JUDAISM
Dora Shooster - I learned one thing in life that no matter how much you think you know a person you can never say that this is it. My husband was a very good-natured person to help somebody if they were in need. He would share the last penny, the last dollar if he had feelings for somebody. He wasn’t a religious man, but nobody can touch G-d for him, and nobody can question him because he was a Jew. He was honored with those two things, and yet he didn’t believe in praying. If you pray, someone is going to listen to you. He didn’t deny it. He wouldn’t like some- one to make fun of it, but for himself, he didn’t go for that. So many yeshivas, so many Jewish institu- tions, somebody has to support them. Some- body has to pay their way. So there were men in big cities that they put up the yeshivas and the synagogues that the Jewish culture, the Jewish beliefs, should go on, or it should dry up. So they take all the children and teach them all those things, and they believe in G-d. So, when they send out the men to little towns like Chester and Wilmington, they go up to the Jewish people, and they talk to them to see how much they want to donate for that purpose, so Jewry shouldn’t die out, so it would be kept on for life. So they used to come to Frank, and when I used to see him coming now, there was noth- ing. We had almost no money. When I used to see them coming into the store I thought, they are coming to the wrong place. Myself, I used to see them, Frank was cutting up suits and working on the presser. The reason I saw them coming is I always like to see what customers were coming, window watching. And I see these Jewish men coming, and Pop had his last dollar in his pocket. I knew he was going to take it out and give it to these men. I don’t have any jewelry, I’m thinking, but they are thinking it’s got to be kept up.
Herman Holding Izzy’s Son, David Shooster Photo by Izadore Shooster Colorized by Stephen Shooster
Then when everything changed years later, he went away from the tailoring, and I was left with the store. These men died out, and another man died out, but they had the addresses where to go. So, they used to come to me, and I said, ‘Frank is not here, I have no idea about my street who can help you. He works at the station. So, he went to the station, and the boys would tell me, smiling, ‘He never refused anybody. If he had a cent in his pocket, he would give it to them.’ That’s the kind of man he was.
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