The Shopkeeper on East Broadway

Yenta Serdatsky (1877–1962) was a Yiddish writer of short stories and sketches. Born near Kovno (now known as Kaunas) in Lithuania, Serdatsky (née Raybman) married a young bookbinder, had three children with him, and then—in what she would speak of as an “awakening”—moved to Warsaw alone in 1905 to become a writer. There she was mentored by the preeminent Yiddish author I. L. Peretz, publishing her first pieces in Warsaw- and Vilnius-based periodicals. Two years later, the family was reunited and moved to Chicago, where they managed a cafe that attracted other greenhorn writers who came for soup and conversation. In 1918 Serdatsky moved to New York City and wrote hundreds of pieces for The Jewish Daily Forward.

In early 1922, Serdatsky’s stories in the Forverts suddenly disappeared. There are conflicting accounts as to the exact nature of the dispute leading up to her departure, but Serdatsky alleged that the paper’s famed editor, Abraham Cahan, asked her to add another weekly story without any increase in pay. After this episode, Serdatsky’s publication record over the next two decades largely ground to a halt, with a notable exception: her contributions to Di Naye Varhayt. This short-lived, so-called New Reality was the last in a number of newspapers founded by the activist Louis Miller, who had cofounded the Forverts with Cahan decades earlier.

Here, Serdatsky published more than forty short stories and sketches, sometimes appearing two or three times a week. These pieces often involved the triumphs and challenges of Eastern European immigrants navigating New York City. Although Serdatsky frequently addressed the youthful idealism and mature disappointments of socialist workers, she rarely took account of the burgeoning Zionist movement. Yet in the sketch below, in her typical mode of flânerie on the Jewish street, Serdatsky cast her gaze on the happenings of the first week of April 1925.

The dedication of Hebrew University’s Mount Scopus campus on April 1 was widely celebrated on the Lower East Side, with a forty-thousand-person parade from St. Mark’s Place to Second Avenue. “The East Side is decorated today in honor of the holiday,” Di Naye Varhayt trumpeted. “Jewish and American flags flutter over Jewish institutions, offices and newspapers, over Jewish businesses and homes.” Meanwhile, another holiday stood at the threshold: Passover was coming on April 8, and the pages of Di Naye Varhayt advertised such seasonal goods as Manischewitz matzos and Mizrach wine from the Land of Israel (“An honor for yom yov; A support for Zion; A pleasure for you!”). In quick strokes, and with no clear resolution, Serdatsky reframes attention from the day’s ceremonies and onto her everyday subjects: harried shopkeepers, pedestrian mothers and children reacting to this “double yom tov,” evoking anxieties over assimilation, Jewish education, intergenerational gaps, and political questions that resonate a century later. “The Shopkeeper on East Broadway” was published in Di Naye Varhayt on May 6, 1925, on page 7.

The shopkeeper on East Broadway rose earlier than anyone else one morning to decorate his menswear store with American and Zionist flags. It was a festive week: Hebrew University had just opened in Palestine, only a few days before Passover.

The cynically minded suspected he’d done it for business. Others, the more logical kind, inclined to believe in ideals and the greatness of the human spirit, thought it was beautiful: and who’s to say the shopkeeper can’t be an idealist? And who is this shopkeeper of the Jewish streets of New York? A former worker who’d started coughing at some point from sitting all day in the sweatshops. Some relatives helped him open a little store, he worked hard, built up some savings—his first couple thousands—and from there the money started working for him. Now he’s rich, hundreds of suits hang on the racks of the sales floor, and up above, the machines thunder away, fabrics pile up, and several workers are cutting and sewing, cutting and sewing, sending down ready-made clothes to sell at the store.

Are things going well? Who knows? A happy person doesn’t go gray at the age of forty or stare out at the world with such sad eyes. Maybe he longs for simpler days, when he was a shopworker, an idealist? Who can say otherwise?

It’s late in the afternoon. Cold and overcast, a sharp, on-again-and-off again rain that wets the streets and makes the going worse. Peddlers slowly roll their loaded pushcarts along. People hurry through their shopping without looking around, faces clouded over, rushing to celebrate the holiday back home.

The flags, stretched out over two stories, saturated with color in this miserable landscape, make me stop in front of the store. I look through the glass. It’s pretty empty. The shopkeeper walks up and down the aisles. Every so often he comes right up to the windows and takes a nervous, hopeful look outside, then sweeps his gaze right and left, eyeing the racks. It seems to me that it is now, in his moment of heightened idealism, that he’s expecting the people to come—the ones that want to organize and recruit the regiment of Jewish youth that will live in Zion. If only they would just show up—why, he’d give away all the clothes, and even the mountains of merchandise upstairs on the shelves that weigh his soul down with their luxury.

The longed-for visitors don’t arrive. Young and old walk by, lost in their thoughts. No one stops, not even for a moment, to look at the flags that cost him a fortune. I see a young woman approaching from the distance, holding a seven-year-old by the hand. She seems preoccupied—unpleasant things, no doubt. Maybe there’s not enough money to properly mark yom tov in the house, and the neighbors will talk? Or maybe something more profound? The child dances down the street, his cheeks rosy, eyes sparkling. Who knows how many jolly things skip through his head? The woman doesn’t spare a glance as they near the store.

“Look, Mama, look!”

She peers around and blushes. She’s forgotten to tell the boy about the celebration she’d read about in the paper. She’s let his Jewish education go to seed, her husband will be livid. But the kid’s no lost cause—he’s heard them talking about it at the Sholem Aleichem school. He raises his eyes to the brightly dyed banners, and his voice rings out:

Hooray, hooray for Zion’s flag
For the colors white and blue!

His delighted mother pulls him close. I trail behind them for a little bit and hear the boy ask:

“Mama, dear, will you buy me a Jewish flag?”

“Yes, my little boy, of course! We’ll be at the stand any minute.”

“And an American flag too?”

“Of course, my son. Two flags, American and Jewish,” she assents.

The boy is silent for a moment. Suddenly he shouts: “The American flag should be double size! For 10 cents! Right, Mama?”

The mother doesn’t answer. Maybe we’re both thinking the same thing:

“Why does the American child think the American flag should be twice the size of the Jewish one? How do you explain that? Or is it the mystery of the new, young American-Jewish generation?

I see another mother approaching with her child. She’s in her thirties, and her daughter is some thirteen years old. They both look upset; they must be in a fight. I hear the girl’s stubborn voice: “I just want the dress!” “It’s too expensive!” her mother snaps back. When they reach the store she stops, looking at the decorations. Her face is soft and small, and her large, dark, dreamy eyes light up. One minute passes, then another—it seems she’s forgotten her daughter and that expensive dress that she’ll have to buy, there’s no way about it. All the day’s worries disappear, and she starts humming a tune.

The girl, annoyed, pulls at her hand.

“Come on, what are you even looking at?”

She doesn’t move.

“Look, my dear girl,” she says gently, turning towards her daughter. “It’s a great Jewish holiday.” Now the girl’s eyes light up with sly, darting flames: Mama’s in a good mood, she’ll hear out her greenhorn ideas and buy that dress, finally . . . “Come, Mama, you’ll tell me on the way there!”

I follow them too. I hear the mother speaking excitedly: “In the land where the sun rises, the cedars tower and the citrons grow . . .”

The girl is quiet. I can’t see her face. I’d like to imagine that she’s not still thinking about that costly dress, and that their spirits—mother’s and daughter’s together—are gliding over the hills and valleys of Judea and the vineyards of Zion, where Jewish sons and daughters are spending the holiday of spring and friendship.

I’d like to go back to the store and bless the shopkeeper for what he’s done. But it starts raining hard, and I’ve got to find cover.