Streets change. I love looking at photographs turned to near “sepia” with age… photographs showing a familiar corner a 100+ years ago and then, in contrast, a photograph, crisper in detail, of the same corner today.
And if the difference is dramatic on a famous lane, the Champs Elysee par example, or Broadway, can you imagine how different it would be on a “little street” like Legion Avenue in New Haven?
Take any city of size in this country and there are “sections” or “neighborhoods”. Often these can relate to an ethnic base. Further, the very street name can designate the quarter. Grand Avenue is “Chinatown” in San Francisco, Arthur Avenue is “Little Italy” in the Bronx, Wooster Street is “Little Italy” in New Haven and Legion Avenue is the “Lower East Side” in New Haven… read that as Jewish.
As I say, streets can change. Legion Avenue as the nexus of Jewish life in New Haven no longer exists. Gone are the shops, businesses and residences that characterized this as a “Jewish neighborhood”.
But in the front half of the 20th Century, Legion Avenue was home to my Grandmother, Mommie Sophie’s Kosher meat market. It was also home to the small grocery store owned by Mommie Soph’s Sister and Brother-in Law, Saralei and Chaim (the same Chaim who Zachary is named for).
And probably no different than countless neighborhoods in other cities, and the “small streets” contained therein, there are personalities, men and women, who frequent those streets, who take on a life beyond their specific existence.
Welcome “Naretsky” to our story.
If he had a first name it is unknown to me. If it was his real name, as opposed to a nom de plume, say… it is unknown to me. In fact, until a few years ago, I didn’t know that Naretsky was a person… I thought that naretsky was a Yiddish adjective, or perhaps an adjective employed as a noun, that translated to messy, sloppy or filthy… or a filthy pig.
You see… in growing up, if Mommie Soph thought that my appearance was unsatisfactory (meaning that I would reflect poorly on the family & it would be a shanda), I was referred to as a “naretsky”. You know… “Look at you!! You’re a naretsky!!”
Apparently, Paul, 11 years my senior, was subjected to the same scrutiny. When I recently asked him about the term, he knew exactly what I was talking about. Lynn, on the other hand, was totally clueless. Now folks, my sister is sharp as a tack. The fact that she was unfamiliar with term can only mean one thing: Mommie Soph never thought she was “naretsky”.
When our Cousin, Ruthie Friedland (nee Danziger), current Family Historian, was called in to adjudicate the issue: “who or what is Naretsky?” her reply was clear — he was a filthy animal who hung around Legion Avenue.
Well… maybe he didn’t begin that way.
Naretsky came from an area that was referred to as the “Pale of Settlement.” This was land at the far western portion of the Tsar’s Empire, and it is where Jews were permitted to live. Naretsky came from a tiny village near Bialystock, in what would today be Poland.
His Father was a man of means… a local merchant for lumber and a collector of taxes on behalf of the Tsar. It would be because of the latter activity that Moishe Naretsky would be murdered and his wife raped in a local Pogrom conducted by citizens unhappy with paying taxes (they didn’t know about dumping tea into Boston Harbor, for example, as an alternate method of expressing civic unhappiness with the authorities).
Our Naretsky was not a man of business. He was a man of the “book”.
He would read the Talmud from the first light in the morn to the last fraction of light in the eve. He would do this without pause, taking no notice of food or drink or other personal considerations.
Now, one would think with all this study, Naretsky would be considered a man of great learning. A great man, other men seek out for advice and counsel.
And this is where the true sadness of Naretsky’s life emerges. It’s like a guy who spends hour after hour in the gym practicing foul shots, and for whatever reason, never becomes a good foul shooter.
Sadly, regardless of how much Naretsky studied, it could not turn him into a scholar. Regardless of the fervor of his pursuit, the goal of wisdom would elude his grasp.
While his wealthy Father was alive he did not have the weight of worldly concerns preying on him. He had the luxury to study… eating and bathing weren’t a priority.
His father gone, their fortune drained to a pittance, Mother soon gone to heart break, Naretsky took what remained of his meager possessions and traveled by rail across Poland to Bremerhaven. There, armed with the name of a cousin who lived in New Haven, United States of America, he booked passage to the modern land of “milk and honey”. He traveled “steerage class” (no shuffle board or “deck sports” there).
He made landfall at Ellis Island (just like Mommie Soph did), and then made his way to New Haven, Connecticut. Naretsky had no trade. Nor was he a man of great learning. Had he been a true scholar he would have enjoyed a sense of pride and self esteem, and also a small means of self support.
No. He was merely a simple mortal “trapped in a room” peopled by learned men; but lacking their razor sharp intellect and keen vision.
There would not be a morning where he would not awaken to say his devotions to open a chapter on a new day. But try as he might, he knew that he was no further along the path to the wisdom he sought.
He still had a disregard for worldly concerns… just as he had in the “Old Country”.
What is concern for appearance before the Mightiness of God on High? It is but a trifle to the Supreme and to one who believes!!!
******
“So, who are you calling Naretsky??”
“OK Mommie Soph… I’ll comb my hair…”
You know, on important things, you couldn’t fool Mommie Soph.
