Bubbe's Place: Stories

Mendel Ben Moshe Ha Levi

Mama and I approached the first stone. Mama read, "Mendel Stein...Mendel Stein? There was no Mendel Stein in Koshovato. You took us to the wrong place, Flo!"

I protested. "Look at the big stone marker," I said. "It says in English and in Yiddish, '"Koshovato Landsmanschaft.' This has to be the place."

Papa brushed me aside so he could read the tombstone clearly. He read "Mendel Ben Moshe Ha Levi," then suddenly shouted, "It's Mendel, Mendel the Pharmacist! This is his grave! Such a shande, shame. A beautiful man and America killed him!"

I repeated, "America killed him? This story I must hear. Did they lynch him, Papa? Stab him during Pesach? Tell me! I am not a child; no story is too gory for me."

Mama urged calm while Papa organized his memories. As he did so he stroked his beard thoughtfully. Then he began.

"In Koshovato, Mendel the Pharmacist was famous. He was respected. In Koshovato we had no medical doctor, so Mendel the Pharmacist was our doctor. He was so good, even the goyim, Gentiles, came to him for cures.

Mama interrupted, "In an emergency even the priest asked Mendel for cures." "He knew which plants to chew to relieve pain,"

Papa continued, "and which leaves to boil in water to relieve der boychveitik, stomach ache. Mendel even had a cure for arthritis. In America he would have been a millionaire. In medicine, Mendel was der kinstler, the artist, der boym foon veissendik, the Tree of Knowledge."

Again, Mama interjected, "All the men would gather in his store--" Papa shook his head and asked, "Excuse me, but who is telling this story?" Mama grew silent, pressing her lips together. I grew more impatient, but I knew better than to rush Papa. "Mendel the Pharmacist was generous with his advice and help," he continued. "Though he never turned away a poor unfortunate who couldn't afford his services, still he grew rich.

"In all of Koshovato only two people got a newspaper. One was the Porets, who owned the fields and forests surrounding Koshovato. The other was Mendel the Pharmacist. On Wednesday afternoon, when the newspaper arrived, Mendel would read and translate the newsof the world. Every man who could escape his obligations, whether Torah study, trade or labor, crowded into Mendel's shop to hear vos di tsaytung, what the newspaper had to say.

"During the Russian Revolution, when the pogroms in Southern Ukraine became unbearable, all the Jews, including Mendel, ran from Koshovato to Boguslav, a larger town where Jews felt they might be safer. Mendel's reputation preceded him and he was soon thriving again.

"Unfortunately, the White Russian Army under General Petlura began to practice their killing tactics on the defenseless Jews of Boguslav. Not that this practice helped them: the Bolsheviks easily defeated them. But the Boguslav Jews who survived Petlura ran again, to Tarashta, a still bigger and~ they hoped-safer city. "Even here people had heard of Mendel so he soon had a job and the respect he deserved.

"Now, Mendel had three sons in America. They sent a ship's carta, a boat ticket, to their parents and brought them to America. It was a terrible mistake. In America, who knew Mendel the Pharmacist? No one appreciated his talents. In America no one wanted folk medicines. They all wanted pills. No one appreciated expertise with leeches. They wanted scalpels, operations. In America no one wanted artistry. They wanted to see a license. Without one, they laughed at you. Even Mendel's eineklach, grandchildren, laughed at him. He was haunted and hounded by the question, 'From what school did you graduate?' "Mendel died of a broken heart. It was a shande, a shame, and a rachmones, a pity. "

We each put a stone on Mendel the Pharmacist Stein's headstone, and we prayed that his memory would be cherished for a blessing.

Then we moved on.