They ALL Came Over on the Boat!

When I hear immigrant stories about your relatives, my relatives, my Jewish neighbors and friends relatives who came over on the boat, I picture them ALL together on one boat! Huddled together, scared together, hungry together, hot/cold together, sick together. Sharing their stories, their pains, and dreams for new opportunities. They had little space for privacy. Little space for being alone in their thoughts. So all that was left was to share their stories with whomever would listen. By the time they got to Ellis Island, they knew everything about their fellow passengers. They were family, mishpacha.

Hence, why Jewish geography is a real thing?

Can you picture in your mind the last scene in Yentel with all the immigrants bunched together trying to make the best of a crowded and difficult journey, with hopes for a better life? And can you envision yourself sitting at the Thanksgiving table in the movie Avalon, where they never let anyone forget what they went through to get to America?

I see scenes of shared experiences.

I see scenes of collective expressions of hardships and losses.

I see scenes of hopes and prayers for a freer future.

And I see scenes of the elders saying to the young ones, “Never forget! History has a way of repeating itself if we forget the past!”

Shakespeare comes to mind with, “Whereof what’s past is prologue.” The past may just be what it is, our past. But because the future is still to be written, maybe starting at the past to understand and evaluate circumstances and choices, can help to bring the future into clarity with the past as our greatest teacher, and actually be the beginning.

So what is our takeaway from what our relatives suffered through?

For me, it’s legacy.

One of the ancestry websites has recently offered to help find out why you’re a great dancer, why learning languages comes easy to you, why you like raspberries more than strawberries. Learning about our ancestors gives more insight into who we are, why we are. I believe that nothing in life is random, everything happens for a reason/purpose. I would hope that purpose is to educate and learn from.

My Grandfather, Pa to everyone, was a defeated man before he even got to America. After being run out of the Ukraine by the Bolsheviks, twenty family members had to travel to Warsaw where they lived for several years before they could get to Le Harve, France, to board a ship. The money sent from a Chicago relative for the passage never appeared at the Warsaw post office. Much time went by until one day, the heroic and generous Chicago uncle appeared in Warsaw after making the crossing, only to find the postal workers had stolen the money. Once reimbursed, the entire family found their way to Le Harve for their voyage to freedom.

Finally upon boarding, Pa was turned away because of either pink eye or athlete’s foot, family members are still arguing the real cause. He had to stay in France while my Bubbie went with the family to America, as she was pregnant. They all decided the child should be born in the United States. After a treacherous crossing that made Bubbie very sick, and before arriving at Ellis Island, she gave birth. Doctors advised her and the child not to travel so they were put in two different New York hospitals while the family went on to Chicago, where within weeks, Pa’s father died. And several weeks later, Bubbie and Pa’s baby died.

After six weeks of recuperating, my brave and courageous Bubbie then chose to sail back to France instead of going on to Chicago, so she could be with her husband while he continually applied for his visa. Ultimately, on July 1, 1923, 101 years ago to almost the day I’m writing this!, my Grandparents boarded The France, a French built ship, with over 2000 people on board. After years of enduring the adversity of running, they arrived at Ellis Island on July 23, 1923. They both separately once told me, “The best years of our marriage were the two years in Paris.”

Their difficulties in life didn’t become the be-all-end-all once in the United States. They lost several more children, WWll took a toll on making a living so they left Chicago and moved on to Los Angeles. My Grandfather became quiet, angry and depleted from trying to support his family, though they always got by. What I saw was a man who felt the responsibility of his mother and siblings when his father died, seeing himself as a “Jack-of-all-trades” with no great successes. I believe he always felt like a foreigner in a new land, like he never fit anywhere. He wavered between Yiddish, Russian and English. The only passions I remember him having was playing pinnacle, watching boxing on TV and going to the schvitz baths on Friday nights!

He and Bubbie had little in common. She was an educated girl from the Ukraine because of a wealthy grandfather (a rabbi and merchant) who raised her. Pa was bigger than her five feet, he could shrey (yell) louder than anyone, so she learned how to handle him with kid gloves. She cooked his favorite foods, had them on the table before he walked into the kitchen and avoided arguments for the sake of the children.

My Bubbie is my hero. She raised me and my brothers after our parents were killed in a car accident. Even though my Grandparents lived in our house, by then Pa was an empty soul. He and my youngest brother bonded in a relationship that was not shared with anyone else. The innocence of childhood. I am grateful that they both had each other.

The one story that is a classic about Pa is the day he found a Rolling Stone magazine in my brother’s room! He ranted and raved that a young teen should not be exposed to such “schmutz!” (dirt). At the time, he worked very hard by driving up and down the California coast, in his packed truck, selling different tchotchkies, bolts of material, and his best seller, “An outdoor water statue of Jesus!” Oy, how he bragged about how much money he made off of Jesus! On his next trip north while in San Francisco, my Grandfather bulldozed himself into the offices of Rolling Stone, and in part English, Yiddish and Russian, he gave them a piece of his mind! OMG!

I felt compelled to write about my Grandfather because it feels as though his story isn’t  important in the family narrative. He surely was not a bad man, he just got lost in the journey to what he had hoped would be a better life for a large family. Without him, there certainly would not have been his three children, his seven grandchildren, his six great grandchildren and his three great, great grandchildren. Though most of his off-spring never knew him, he gave us all life in America with opportunities that are being fulfilled and most likely with little gratitude to the man we called, “Pa.”

This is a complicated legacy for my family, while I’m sure not too different than many immigrant families. For me, what’s most important is to tell your family’s journey, as everyone has a story to share and let younger people know that their privilege was hard to come by from those who sacrificed much more than any of us can imagine. I recommend sitting together and watching the wonderful movies that tell our Jewish journey, that then can open the dialogue to your mishpacha’s history before they disappear.

We have volumes of shared experiences about our Jewish family members who have suffered deprivations to make life better for the generations to come. And sadly, a narrative that continues in 2024 so we MUST let the children know, “We Must Not Forget!”

“Whereof what’s past is prologue!”

Movies to help educate! Fiddler on the Roof, Shindler’s List, An American Tale, Yentl, Exodus, The Jazz Singer, Avalon, Crossing Delaney, Brighton Beach Memoirs, Life is Beautiful, The Pianist, The Fabelmans, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, The Frisco Kid, The Chosen