The novel continues….. Need I say it? Although this novel is meant to capture a certain spirit of Knox, Indiana, this is fiction.Knox and her history and her citizens are the inspiration. No person living or dead is being depicted here. Please feel free to be my editor; comment and suggest…..
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101 North Washington Street
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Chapter 1, Paragraphs 1 through 4
Chapter 1, Paragraphs 1 through 4
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100 years ago there were Jews in Starke Center, Indiana. There certainly weren’t very many members of the tribe of Israel but there were more then than at present. Today in 2007, the only Jewish citizens of Starke Center are those few that intermarried with a son of the community. This invariably happened during their hot-bloodied and weak-headed college years. The offspring of these intermarriages certainly don’t worry much about any sort of religious or cultural Jewish tradition and don’t particularly stand out from the crowd of raucous or sullen children on the public school grounds. More likely than not they end up going to church on Sundays.
The 1907 census of Jews was brief. Just where the 2 rail lines crossed at the edge of town, the scrap metal and junk dealer (David) nurtured his business and family. A few miles out of town on one of those same rail lines, the potato, onion, asparagus, and pickle packer (Israel) nurtured his business and abused his family. To finish the list we must add the owner of the Weiss Department Store (Abraham) just starting a family in his quite splendid and very fashionable new home on 101 North Washington Street, a decent and sensible city block from the rails.
Always carefully considering the dangers of exciting envy, David the junkman and Israel the pickle broker each maintained a shabby lifestyle, living well below their means. Of course this care to be modest and unobtrusive about their wealth backfired, as it always has even since the enslavement in Egypt. Because they hid their wealth they were naturally branded penny-pinching, greedy Jews, the ugly killers of Christ. Somewhat ironically and entirely typically, David and Israel were always first to donate generously to the victims of fire and flood. Was this due to their natural compassion, the commandments of their religion, or the hope to throw off the Curse of Cain, the murder of Christ? The answer is no doubt a bit of all the forgoing.
Abraham Weiss was far less worried than his two brethren. The new home on Washington Street was the finest in Starke Center. Abraham’s wife Sara (Honest to God, he married a gal named Sara!) was artistic, educated and cultured. (Today we would call her artsy-fartsy.) Abraham’s family had been in America for 2 generations and Sara’s for 3. David and Israel and their wives were all immigrants. Of course there was the social gulf but the important distinction between the Weisses and the other Jewish families was their lack of fear. Abraham and Sara hadn’t had the experience of an old fashioned, ass-kicking, Russian pogrom.
The 1907 census of Jews was brief. Just where the 2 rail lines crossed at the edge of town, the scrap metal and junk dealer (David) nurtured his business and family. A few miles out of town on one of those same rail lines, the potato, onion, asparagus, and pickle packer (Israel) nurtured his business and abused his family. To finish the list we must add the owner of the Weiss Department Store (Abraham) just starting a family in his quite splendid and very fashionable new home on 101 North Washington Street, a decent and sensible city block from the rails.
Always carefully considering the dangers of exciting envy, David the junkman and Israel the pickle broker each maintained a shabby lifestyle, living well below their means. Of course this care to be modest and unobtrusive about their wealth backfired, as it always has even since the enslavement in Egypt. Because they hid their wealth they were naturally branded penny-pinching, greedy Jews, the ugly killers of Christ. Somewhat ironically and entirely typically, David and Israel were always first to donate generously to the victims of fire and flood. Was this due to their natural compassion, the commandments of their religion, or the hope to throw off the Curse of Cain, the murder of Christ? The answer is no doubt a bit of all the forgoing.
Abraham Weiss was far less worried than his two brethren. The new home on Washington Street was the finest in Starke Center. Abraham’s wife Sara (Honest to God, he married a gal named Sara!) was artistic, educated and cultured. (Today we would call her artsy-fartsy.) Abraham’s family had been in America for 2 generations and Sara’s for 3. David and Israel and their wives were all immigrants. Of course there was the social gulf but the important distinction between the Weisses and the other Jewish families was their lack of fear. Abraham and Sara hadn’t had the experience of an old fashioned, ass-kicking, Russian pogrom.
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