Author’s Introduction
Foreword
A Word About Nu Nu Nu

1     My Father, Joe
"The designers — the nobility of a handbag factory — where were they? There I’d find my father."

2     Penn Station
"Pennsylvania Station — and that’s all the cab driver had to know to take you for a nice tour around the entire city — with the meter running."

3     Moishe, The War Hero
"I envied him. I wanted to be like him. The new Jew."

4     Fish
"Somehow they made him a man of property, a man of leisure. No more greenhorn."

5     The Sewing Machine
"Something terrible had happened. The police, said my father — my mother was too grief-stricken to speak — had come and confiscated Hershel’s sewing machine."

6     Relatives From America
"I checked and, yes, New York license plates. The sight of that alone stirred me. They were parking illegally, in front of a fire hydrant, but who could bother them? They were Americans. My aunt and uncle."

7     A Month In Ste. Agathe
"Three weeks meant you were getting up there with the Gewertzes and the Bronfmans. A month in Ste. Agathe? You must be a Gewertz or a Bronfman!"

8     My First World Series
"Never mind the milkshake. Instead, I’d get to watch my first World Series. That, I concluded, was how I’d spend the afternoon — and it seemed quite wonderful."

9     I Resign
"One more rat, I promised myself, and I am gone for good. Goodbye."

10     The Purple Gang
"Doodie had made his point. But he added, ‘This delivery of yours, is it worth your life?’"

11     Nobody Knows Anything
"How it angered him that a man who could not even quote a single passage of Torah could become a millionaire, and be seated in the front row of the synagogue, reaping respect and honors."

12     A Sabbath Drive
"I made him let me off at the outskirts, so I’d not be seen riding on the Sabbath. I checked around. Nothing but woods. Do trees talk?"

13     A Telegram From Israel
"As I explained my reasoning it occurred to me that I had done something terrible. I had performed no mitzvah. I had committed a sin."

14     A Sister From The Past  "Judging from the amount of luggage, Dinah was not visiting. She was prepared to move in with us — and we lived in a single room."

15     The Fairmount Synagogue Choir
"Thus I was the scapegoat — and perhaps for that reason — I was important to the other choir boys."

16     We Go Borrowing
"Many times," my father said, "I lent him money." This was hard for me to believe, but I knew it to be true. There was talk that Mr. Wernstock was personally worth 50 million dollars."

17     A Jewish Soldier
"Fight back? Who ever heard of the word? But that week, Israel had been declared a state, and that Sunday there had been that photo of a Jewish soldier — and everything changed."

18     The Old Men In The Synagogue
"The past is more real to them than the present. ‘You should wear warmer clothes,’ an old man says to me. ‘In Auschwitz, it got cold early.’"