The Rabbi of 84th Street by Warren Kozak

Author:Warren Kozak [Warren Kozak]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780061750656
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2007-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

THE FIRST JOURNEY WEST

Although the rabbi’s health improved after the serious illnesses around his wedding, he still suffered from wrenching headaches. After numerous visits to doctors, the consensus of medical opinion was that it might be the extreme heat that was causing the problem, a cooler climate might improve the situation. The rabbi’s sister, Rosa, was now living in New York. She wrote about an outstanding doctor she knew who might be able to help. Suddenly the United States became a viable option. In 1946, Haskel Besser went on a long journey with two goals in mind: he would visit Europe again to see family members who survived the war, and he would make his first trip to America to see the doctor in New York.

“I was very anxious to see our relatives in England, Belgium, Switzerland, and Holland. I wanted to learn more about what happened to them. And of course, I wanted to see New York—having seen pictures of it all my life.”

Traveling in 1946, within a year of the war, was still difficult. The U.S. Army had not even finished returning all of its soldiers back to the States, and there were very few flights that crossed the Atlantic. Ships were still the most common way to reach America.

The rabbi began his journey with a flight from Tel Aviv to Cairo. A seat on the TWA flight from Cairo to New York required not so much a ticket but a bribe to the right person—that’s how the travel business worked in Egypt in those days. The flight, which departed on a Wednesday, should have taken about twenty hours. But the plane was grounded in Shannon, Ireland, because of bad weather. This was not unusual because those early prop planes, with only manual gears, were more affected by storms and fog.

The passengers were taken to a hotel, but Rabbi Besser decided to stay in the airport. He didn’t want to take any chance of missing the flight. There was a good reason to be nervous. With each passing hour, the flight would bring him closer to Shabbos, and observant Jews never travel between sundown Friday and sundown Saturday. By Friday morning, the weather finally improved, and the twenty-five planes that were held up began flying out one after another. When he asked what time the plane was due to arrive in New York, the answer was 11 o’clock at night, well after the start of Shabbos.

He told the airline ticket officer that he could not leave.

The officials were astounded.

“Why not?” they asked.

He explained the religious reasons, which didn’t seem to matter to the airline personnel.

“I don’t care if you are a saint,” he was told, “if you don’t leave now, you’ll lose your ticket and we won’t have space for another six months…maybe even eight months.”

“I’ll take that chance,” the rabbi told the officer, making it clear that flying on that plane was simply not an option. There was another religious man traveling with the rabbi, and they asked for the name of a hotel.

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