More Stories from My Father's Court by Isaac Bashevis Singer

Author:Isaac Bashevis Singer
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: 2012-01-10T16:00:00+00:00

NICE JEWS, BUT …

A couple of times my father judged big lawsuits in his courtroom. A “big” lawsuit usually lasted days, and each side had an arbitrator who served as a kind of lawyer. When businessmen and rich Jews came to us, Father sat in front, the arbitrators on the side, and the litigants a little farther away. They yelled, spoke, argued, wrote numbers on sheets of paper, and smoked cigarettes and cigars. Mother brought in glasses of tea with lemon and biscuits.

And I would stand behind Father’s chair, listening and watching.

One lawsuit was particularly complicated because it was never clear who was suing whom. The owner of a store had died, leaving heirs. Partners too remained. The heirs and the partners were in total disagreement.

The heirs were all modern young men and women. The men wore Western clothing; either their beards were trimmed or they were smoothly shaven. The women wore hats, not marriage wigs. The partners were Hasidic Jews.

Days passed and it was difficult to ascertain what was going on and why the heirs and the partners couldn’t come to terms and continue running their business. Gradually the cat came out of the bag: the partners were stealing. The heirs, however, did not want to make this accusation at first. They insinuated, asked naive questions. They brought in a bookkeeper, who did not speak to the point but stammered. My father was not fit for such conflicts. He didn’t know his way around numbers. Furthermore, he trusted people. The thought that somebody could be dishonest never occurred to him. In addition, the partners were Hasidim. They spoke of their rebbe. They sprinkled their conversation with Torah learning. They smoked thick cigars and grandiosely blew smoke rings. They all had apartments, wives, daughters, and bookshelves full of holy texts. So how could one be suspicious of such Jews?

But I, the little boy with the red sidecurls, realized what was going on here. Behind their beautiful words, the heirs were accusing the partners of theft. The partners never clearly denied it but argued, What do you mean? You’re suspecting Jews like us? If that’s the case, then it’s the end of the world! … Words like that should not even be brought to one’s lips! … It’s a desecration of God’s name.

After a while the matter became clearer. The Hasidic Jews did not steal, God forbid, they just helped themselves. They were giving themselves loans. They took money under all sorts of excuses and chicanery. They had to marry off daughters, send wives to spas, go to spas themselves, and all that cost money. And since the old man who had just died had been a bit senile during the last few years, the young partners had slipped him papers to sign, which he did. They had conspired with the head bookkeeper. They bought merchandise for the store, paid double the cost, then got hefty kickbacks from the wholesalers. True, they didn’t break into safes, but nevertheless they did take money that did not belong to them.

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