by Meryl Ain
JANUARY, 1951
BELLEROSE, NEW YORK
BELLEROSE, IN NORTHEAST QUEENS, IN 1951 was as close to paradise as the twins and their parents had ever been—except, of course, when it wasn’t.
With its rows of identical brick bungalows sitting on manicured forty-by-hundred-foot plots that were formerly potato fields, the neighborhood evoked a stability that was comforting in the postwar era. In winter, snow coated the homes, lawns, and trees, giving it a pristine, clean aura. In the spring this gave way to green grass, yellow daffodils, and pink and purple tulips. Summer trellises showcased red and white roses while backyard fruit trees sprouted apples and peaches. In autumn, the leaves on maple trees turned red and orange and gold. In every season, it looked, smelled and felt new, fresh, fragrant, and favorable.
The entire upstairs floor of Izzy and Faye’s bungalow would be the newcomers’ home for the foreseeable future. While many of the homes on the block had unfinished attics, the older Lubinskis had added a dormer and finished the space in the hope that they would have frequent houseguests.
The vacant finished attic provided ample room for the newly arrived refuges. It enabled Aron and Judy to have their own bedroom with a double bed, as well as a blue bathroom with a sink and bathtub with a shower. There was no need to share the downstairs facilities. Faye had quickly and artfully created a warm and cozy pink bedroom for the girls out of the remaining attic space. There was a chest, newly painted pink to match the walls and the slanted ceiling. Two twin beds, arranged side by side, were covered with white chenille bedspreads, on which two matching dolls and the identical pink teddy bears made their home. This was a far cry from the barracks-like accommodations at Warteplatz.
To welcome the newcomers, Faye put out a spread on her yellow Formica and chrome dinette table that would have delighted David Ben Gurion, so Izzy said. Lox and cream cheese, pickled herring in cream sauce, egg and tuna fish salads, chickpea salad and olives, and the specialty of the house, the bakery items—onion rolls, bagels, jelly doughnuts, and blueberry muffins. Faye was glad she had added a leaf to the table; it both accommodated her houseguests and showcased the food. Faye’s heart and her tiny eat-in kitchen were full.
“How do you like those baked goods?” Izzy bellowed, not waiting for an answer. “We make the best products in Queens.” He took a bite of a cheese Danish.
“The timing works out perfectly,” Izzy gushed between bites. “I’ll teach you the bakery business from the bottom up, Aron. Before you know it, you’ll be managing our new bakery on Union Turnpike. And when you have a chance, you can help out too, Judy. Faye does the books and even waits on customers behind the counter from time to time. That’s when she’s able to fit it in between her Hadassah meetings.”
Working in a bakery sounded like a walk in the park after their wartime experiences. The couple nodded and smiled. The Lubinski family was busily engaged in eating the freshest meal they’d had in years. The twins were intrigued with the jelly, which squirted from the powdered doughnuts, and in picking the blueberries out of the muffins. They had never before seen a blueberry. While Johanna practically inhaled the egg salad, Bronka could not get enough of the lox. No sooner had she finished one piece then she said, “More loxy please” as the adults laughed.
“You better watch out, Aron,” quipped Izzy. “A child with expensive tastes.”
“Tomorrow we will take all of you to see the bakery. You better save your appetites.”
“Yes, and I also want to give you a tour of the community,” said Faye. “This is a great neighborhood for the girls. It’s safe and it’s clean. And I’m going to introduce them to some other children who live right here on this block.
“My friend, Jennie Mandelstern, and her husband, Harry, are in the house directly across the street. They live with their daughter, Lenore, and her daughter, Mindy, who’s a little older than the girls, maybe a year or so. That family has had a lot of tzuris. Jennie and Harry lost a son in the war, and another died from polio as a child. But they are such good people; they take wonderful care of Mindy, and they are cheerful in spite of their woes.
“The daughter, Lenore, is another story. You’ll see her in the morning about eight o’clock walking to Union Turnpike to catch the bus. She gets the subway at Kew Gardens and goes into Manhattan, where she has a very big job as an executive secretary for a machar, a bigshot in a huge company. Makes deodorants, which Jennie tells me is going to become a huge business. Women are very concerned about body odor in America.”
“Lenore not only smells good, but she is a sight for sore eyes,” added Izzy.
“Stop it, Izzy, you’re old enough to be her father,” Faye continued. “Anyway, she does make a pretty picture—with her auburn curls, blue eyes, black mascara, and bright red lipstick. Not to mention her fancy suits that show off her curves in all the right spots. Oh, and did I tell you, the high heels, I’m not really sure how she walks in them—or looks so good at eight o’clock. She must get up at five thirty.”
“Nah,” said Izzy. “She’s a natural beauty.”
“She may be a natural beauty, but she’s sure not a natural mother,” added Faye. “The earliest she gets home is seven after Jennie has fed and bathed Mindy. Sometimes she doesn’t even come home; such an important job, she has to stay in the city.”
Judy’s curiosity was now piqued. “And where is Mindy’s father?”
“I understand he died when Mindy was a baby,” said Faye.
“Well it looks like Mindy can use two new friends,” said Judy, reeling from all of this gossip. She was beginning to realize that privacy would have to be zealously guarded on this street.
“Yes,” said Faye. “She’s really a sweet little girl. Her grandparents are doing the best they can. So it will be nice for Mindy to have the girls so close by.
“I also want to introduce them to the Rosen girls. There are three of them—Victoria, Christina, and Antonia. They call them Tori, Tina, and Toni. I think Tina is the same age as your girls, but they’re all very close in age.”
“Christina Rosen?” Aron wondered aloud.
“Her mother, Concetta—or Connie as everyone calls her—is just the sweetest, kindest person you could ever meet,” Faye said. “She is actually a gezuntah Catholic, very devout. She’s one of eleven children. Her brother, Antonio, is a priest. They call him Father Tony. He visits from time to time. And her mother, Mrs. Mariani, who is very old school Italian, lives in a basement apartment in their house. Her name is Antonia, even though we all refer to each other by our first names, everyone calls her ‘Mrs. Mariani.’ She’s got a thick Italian accent and she’s always cooking Italian dishes in the downstairs kitchen—spaghetti and meatballs, homemade sauce, bracciole.”
“What’s bracciole?” asked Judy.
“Oh, it’s an Italian dish that is made with thin sliced beef or pork. It’s stuffed with breadcrumbs and cheese, rolled, and baked in tomato sauce.” Faye explained. “I don’t think they even use the kitchen on the first floor. Smells great when you walk past the house. Not sure if you keep kosher out of the house; if so, stay away from the meatballs too—her secret recipe includes pork.”
“I’m kosher,” said Bronka.
“Me too,” added Johanna.
“See, the girls know already how Jewish they are,” said Aron.
“Of course, our home is strictly kosher,” Faye reassured them. “But to be honest, we eat everything on the outside.” She neglected to mention that they also brought in Chinese food and ate it on paper plates. She made a mental note not to do that in front of their houseguests.
“Is a house kosher or a person kosher?” asked Bronka, commingling the three languages.
“That’s a very good question, Bronka,” said Aron in English, smiling at his precocious daughter. “Bronka talks tachlis.”
“Yes, I can see she gets right to the heart of the matter. She’s very literal and earnest.” Izzy smiled as he patted her head. “And a shayna maydela too. Such
a pretty girl.
Faye was now eager to change the subject from the status of her kitchen and the contents of her stomach.
“Oh, and did I tell you that Mrs. Mariani also helps Connie with the girls because Irv is on the road so much,” Faye added.
“Is Irv Jewish?” Aron, now curious, asked.
“Not sure,” said Faye.
“He started out Jewish,” added Izzy.
“What do you mean?” said Aron.
“He’s got a Jewish mother in Miami Beach, and his father is buried in Mount Hebron. I know he has a Jewish sister, who is married and lives in New Jersey. He met Connie at Fort Belvoir during the war. He was a staff photographer for the newspaper there, the Belvoir Castle, and she was a secretary. They married and had Victoria, right when the war ended. Get it? Victoria for victory. The two other girls followed within a couple of years.
“Now, Irv has a great job as a photographer for NewsTime, the popular weekly magazine,” Izzy explained. “He goes all over, taking pictures of famous people. He has a darkroom in the basement, and I’ve seen some of those photos—General Eisenhower, Mrs. Roosevelt, Ingrid Bergman. Is he Jewish? Well, his wife and mother-in-law don’t think he is. Kids are being raised Catholic. But between us, he likes lox as much as Bronka, and he’s sneaked into Yizkor services on Yom Kippur more than a few times. So, I guess it’s between him and God. Look, I say live and let live, who cares? I’m not in a position to judge; look at my own son.”
“This is a very mixed neighborhood,” Faye added. “About half Jewish and the rest mostly Italian and Irish. There are a lot of returning veterans, so everyone has the war in common. We all get along. No one cares or minds anyone else’s business.”
Judy and Aron almost gulped in unison. What was she talking about? The preceding conversation hardly indicated that anyone on 253rd Street minded his or her own business. Would these vets ask questions about their war experiences? Would their wives be snooping around in their business? They were four thousand miles from Poland, but could there be someone who would raise questions about Judy’s background and heritage, especially her father? As lovely as their new neighborhood seemed to be, it appeared that the discipline and discretion they had learned in the war would come in handy. So would their halting English.
That night, even though the twins each had their own bed, they snuggled together in one. They reviewed the pleasant things they had experienced in “Amewika” as they called it—blueberry muffins, jelly doughnuts, and lox. Despite the changes they had experienced in their short lives, they knew that they shared a special bond and could always count on each other. They soon drifted off to sleep, comfortably cuddling their soft, pink teddy bears, secure in the knowledge that no matter where they were, they were together.
Izzy and Aron were out of the house before the sun rose. Izzy wanted Aron to see the business from the bottom up, and that meant checking on the bakers who had been there since four o’clock. But Aron insisted that they stop first at the morning minyan so he could pray.
Izzy was less than delighted with this detour, but he knew that his young cousin would not be deterred.
“We’ll go to Rabbi Herbert’s shul,” said Izzy. “It’s a Conservative synagogue, meaning there’s mixed seating, maybe a couple other differences; I’m not sure. But he actually has Orthodox smicha. So people call it Conservadox. It’s kind of a combination of the two movements, but mostly Orthodox, as that’s how he was ordained. He’s a nice, young guy and they have a daily morning minyan. I’m sorry, but I won’t step foot in my old Orthodox shul after the rabbi drove my kids away.”
“Vas iz mixed seating?” Aron asked.
“There’s no mechitza,” Izzy replied. “Men and women sit together.”
“As long as there are ten men there, I can daven,” said Aron in Yiddish. “The label doesn’t matter to me. And I have to say Kaddish for all of my family members on my first full day in America. Since I don’t know when each of them died, I’m going to observe this day as the yahrtzeit of all of my family members who perished at the hand of the Nazis.”
Initially, Izzy felt he had to humor Aron, and figured this going to the daily minyan would be a one-shot deal. But once the service got started, he saw that this was serious business for Aron.
The small chapel doubled as a classroom, with chairs and tabletop desks moved out of the way for the minyan. A map of Israel hung on the wall, along with a poster of the Hebrew alphabet. Aron donned the tefillin and wrapped a tallis over his head, both of which he had brought from Poland.
Aron prayed with an intense fervor, which surprised Izzy. He seemed to know the Hebrew by heart, chanting rapidly, and swaying to his own rhythm. And when he recited the Kaddish, tears streamed down his face.
Izzy was amazed. Aron looked like a man who was one with God. How could that be after all he had endured? Why hadn’t Aron lost his faith after what he had suffered? After all, where was God when all of the horrors took place? On the other hand, Aron was clearly not a cheerful, serene person. His expression was grim, and his eyes were sad. Aron was complicated, Izzy thought.
While Izzy and Aron were at shul and checking out the bakery, Faye let the rest of the family sleep late. She was more than delighted to have this young family to take under her wing. Izzy was a workaholic and, as Faye saw it, she needed close relatives in her orbit because she was alone much of the time. Her friends had children and grandchildren nearby, and she was determined to make sure that her new surrogate family adored her. Ever the planner and the manager, she was happiest when she was directing. She knew exactly how she wanted the day to go. Let them sleep as long as they wanted to, so they would have energy for the day’s activities.
Bronka and JoJo, to use Johanna’s newly adopted American nickname, slept until eight thirty, whereupon they roused their mother. At about nine o’clock, they all went downstairs.
“Let’s have a leisurely breakfast,” said Faye, “and then we’ll walk over to the bakery in an hour or so. I want to show the girls the bakery and also let you see the neighborhood. We can come back and have lunch, and then in the afternoon, we’ll go across the street and meet Mindy and Jennie and Harry.”
As they walked down 253rd Street, Faye pointed to house after house and described the opportunities that awaited the twins.
“It’s such a great block for children,” she said. “When the kids get to be about five years old, they ring each other’s doorbells and call for each other to come out and play. Connie told me the kids staged a fashion show in the backyard last summer, and all the girls on the block put on special dresses. The mothers came and watched them as they paraded in their outfits, and then everyone had punch and cookies. The next day, the same girls dug up some worms, dismembered them, and had a funeral. Children nowadays are certainly creative. The bigger kids occupy themselves with Red Light, Green Light and other street games. The boys play softball in the middle of the street. The drivers know to slow down, and the kids know to stop the game when cars drive by.”
Once on Union Turnpike—the main thoroughfare—they passed a brick two-story library.
“On another day, we can go to the library and you can pick out some books,” Faye said to the girls. “And I’ll read them to you.”
They continued walking and came to a newly built brick Conservative synagogue, which Faye said was where she and Izzy now belonged. She noted that it housed classrooms for the Hebrew school. And a block away, Faye pointed out Izzy’s former Orthodox congregation, which was housed in a small, one-story shingle house.
A quarter mile away, they passed a small Catholic church with a white steeple that Faye said had been built two years ago. There was a white front door with a large cross affixed to it.
Soon they reached a commercial strip.
“Here’s where we shop; isn’t this convenient? It’s all so close,” said Faye.
Judy and the girls were intrigued with Dan’s Supreme, a full-service grocery store. So Faye took them in for a
tour. They marveled at the aisles of fresh produce, boxed cookies, and canned goods, not to mention an appetizing counter with smoked fish.
“This is where we shop for staples,” said Faye. “But of course, we don’t buy our meat here, but from Morty, the kosher butcher—he’s right next door to the bakery. We’ll stop and say hello to him when we’re finished at the bakery. And I’ll pick up some chicken for Shabbos.”
As they left the supermarket, Faye pointed to the store next door.
“Here’s Jonny’s Candy Store, where Izzy buys the newspaper every day,” she said. “Maybe we’ll stop there and get a treat some time.”
They passed a Chinese restaurant, which Faye couldn’t decide whether she should mention. But of course, she couldn’t just ignore it.
“A number of Chinese people have moved into the neighborhood since the Communist Revolution and opened up restaurants and laundries here. So you see, Judy, the Jews are not the only refugees who have come to America.
Moments later, Faye explained, “And here’s Luby’s Bakery. We thought of using another name but decided to give it the same one as our Flushing shop.”
Luby’s bakery was small and narrow, but it was loaded with more goodies than the twins—or their mother—had ever seen.
Izzy greeted them with big hugs. “Welcome to Luby’s.”
On the left wall, breads and rolls, muffins and Danish and jelly doughnuts were displayed in hanging baskets. Beneath the counter were glass cases of cookies, little ones with colored sprinkles and jelly and chocolate, and big black-and-white and chocolate chip ones. There were cinnamon and chocolate and raspberry rugelach. There were chocolate, apple, and marble cakes, and apple and blueberry pies. On the right wall was a refrigerator case with chocolate mousse cake, strawberry shortcake, and three kinds of cheesecake—plain, marble, and strawberry. There was a sign saying that ice cream cakes were available for special order.