6 October 3rd, 1946
Link to Forverts edition
Selling matches on the streets of Philadelphia become something of a game for me, not just a way to make a living. That’s how I approached it. And little by little I became so interested in the various people who bought the matches from me that I didn’t just call out my goods for sale, but I sang them out in my own way:
– Parlor matches, three for five! Parlor ma-a-a-tches, three for fi-yi-yi-ve!
And in my mind, something of that nign, which I heard from the badchen Berele Shakhnes, lingered…
I didn’t make any great fortunes, but still I considered myself a “big earner.” And when I bought a suit with my own money and dressed like a real American boy1, I was literally in seventh heaven and felt like no one was my equal.
That’s how I passed the time, and I picked up a lot of English in the street, and I even was able to argue even with a policeman. And then a Galician Jew suggested to me that I join him in nearby villages and we could earn a bit of money there. He was a peddler, the Galician Jew, who made the proposal to me; He sold towels and tablecloths and laundry and handkerchiefs and other such things, which he kept in a heavy suitcase. With this suitcase he schlepped around the nearby villages around Philadelphia, and there he already had customers everywhere, even regular customers who bought from him on loan. He toiled hard and saved as much as he could, because he wanted to bring his wife and children to America as soon as possible.
Every time he came into our house, he talked about it and complained that he was just a wandering foreigner without a home; He really wanted to have a home and moreover, he really missed his wife and children whom he left behind in a some shtetl in Galicia; He also complained that he had trouble schlepping the heavy suitcase around the surrounding villages, because he was afraid of dogs…
And apparently, that is actually why he wanted me to go with him to the villages; I will sell my matches, the “parlor matches” sold at the price of “three for five,” and he will sell his towels and tablecloths and all the other things that he carried in the heavy suitcase. It would be more haimlicher2.
He was sure that with such a smart and lively young man like me, he would no longer need to be afraid of the dogs, and moreover, he wouldn’t feel so miserable and he would have someone to speak to in Yiddish. The Galician Jew talked for so long to my mame until she agreed to give her consent for me to join him in the villages. And that’s how I became a villager in America…
I later picked up the English language in the villages. I even learned a couple of English songs and sang them. And the Galician Jew with the heavy suitcase was very pleased that I had joined him; He wasn’t so lonely and cheerless anymore with me coming along, because I was always happy; In everything I did, above everything else, I found the “comedy”3, and when my heart was in a good place - whether I sold a lot of matches, or for some reason or another - I would sing out at the top of my voice.
I would sing out the songs I knew - in Yiddish, Ukrainian, and also English - along my way to the nearby villages, and anyone who could spare a shilling would buy matches from me.
In one village, a young woman - a Christian - caught my eye; I liked her so much that when I came to her to sell matches, she welcomed me as a very distinguished guest, and it almost became love between us. She twisted my head so much that I walked around bewildered, as though in a haze. But this is something it’s best not to talk about…
After a while4, I was tired of schlepping around the villages, and I was really sick of selling matches. I could no longer say the same thing and the same thing over and over again: “Parlor matches, three for five….” I was simply disgusted by it. And then a landsman5 took me into his shop and taught me the craft of sewing shirts…
I became a “shirt-maker,”6 as it is called in America, and among the other landsmen who worked there, they said that this is better than pearls, because in America trade/craft is a brokhe7…
Working in the shop was completely different in those days than it is now; People worked longer hours and labored much harder than now. But one of the things that made working in the shop stand out at that time was that people sang while working…
And I really enjoyed that.
What didn’t Jewish workers sing while working in the shop! They knew all the songs from Shulamith8, from Bar Kokhba9, and from the other Yiddish plays inside and out. In addition, they knew many other Jewish songs. Beautiful folk songs, which evoked the warmest feelings in everyone. And together with the noise of the machines, or better said, over the noise of the machines which had been working full-speed since the early hours of the night, the air was full of songs of love and other heartfelt Jewish folk nigunim…
Jews who came to America from different countries - from Ukraine, from Lithuania, from Poland, from Galicia, from Romania, and from anywhere else - all worked and sang in the shop. And everyone brought with him a different style, different nuances, and sometimes even a new song that we hadn’t heard before. And everyone sang. We couldn’t not sing while working. It was very difficult to imagine how work in the shop could have gone without it…
And it’s safe to say that we often sang khazenishe10 tunes as well. The workers would sing khazenishe shtiklakh11 like this, going up like smoke12. And it was normal that, that in the middle of the day, amidst the noise of the sewing machines, you could hear voices:13
יעלה, יעלה תחנו–ני–נו מערב
ויבוא שועתי–נו–נו מבוקר
ויראה רנוני–נו–נו עד ערב
And soon everyone has has joined in, and it would become a “sing-along” in rounds. I remember how once our landsmen in Philadelphia suddenly started making a fuss14 about a new khazn who came to daven15 in the “Russian Shul”16 We heard that he was the brother of the famous khazn Pinie Minkowski, and he came from the city of Belaya Tserkov, which Jews called Sdeh-Levan17 and also Schwartz-Tuma18.
More than anyone else, the tumult19 was strongest from the the Belaya Tserkovans. But also the Vasilkovers, the Rybinkers, the Solovinkers, and all the other landsmen who were from that general area. And when everyone went to shul on Shabbes to hear the new khazn, I also went, and I really liked his davening very much. Around the same time, I actually took over a few t’filos20 from him, and then I began to sing them in my own way - both in shul and at work in the shop…
But the main thing I want to tell was not that the khazn gave me a few more nigunim to sing, but that I saw a few people davening in the shul who really caught me eye. I didn’t know who they were, these people. Still, I could tell that they must be very important people - this was clear because everyone was looking around with curious glances and whispering to each other. This interested me greatly and when I asked who they were, they told me that they were actors. Yiddish actors. They had come from New York to Philadelphia to perform Yiddish theater.
They pointed them out to me one by one, and told me their names:
– This is Max Karp!
– That is Moishe Zilberman!
– And this is Heine-Chaimovich!
They were all so young and beautiful and I couldn’t take my eyes off them… Here they are, the great Yiddish actors, about whom I have heard so much!… They came to hear a khazn. They came into the shul to daven - indeed to daven together with all the other Jews…
The more I looked at them, the more I was drawn to them. And when I heard afterwards among the landsmen that they, the Yiddish actors who had come from New York, would play Abraham Goldfaden’s Shulamith here in Philadelphia21 - and indeed not just in any theater, but in the beautiful Broad Street Theater - I could not think of anything else. The first chance I got, I went to the theater, and after I managed to get past the crazed crowd that was all around them, I said to them without any other introduction:
– Take me in, I also want to play theater.
He22 smiled when he heard this. He looked me up and down from head to toe, and said:
– Good. I’ll take you in.
I thought to myself, he likes me so much that he will take me soon to the very faces of the troupe - to Karp, Zilberman, and Heine-Chaimovich - and he would present me to them. They will soon give me something to do, and I will play a scene with them - just like Berele Shakhnes the badchen who was very much on my mind…
That’s what I thought. And for a little while, I was really happy with this.
However, it turned out differently: It turned out, they simply needed extras for the performance, and they were looking for Jews in the community who would be eager and interested, so for this, I was hired…
Even so, I was satisfied. And when they let me out on stage for the first time23 alone with the “folk”24 who were traveling to Jerusalem and singing, “laden with all of our belongings, with walking stick in hand”, I was terrified, but at the same time I felt my heart sing inside me. I was happy. So happy, that I could not imagine any greater happiness in life, and even though I was not in the choir, I still sang with great joy:
Laden with all of our belongings,
With walking stick in hand,
We are walking right now,
To our holy land.
Everything I saw then on the stage enchanted me and I took it all in… Moishe Zilberman in the role of Avisholem, Max Karp in the role of Manoyekh, Yosef Vakhtel in the role of Tsingetang25, and Moishe Heine-Chaimovich in the role of Natan Khananye. But more than anyone else, I loved the actress who played the role of Shulamith herself…
Sara Adler26 played the role of Shulamith…
At that time she was not yet the wife of the famous actor Jacob P. Adler27, the “Nesher Hagadol”28 of the Yiddish stage, as he was called, but the wife of the actor and director Moishe Heine-Chaimovich…
And she was so young and so beautiful! And she played so well then, with so much artistic grace and charisma that I still can’t forget it to this day…
Years, years, where have you flown?
written “Amerikaner boi”: אמעריקאנער באי↩︎
“homey” or “like home,” implying a comfort/ease↩︎
he keeps a sense of humor about everything↩︎
Sam’s Lekskion entry suggests he sold matches for about a year. So, we can place the time in mid-1886↩︎
“countryman,” specifically implying someone from the same region in the old country↩︎
שירט–מעיקער↩︎
from Hebrew, “bracha” meaning blessing↩︎
An operetta by Abraham Goldfaden, the father of Yiddish theater.↩︎
“khazn”-ish; cantorial, religiously-inspired↩︎
little bits of khazn music↩︎
unclear idiom here, but presumably a good thing - filling the air maybe?↩︎
Below I’ve directly written the Hebrew (not Yiddish) as Sam wrote it out. This is a liturgical tune?↩︎
has a positive connotation here↩︎
pray↩︎
In general, and certainly in Philadelphia, Jews attended a shul founded by their landsmen. The “Russian Shul” is what is now B’nei Abraham, a Chabad shul on Lombard between 5th-6th.↩︎
This is the city’s Hebrew name; it means “white fields”↩︎
This is the city’s Yiddish name: “black church” (where this word for “church” has an implication of sin/ritual impurity), which is a play on words since its Ukrainian name “Bila Tserkva” means “white church”↩︎
ruckus; again, here it is a positive connotation↩︎
prayers, but can also refer to full services↩︎
This would have taken place no later than 1887↩︎
a manager, other staff - not one of the actors↩︎
This is Sam’s first performance - as an extra in Shulamith↩︎
commoner or lowly person; these are roles in the show↩︎
Avisholem’s African servant. This role almost certainly would have been played in blackface.↩︎
This is a play on words. This Hebrew phrase means “the great eagle.” In German, “Adler” means eagle.↩︎