My embarrassing moment in a Yiddish-speaking men’s clothing store
In the 1950’s, this neighborhood had so many Holocaust survivors, even Italian shopkeepers understood Yiddish
Photo by pxhere
When I was growing up in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, in the 1950s, the neighborhood was primarily Jewish and Italian. Most of the Jews were Holocaust survivors, for whom Yiddish was their lingua franca. My first language was Yiddish, too. My second language was Yinglish — a dialect of English peppered with Yiddish words and phrases, which I shared with my parents and their cohorts.
Even the local Italian tradesmen knew a bit of Yinglish. Vinnie, the proprietor of the local produce store, recognized that when I asked him for zupngrins, he knew I needed parsley. When I went to Tony the fish monger, and asked for stuff to make gefilte fish, he would ask: “Pike or carp?” Then, he would follow up with: “So do you want the fish gehakt (chopped)?”
Mom and Dad owned a bakery, “Sinai Bake Shop.” On occasion, the bakery’s flour delivery was delayed and we ran out of that vital ingredient for a few days. Dad would then call Vito at his eponymous Italian bakery located two blocks away and ask to borrow a couple of one-hundred-pound sacks for a couple of days. Dad would tell Vito that he was in short supply of mel (flour). Vito was always accommodating. So Dad would dispatch Charlie, his African American porter, to fetch the flour. Charlie would walk into Vito’s bakeshop, and, upon his arrival, Vito would ask: “So are you here for the mel?”
The high season for the bakery was the days before the High Holidays. The night before the eve of the holiday, beginning at around 10 p.m., the first freshly baked challahs would emerge. The line would soon stretch down the block and then around the corner. Sinai Bake Shop was at its high point well before it was customary to have patrons take a number from a dispenser. To ensure first come, first served, most customers waited their turn based on an honor system.
Because our customers had only recently learned English, they were still rather creative with their phrasing and transformed the adjective “next” into a noun. So when a salesclerk rang up an order, she would shout “Next?” To which a customer would yell out: “It’s mine ‘next’!” Often, arguments ensued about who was really the next “next”:
“Vaht do you mean, it’s your ‘next’?” one customer might say. “It’s mine ‘next’! I vas here before you.”
“Vell,” said the one who insisted she was next. “Mrs. Goldblum vas here before you and she had to run to the beauty parlor, so she gave me her ‘next’!”
The battle for ownership of a “next” sometimes became contentious and even the police from the 63rd Precinct were summoned. This requires a bit of explanation.
In those days, there was no 911. One night, Sergeant Benny stopped in for a coffee and chanced upon a crowd screaming about who was the next “next.” People in the neighborhood respected Benny and his mere appearance calmed them.
Sergeant Benny asked Mom what this was all about. After she explained, he wrote down the precinct phone number on a slip of paper, which Mom taped to the wall next to the register. He encouraged Mom to call if that ever reoccurred. Regular customers saw the slip of paper, and when things got out of hand would often shout: “Call Sergeant Benny!” Benny was always responsive because he found the situation comedic — and got a fresh cup of coffee and a warm Danish to boot. He would bound into the store and shout: “OK, so whose ‘next’ is it?”
As a young child, I didn’t always understand the nuances of the Yiddish expressions I heard around me. Before the holidays, for example, Mom would take me to a small discount men’s clothing store in East Flatbush to buy new attire. The trip took more than two hours. The store was usually crowded, with narrow aisles and overstocked racks and shelves. And there was always a cacophony there, as parents addressed each other and their kids in Yiddish, with most kids, like me, responding in English.
The proprietor of the store was a jovial, short and physically disabled man whom Mom and all her Yiddish-speaking friends matter-of-factly referred to as der hoyker (the Yiddish word for “hunchback”). Der hoyker was hard-working and eager to serve and please his clientele. And despite his malformation, he ambled adeptly through the store.
One day, close to Passover, 1959, when I was 9, Mom and I took the long bus ride to der hoyker’s store. I grudgingly tried on various pairs of slacks, until we found a pair that satisfied both me and Mom, except that they were a bit small. Immersed in a conversation with a friend, Mom told me: “Gey bet bay der hoyker a por hoyzn azoy vi di, ober a bisl greser” (Go ask der hoyker for a pair of pants like these, only one size larger).
I pushed my way through the mayhem and found der hoyker amid overflowing racks. “Excuse me, Mr. Der Hoyker, but do you have these pants in a larger size?” I asked. Because of the surrounding noise, I had to repeat the question a second time, but louder. Suddenly, like in a bad movie, silence engulfed the store, women gasped and all eyes were focused on me.
They all pointed at me and began laughing. My eyes welled up with tears as I ran back to Mom.
“What happened?” she asked. Sobbing, I explained. She too burst into laughter. Then, she said, “Tatele, the man’s name is Levine. Der hoyker means ‘the hunchback.’”
So that’s when I found out that his name was Mr. Levine.
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