each location because of some emotional connection that was never explained to me. There are the requisite tchotchke cabinets that now display only a few Hummel figurines or a porcelain dog collection. All of the souvenirs from trips to Niagara Falls or Israel are long gone. On the walls are framed photos of their children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and late husbands. The walls also have an ever-growing number of framed needlepoints, products of hands that refuse to remain idle in retirement. There is the swan-shaped candy dish that made the north-to-south trip and is always filled with the same recognizable candies: coffee Nips, Crystal Mints, and sour lemons. Their dentists tell them not to eat hard candies. Their doctors tell them to “lay off the salt.” They pay no attention. There is a coffee table with a stack of large-print books. Their apartments look down over golf courses and tennis courts. (Though they don’t play golf or tennis, it has always been about “location.”) They had big homes up north and now have no need for large living spaces. They have made it clear to their children: there will be no assisted-living facilities, no nursing homes. They will each finish their lives in their own apartments in Florida. “All the arrangements have been made,” they tell us. “Everything is paid for.”
To make it easy for myself, I used to take them out to their favorite fish restaurant for the early-bird special. This had its own problems, as the entire community of golden agers usually ate at the same restaurants at the same times and had the same hearing problems. With everyone shouting at everyone else, it was difficult to have a conversation.
Visiting has become easier now that my mother and Aunt Hattie are no longer very mobile. But getting them to remember their youth is often a challenge. I have come to understand that their lives on the Lower East Side were difficult and that they would prefer not to relive them. They see my persistent questioning as an annoyance. “Life was very hard; what’s to remember?” they have said to me in unison. (Getting the Russ sisters to agree on anything—even after decades of working and living together—should be considered a minor miracle.) If I go to Aunt Hattie with a question, her initial response is “Why are you bothering me with that? Go ask your mother; she’s younger, she has a better memory.” And when I go to my mother with the same question, she says, “Why are you bothering me with that? Ask your aunt Hattie; she’s older, she’ll remember.” I have also learned that if we share a meal—some nova, a bit of sturgeon, and soft bialys—that I bring with me from Russ & Daughters, the memories do come. But when they talk about the “old days,” I note that they don’t call them “the good old days.”
On my most recent visit, I asked my mother and Aunt Hattie to tell me what they knew about their father’s life in the Old Country. “Not much. Papa was sent out of the house at age nine to be an apprentice to a shoemaker. Later he walked to Germany to apprentice as a baker. He came from Strzyzov in Galicia. He never spoke of it. Life was very hard. He didn’t want to remember it. We didn’t want to ask.” There would not be much information here. I was on my own.
The Strzyzover Rebbe
At about the same time I was thinking about Strzyzov and my lost family history, I was also thinking about buying a new exercise bike. It seemed impractical to buy a huge piece of expensive equipment over the Internet; the shipping would be costly, and putting it together a headache. So my wife, Maria, and I began making the rounds of local fitness-equipment stores, including one in the Borough Park section of Brooklyn that was owned and staffed by Hasidic Jews. Our salesman there was the archetypal yeshiva bocher, a student of the holy books. Tall, skinny, pale, and with a wispy beard, he was clearly not an athlete. There was no chance that this fellow had spent any time on the equipment he was selling, which was in sharp contrast to the salesman at the previous fitness store we had visited on Long Island. The action figure-like salesman there clearly had an intimate relationship with his machines, and probably with steroids as well. Neither fellow was a particularly good advertisement for the equipment h
e was selling.
We left the Brooklyn fitness store without an exercise bike and decided to take a walk on New Utrecht Avenue, a nearby bustling shopping area under the elevated train tracks. Borough Park, once a culturally mixed community of Jews, Italians, and Irish, has become a fairly insular community of Hasidic Jews, who have one of the highest birthrates in the city. To those from outside this world, even to non-Hasidic Jews, this part of Brooklyn looks like a homogeneous community of Hasidim who all dress alike, look alike, and no doubt think alike. In fact, there are multiple sects within the community: Bobov, Belz, Ger, Satmar, Stolin, Vizhnitz, Munkacz, Spinka, Klausenburg, Skver, and Puppa Hasidim all reside here. There are subtle differences in their style of dress and their manner of prayer, but the most significant distinction involves the rabbinic leaders of each sect, to whom their followers are completely devoted.
As we were walking, I noticed a store that sold prepared food and had a glatt kosher (the most stringent level of kashrut) sign in the window. Everything looked freshly made and was nicely displayed. When we went inside, we were impressed by the variety of foods, many of which were familiar to me from my childhood: kasha varnishkes; stuffed derma; chopped liver; fried, boiled, stewed, and baked chicken; four versions of eggplant salad; several cabbage creations; and countless potato-based products. The staff was made up of older Jews and an equal number of young Mexicans. The Jewish employees wore yarmulkes; the Mexicans wore baseball caps.
We were waited on by one of the Mexicans, but all of our questions were being answered by one of the Jews who stood beside him: “You should buy the baked chicken. I just brought some home last night and my wife said it was better than hers. Why not buy a little eggplant salad? It goes perfect with the chicken.” He was clearly one of the owners. I engaged him in conversation.
“I’m impressed by your shop. The food looks very appetizing.”
“Thanks.”
“And I should know, I’m in the appetizing business.”
“You sell lox and herring?”
“Yes.”
His eyes lit up. “I love herring. Do you have a store?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“On the Lower East Side.” At this point in the conversation I expected him to come right out with “Russ & Daughters?” Most people do.
“What’s the name of your store?” He didn’t get it yet.
“Russ & Daughters.” No response. Not even a glimmer of recognition. He had never heard of it. I was deflated. Almost everyone in New York City, Jewish or not, knows the name Russ & Daughters. But on reflection, it wasn’t so strange at all. I was in the heart of Hasidic Brooklyn. Our store has always been located on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. But it wasn’t just the geographical separation. From its very beginnings, Russ & Daughters was not strictly kosher but, rather, simply “kosher style.” The worlds of “glatt kosher” and “kosher style” are two gastronomic realms that never, ever meet.
“Mark Russ Federman.” I held out my hand for a formal greeting.
“Yankie Rubin.” He shook my hand with genuine enthusiasm.
“Your store sign says ‘Meisner’s.’ Who’s Meisner?”
“He’s my partner.” Now it was established, store owner talking to store owner.
“Your food is familiar to me,” I said. “We’re Galitzianers. My people are from Strzyzov.”
Yankie became excited. “Strzyzov? The Strzyzover shul is one block from here. The Strzyzover Rebbe lives there, too. He’s a customer.”
I was floored by this stroke of luck. “You’re kidding!” I said. “I’ve been trying to get some information about Strzyzov.” My heart almost stopped. This was bashert, which is Yiddish for “fate,” “destiny,” or “meant to be.”
“Call me tomorrow and I’ll see if I have a phone number for him. He’s a very old man.”
Even better, I thought.
The following day, a Friday, I called Yankie Rubin, who gave me the Strzyzover Rebbe’s phone number. I called immediately, so I could reach the rabbi before the Sabbath began. A woman answered the phone and launched into an interrogation when I asked to speak with the rabbi.
“Who are you?”
“My name is Mark Federman. I got the rabbi’s number from Yankie Rubin, the owner of Meisner’s food store on New Utrecht.”
“Who?”
“Yankie Rubin.”
“What?”
“Meisner’s.”
“Where?”
“Under the El,” I said, raising my voice, thinking she either didn’t hear or didn’t understand me.
“Oh. And why do you want to speak to the rabbi?” She was clearly the gatekeeper.
“I’m writing a book about my family, the Russ family; we have been in business on the Lower East Side for one hundred years. I would like to find out whatever I can about Strzyzov, where my grandfather came from. Perhaps the rabbi can be of some help.”
“When did your grandfather come here?”
“1907.”
“And you want the rabbi should know what happened a hundred years ago?”
The lady was dead serious.
“No, I don’t expect him to have any direct knowledge, but maybe he knows stories or has books or pictures.” I decided to try a different approach. “And who am I talking to?” I asked.
“I am the rabbi’s wife,” she said in a different tone of voice, one with a certain practiced, lofty air.
“Oh, the rebbetzin,” I replied. It was an opportunity to use one of the few Yiddish words I had in my limited vocabulary.
She was unimpressed. “You can call the rabbi tomorrow.” For her, the conversation was over.
“But tomorrow is Shabbos.” I thought she might be old and forgetful.
“No!” she said, clearly leaving out but obviously thinking, You moron! “Tomorrow night at nine fifteen.” She was probably wondering why she had to explain this self-evident fact to a Jew.
The following night, at 9:15, I did call the rabbi. Once again, the rebbetzin answered, but she quickly put the rabbi on the phone.
“Rabbi”—I decided not to use the familiar form, “Rebbe,” quite yet—“I suppose your wife told you why I’m calling.”
“Yes?” This was somewhere between a declaration and a question, but I wasn’t sure which.
“My grandfather came from Strzyzov and established a business on the Lower East Side in 1907. We are still on the Lower East Side and still in business more than a hundred years later. Four generations selling herring and smoked fish.” I thought I might soften him up with the possibility of a payoff in food, but he cut me off.
“I don’t eat so much anymore. I have a bad stomach, diabetes.” He went on with a litany of ailments, as if he thought I was a doctor doing a medical workup. So much for the food bribe, which I realized wouldn’t have worked anyway: he was glatt kosher; we are kosher style.
“Well, I thought that since you are the Strzyzover Rebbe, you might be able to help me with—” He cut me off again.
“Are you an old man?” This question caught me off guard, but I thought it might be his attempt to be friendly.
“It depends. I’m sixty-four, but I think of myself as young. I’m in pretty good shape, thank God.” (I threw in the “thank God,” a phrase I don’t often use, to get on his good side.) “How about you, Rebbe?” Now I slipped into the familiar, thinking we had formed a relationship.
“You plus tventy. Vhere do you live?” Maybe he was warming to me.
“I live in Brooklyn. In Park Slope.”
He seemed to give this some thought. “Oh. Dat’s vhere dey have de expensive houses?”
“Well, I bought my house about thirty years ago. I couldn’t afford to buy it now. Who could afford a house in Park Slope selling herrings? Now, about Strzyzov—”
“I vas not born in Strzyzov. I only vent dere one time, tventy years ago mit my son. Nutting dere; no shul, no cemetery. Nutting. I vent to see de house of my grandfadder. I vent
to look at de house and all de neighbors came outside to look at me. I vas noivus. I left. Toidy minutes dere; maybe von hour. Nutting dere. My fadder vas born dere, 1900. He left in 1914, before de var. He vent to Romania. I vas born in Romania.”
“Do you have anything, any pictures, writings, or stories, about Strzyzov in the late 1800s or early 1900s, Rabbi?” Out of the familiar, back to the formal.
“Vell …” A long pause, as if he was not sure he should reveal this next piece of information to me, a fellow whose Jewish bona fides he seriously doubted. “I haf a book.”
“What kind of book?” My pulse quickened.
“Seyfer Strzyzov.”
“What’s in the book?” This was sounding too good to be true.
“It’s all about Strzyzov. How de people lived, about de rabbis, everyting up to de var, de second var, and it tells who died in de camps. Dere are pictures, too.”
Bingo! I had just uncovered the mother lode.
“Can I see the book, Rabbi?”
“Can you read Hebrew?”
“No.”
“Can you read Yiddish?”
“No.”
“Vell, it’s all in Hebrew and Yiddish.” Case closed, as far as he was concerned.
For me, a momentary setback. Perhaps I could get it translated.
“Rebbe, can I come and sit with you for a while and talk about the old days and maybe take a look at the book?”
“Vhen do you vant to come?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Let’s see.” Then a very long pause. “Okay. Tomorrow, five p.m.”
The next day I struggled with what to bring the rabbi as a gesture of goodwill, an opening gambit. Food from my store—some lox and bagels, a few herrings, maybe some rugelach—would be a very welcome gift to most New Yorkers, but not to a kashrut-observant Orthodox Jew, and definitely not to a Hasidic rabbi. Even without stomach problems and diabetes, the Rebbe wouldn’t eat the food from Russ & Daughters. My wife suggested some kosher wine. Good idea. So I stopped at our local wine shop and asked for the kosher wine section. The sales clerk needed to ask the manager, but they did have a small space on a small shelf in the back of the store with about five or six bottles of kosher wine. I spotted a Montepulciano, thinking it might be misplaced here, but the bottle’s label clearly read “Kosher for Passover.” This was great luck. I continued on to the rabbi’s home in Borough Park, realizing about halfway there that I had forgotten to bring a head covering—either a hat or a yarmulke, a skullcap. The choice then became either to go back, get the hat, and be late for the rabbi, or to be on time but without a respectful head covering. This was a dilemma of Solomonic proportions, but cutting anything in half was not going to solve it. Then it occurred to me that the few times each year I go to my own synagogue there is always a box of skullcaps in the vestibule for those who prefer to wear one and have forgotten their own. In our Reform temple, head covering is optional. No doubt the rabbi would have extra yarmulkes available. My decision: Do not be late for the rabbi.
Russ & Daughters Page 2
