Lodz, 22 February 1928

My dearest and respected brother, as well as nephew, and dearest

 niece, Sol and E. Zissman,

I have received your loving 24-page letter and a $10 check. 
Now, I am sitting and thinking about how to answer your letter. 
I read your keen letter very many times, and I would like to
answer each word of yours.  However, unfortunately, devoted Sol,
I am so confused that I don't know what's happening to me.  

Since my sister sent her child here to me in the hospital, it
has been so trying on my health that I really am not able to
relate it all on paper.  Nine weeks have already passed since
the child has been lying here, and we don't see or hear of any
improvement.  To the contrary, it has become 50% worse.  My
brother-in-law, Lazer, was here yesterday.  I asked him to come,
but we both wept looking at the situation in which the child
finds herself.  To be sure, we don't even discuss how much money
it has already cost.  May she only not be left as an invalid. 
Our only encouragement is that the doctors are very hopeful and
say that, when she improves, she will begin to talk again, and
so on.  

Further, dear Sol, as to your writing that Ruchele is not well,
please write me how she is feeling, whether she is recovered and
whether the job that she is about to begin now will be too
difficult; her work may, chas v'cholilah, harm her.

Further, as to your writing how your brother-in-law conducts
himself and how you do not agree with him, I have a great deal
of pain from this because I always thought that when you had a
brother-in-law, he would be like a brother to you.  I don't know
the man and have no right to express myself concerning his
actions, but I am amazed, dear Sol, that your sister, Bryndl,
doesn't prevail upon her husband to get along with you.  What,
he doesn't want to work?  Who in the world doesn't want to earn
(his way)?  A ne'er-do-well, a good-for-nothing, a spendthrift. 
Believe me, Sol, I have the desire to do work that my ancestors
didn't do.  It is not shameful.  The greatest shame is to ask
another person for charity.  With the passage of time, he'll get
smarter and learn that there is nothing better in the world than
working.  As to your writing that he wanted to become a
businessman and demanded $1,500 of you and $1,500 of your
father, he must think that you are real bankers if he has the
nerve to demand $3,000.  However, the fact that he reduced the
price from $1,500 to $50 doesn't please me; it's not
businesslike.  A real businessman has fixed prices without
reductions.  However, dear Sol, as I see it, I can rely on you. 
You are in no hurry to give money.  Contrariwise, you are in a
great hurry to acquire money.  And that's the way it really
ought to be.  A businessman never is in a hurry to give...  

Ah, dear Sol, one can ask why you are in such a hurry to give as
far as I am concerned.  You know, Sol, customarily I would have
wanted to inform against you to your dear Esther because I have
no other way to deal with you.  If I had you here near me, I
might
give you a smack.  However, since you are far away from me, I
will have to ask your dear wife, Esther, to give you a good
smack because you have loose fingers and take after your uncle. 
When your uncle hears someone sigh, he can't control himself and
runs to help with whatever resources he has.  It's the same with
you, my devoted one.  If you hear only a sigh in a letter of
mine, you prepare and send a $10 check in order to ease the
troubles.  Yes, my devoted one, if you knew how much pain you
cause me with...  You're just like the doctor who undertakes to
perform surgery on a wound.  On the one hand, the doctor causes
the patient great pain; on the other hand, he is attempting to
cure his patient.  It's the same with you, Sol.  It's true that
your intention is to cure, to help, your uncle.  However,
however, how much pain you cause your uncle with your check... 
There are many kinds of people in the world.  I know many people
who are only on the lookout for such opportunities, for such
openings, in order that they not be required to work.  However,
my devoted one, I would not like to be assigned to this category
of people.  I would prefer to belong to another category, among
those who are given the honor by G-d to be able to make a living
without anyone's help!  It tears at my heart to read how hard
you work and how you run in pursuit of a dollar.  The result is
that, as fast as you earn it, you give it away even faster.  I
don't know whether all Americans do this, but I know that you
do.  

I also know many people in Poland who care nothing about the
letter that's received, but only about the few dollars...  I ask
you, "Are these menschen???"  This week, I happened to encounter
an example of this.  At the train, I saw your one-time teacher,
Rabbi Todros of Kinsk.  While he was exchanging greetings with
me, he also asked about you.  He asked how you are doing,
whether you write any letters, whether you have married yet,
whether you send money.  I reddened at these last words and had
a discussion with him for an hour and a half.  I asked him why
we here in Poland have accustomed ourselves to the fact that
America has to support us.  Will you there continue to be the
givers and we here the takers, etc. etc.?  In short, he pointed
out to me that 15% of the Jews live on help from America.  With
the opening of the doors of America, the need in Poland can be
eased and (those needing) the support payments can be reduced to
5%.  We parted.  He asked me to send you his regards.  He's
pleased to hear that you are doing well and, from your Yiddish
letters, he also sees that you have not yet forgotten what you
once learned in the Torah.."If your brother becomes
impoverished..you shall strengthen him.."

In any event, devoted Sol, in my last letter, I have already
written that I am out of the mill.  I had time to rescue the
$200 which you sent me two years ago.  I don't know what caused
you to send me a check.  How can I take anything from you when I
have never repaid you what I have borrowed from you up to now? 
I won't even mention all the other money.  I had intended to
deal with the last $200 for a period, to get on my feet, and to
be able to send you the $200.  Unfortunately, it hasn't turned
out that way.  As I have already written to you, the mill is
still standing idle today.  The reason is that a mill cannot
exist in that area this year because the large steam mills are
competing with the mills powered by water so that the latter
have to be liquidated and are destined to disappear....  

You see, dear Sol, this is my fortune.  My problem is that all
of my business dealings rest on thin air, not on solid ground. 
They totter on shaky legs...  It is for this reason that I am
tormented.  It is for this reason that I pour out my bitter
heart to you, devoted Sol.  I would at least like to receive the
last $200.  I would very much like not to remain a constant
moocher.  That's why I am so agitated.  I am constantly seeking
a way out.  Perhaps, after all, I will find a way to save my
life and existence.  Someone else in my situation who had such a
devoted nephew as you might perhaps have been in America for a
long time.  However, Sol, I am a little too logical.  I love you
too much to want to cause you any pain and to write to you what
the chances of making a living here in Poland are.  You suffer
enough because of me as it is.  You've endured enough from me
during the ten years time that I have burdened you.  Why have I
picked on you?  You are, after all, two saplings who have to be
permitted to mature, whose branches should not be hacked off
while you are young...  However, my precious and devoted one,
what shall I do?  To whom shall I turn when I don't feel that I
have another friend in the whole world who is so close to my
heart as you are?  And when I begin to feel the tugging, the
aching, I have no one to turn to with a letter other than you,
Sol.

It's the same now.  I have given serious consideration to the
proposal in your latest letter in  which you ask whether it
might be a good thing for me to go to Canada.  You stand ready
(to help), etc.  Sol, you hit the nail on the head with your
letter just as if you were here and had investigataed the
situation.  I came to Lodz two months ago.  I am not involved in
any business dealings because I don't have more than the $200,
and with such a sum it's difficult, for example, to set up a
store to sell soda water.  In addition, I am so fearful about
this money that I am afraid to risk it on anything.  I remember
a wise saying of your mother, may she rest in peace, that one
should not gamble with his last four nuts.  So, I have agreed
with my wife, and we have decided that, since we cannot achieve
anything here, and we have been struggling all our lives, and if
we want to arrange a marriage for a child we will have to
approach others for help, and in our old age we will have to
seek help again, and what after all will happen, how long can we
continue to take...the giver also becomes weary...so, we have
concluded to emigrate to Canada.  We have written to her parents
to rush things there, and we received a letter recently that's
it's possible that we will go this summer.  It is dependent only
on you and me, i.e., if we will all agree.  

So, my devoted Sol, my solution is that since I have the $200
and I am prepared to send it to you, you come to an
understanding with my brothers-in-law and with my in-laws
through correspondence and discover the sort of arrangements
under which they intend to bring us over and how long it has to
take until we will be able to go, and whether it's a good idea
to go, whether we will be able to make a living there, etc.  You
are well aware of the fact that I do not have great confidence
in them.  Besides, I hear when they write to their brother,
Hertzke, that he should be patient because they are not able to
(help), they are poor, etc.  I must point out to you that there
are big arguments there between the two brothers, Shia and
Berish.  They don't get along.  One lives in Toronto; the other
in Welland, also Canada.

So, dear and devoted Sol, I approach you as a brother.  Even
though I know very well that you are not on the site and it's
difficult for you to discover everything, nevertheless it would
be desirable for you to come to an understanding with them
concerning me.  I can rely on you.  You are mature enough to
judge a person.  Are they serious about this or will we have to
pull at and force them?  I will act in accord with what you
write to me.  

Further, as to your writing that it might be a good idea for me
to go alone and for us to register Balcia since she is going to
be eighteen years old, I can write you that everything is not
dependent on me and not dependent on you but on them there in
Toronto because they have to send the affidavits.  I understand
that they won't want to unless (they do so) for the whole
family.  Therefore, I write you to come to an understanding with
them because there can be no understanding between us.

So, devoted Sol, I think that I have written everything, and you
should know your uncle well enough by this time to understand me
thoroughly and sense how pressured I am and what drives me into
the world to earn a livelihood, all because, in my old age,  I
don't want to be without the means to live and be able to exist
and, chas v'cholilah, to be dependent on help from America, from
Toronto, etc.  I would like to be a person along with other
persons.  Whether I will be able to accomplish anything or, chas
v'cholilah, not, only the future can tell.  In any event, I will
know that I didn't sit with my hands folded and do nothing.  If
my brother-in-law, Berish, was able to become a storekeeper in
Canada, I will also try my luck in another country, not in
Poland.  What do you  say, Sol?  Will the poverty precede me
there?  

So, nothing more of importance.  Heartfelt regards to you, your
wife, father, in-laws, sisters, family, et al.  My wife and
children send loving and heartfelt regards to you.  Thank G-d,
Aunt Malke's gallstone condition is a little better.  She is up
and around, but is not completely well.  She sends her regards
to you and thanks you for the $10.  From my side, however, I
will not thank you in order that you will know that your dollar
is more important to your uncle than his own.

		With respect,

		W. Lewkowicz

		Lipowa 44

		Lodz, Poland

Best regards from Uncle Lazer, Aunt Estherl, et al.     


All material Copyright 1995 by Marshall L. Zissman and Sol J. Zissman.