In the aftermath of the Holocaust Josh’s parents were no longer very observant Jews.
However, they did maintain tradition by celebrating the Holy Days and kept a Kosher kitchen. When Josh turned twelve his parents insisted, he prepare for his Bar Mitzva. Most Jewish boys go through the ritual of a Bar Mitzva when they are thirteen. Simply put, a Bar Mitzva is a religious ceremony that celebrates a boy’s 13th year of life: it also marks the start of his transition from boyhood into manhood. After the ceremony there is usually a party for family and friends.
Against his will his parents signed him up to attend Hebrew school on 4th Street between 2nd and 3rd Avenues to study for his Bar Mitzva. The Haider (Religious School) was in an old run-down building that served as an orthodox Shul (Synagogue) and was also the Rabbi’s home. Josh was an excellent student in public school he did not do well in Hebrew school. The loss of his free time every day after a full day in public school affected his behavior, he acted out. It didn’t take long for the Rabbi to develop a dislike for Josh, the feeling was mutual. The Rabbi didn’t expel him, with six kids and a wife he needed the money the lessons bought in. After several months both the Rabbi and Josh agreed, he was not and would never be a Yeshiva Bucher (Good religious student). Time was getting short, his Bar Mitzva was only a month away. One afternoon the Rabbi gave Josh a typed transliteration of the portion of the Torah he was to read and the homily that he would give afterwards: he told him the transliteration and homily would be on top the Torah when he got up to the Bima (podium) to read.
A few months before the Bar Mitzva Josh’s mom took him shopping for a suit to wear for the ceremony. The first shop they went to was Mendelsohn the tailor’s shop across the street from their apartment building. His mother said, “If he has nothing in your size, we’ll go to Barny’s on 3rd Avenue.” Josh was friendly with two of the five Mendelsohn kids that were close in age to him. All five of them were skinny as sticks compared to Josh who at the time was a chubby kid. Mendelsohn and his wife were also very thin.
Once he asked his mom “How come the Mendelsohn’s were so skinny?”
She answered, “Because they are poor and don’t have enough food to eat. We are going to his shop first.
If he has a suit that fits you, we will buy it and that will be our Mitzva (Good Deed) for the day.” The Mendelsohn kids didn’t go to public school with Josh, they went to a Yeshiva (Religious School).
Mendelsohn’s shop window had the same two mannequins on display for as long as far back as I I could remember. One was male the other female, the clothing on they were dressed in had yellowed and faded with age. A thick layer of dust had accumulated on top of their heads, clothes and shoes. As young as I was, I had this feeling that Mendelsohn’s was not the place to shop for my suit. My mother went into the shop first, I followed her in reluctantly. Mr. Mendelsohn almost ran from the back of his shop to greet us. He was a little man, his back bent by years of sitting at a sewing machine. His hand gestures, voice and servile manner was almost identical to those of the movie actor Peter Laurie. Laurie had been the psycho killer in some of the scariest movies I’d ever seen. To me Mendelsohn’s shop I looked like the perfect setting for a murder movie. My childish brain started to fantasize, I imagined Mendelsohn was Laurie and scared myself into thinking that if we didn’t buy a suit from him bad things would happen to us. My mother walked over to a clothes rack that only had few suits on it. She took one of the suits off the rack and said, “Do you this one in my son’s size he’s going to be a Bar Mitzva boy next month.”
“I’m sorry I don’t have anything in his size,” he said.
Then Mendelsohn let out a loud Mazeltov (Congratulations/Good Luck) and then in Yiddish said, “Du zolts laben bis hunderd und tswanzig! (You should live to be one hundred and twenty!).”
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My mom thanked him for his blessing and his time and put the suit back onto the rack, then turned and headed for the door. Mendelsohn ran to the door and got there before we did and blocked us from getting out of his shop, he was in tears.
“What’s wrong Mr. Mendelsohn?” My mom asked.
“Mrs. You have to buy a suit, I have no money to feed my children, I can’t pay the rent you have to help me.”
“How can I buy a suit if you don’t have one that fits my son?” She asked.
“Mrs., I’m a tailor from the old country I will make it fit and I promise he’ll look like a prince when he puts it on.
“How much will the suit cost?” she asked.
“Seventy-five dollars, the suit is 100% pure virgin wool.”
“Sharpen your pencil, I can go to Barny’s and get him a suit that fits for half that price.”
“Okay missus, forty-five dollars and the boy will have a beautiful suit to wear. I’ll leave enough fabric so that it can be let out as he grows, he can wear it for another twenty Years. And please a small deposit so I can feed the kids tonight.”
My mom opened her purse, took out some money out and gave it to him and then said, “I want a receipt.”
The tailor had me get into a blue wool suit in a small man’s size. Then he helped me up onto a small platform. I stood still while he first pinned the cuffs on the pants, then the waist, and jacket marking everything the with a white marker. Each minute that I stood still felt like an hour. When I told him the suit was heavy and itched, he said, “It will get lighter after I cut off some of the fabric. All wool itches, you’ll forget the itching when you see how good you look in the suit.”
A week before my Bar Mitzva, I went with my mom to Mr. Mendelsohn’s shop to try on the suit. He grinned after I put it on and said,” Look in the mirror, you will see a prince.”
I didn’t see a prince in the mirror, I saw myself in a heavy, itchy blue suit. The back pockets of the pants touched each other. I felt the extra fabric he’d left in the of back of the jacket. Mendelsohn said when I got older and grew, he would let the fabric out and make the suit bigger for me. My mom was furious with Mendelsohn for the poor workmanship he put into altering the suit and she let him know it. He promised to fix everything if she’d pay him now. She ordered Josh to take the suit off and get to dressed. Then she said, “Mendelsohn, your kids are hungry because you’re not a tailor, you’re a clothing butcher.”
She took some money out from her purse, threw it down on the counter, picked up
The suit and said, “Let’s go.” My mom spent several evenings undoing and reworking what the tailor had done, when she finished the suit looked and fit me better but it still was itchy.
Two days before my Bar Mitzva, Mendelsohn’s wife went to the shop and found him hanging from an electric extension cord, he’d killed himself. First the cops came, then an ambulance that took his body to the morgue. My mom and neighbors went to where the Mendelsohn’s lived to offer their condolences console. They brought cooked food and groceries for the hungry family: by killing himself Mendelsohn had finally provided more food for them than when he was alive.
Guilt ridden my mom went to the Rabbi and told him about Mendelsohn and my Bar Mitzva suit and asked him, “Was his suicide my fault? Is this a bad Omen?”
The Rabbi assured her that she had nothing to do with his death. Mendelsohn was a man beleaguered with so many problems and no possible relief from them, he had reached his end.
He said, “Our community must help the widow and her children. Tomorrow my Yeshiva Students will go around the neighborhood to collect charity to help the family out.”
The Saturday of my Bar Mitzva standing at the Bima (Elevated platform and Lectern) with the Rabbi at my side I faced my family, friends and the congregation. I read the typed transliteration of the Torah the Rabbi that lay flat on top of the Torah. After that I delivered the homily that the Rabbi had written for me.
We all had a great time at the restaurant that my parents hired out for the party. The food was good, we kids got thimble size glasses of wine to drink with our dinners. At the end of dinner Angie and Patsy my two friends both said, “Synagogue on Saturday is as bad as Church on Sunday but the food was great.”
The itchy blue wool suit went into the closet that night. It didn’t come out of the closet until years later when my mom donated it to the Salvation Army. The yarmulke (Skull Cap}, Talus {Prayer shall), Tefilla (Phylacteries) and the embroidered pouch that held them given to me by the congregation disappeared as well.