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Page 14 THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE November 21, 1986
On Friday,the rabbi ran
by Joseph Glazer
During this centennial year of
Congregation Ahavath Achim,
one of its longtime members
shares his memories of an unus
ual experience. —Editor.
I used to come to shul regu
larly, every Friday night. Not
that I had to, but because 1
wanted to. This was the Big Shul;
you know, the onethey call A. A.
now.
All my friends came also, and
many of them were my class
mates, clubmates, or just neigh
bors. We’d sit together on the last
three rows and have a good time
and they would leave us alone,
except for Mr. Schoenberg who
would come back once in a while
and holler out, “Shah-h-h!” It
wasn’t too bad and we really
didn’t mind. We davened like the
rest, kept up and paid attention
most of the time—particularly
w hen the rabbi gave his talk right
before kiddush.
Our young Rabbi Harry Epstein
spoke a perfect English and all
his speeches were understand
able, what you’d call relevant. He
often discussed the news of the
day, sometimes quoting from
Keats and Shelley and even
Shakespeare. I think he was tak
ing courses at Emory at the time,
studying and boning-up like the
rest of us, and we felt very close
to him. Some Friday nights I
would keep him company on the
way home from shul because it
was a fairly long walk to his
house and it was dark. It was the
beginning of the modern era., .you
know. In no time nearly every
body would disappear and he’d
be heading home by himself, all
alone. He knew me and Papa
once hinted I ought to go along
with him.
So this particular Friday night
we started out innocently e-
nough—remember it was down
hill all the way from Woodward
Avenue to Georgia Avenue (actu
ally I think it bottomed out at
Bass Street)—and it must have
been about Clark Street that I
thought I noticed someone fol
lowing us. It was dark. I could
have been wrong. But I stepped
up the pace and the rabbi matched
it automatically. He was a young
man then, as I have said, and I
was a schoolboy.
We always walked like we
meant it, except this time it was a
little bit different. I pepped it up
a little faster and the rabbi fol
lowed suit. I stepped on it faster
still and the rabbi dittoed. Maybe
he had noticed too. There was no
doubt about it, a man was dog
ging us and trying to catch up.
Right away we both suspected
the same thing: a gonef, a hooli
gan, a holdupnik. It was deep in
the Great Depression and we’d
already had quite a few “inci
dents.’’ In fact, we’d heard that
one fellow had been stripped
down to his underpants, left
standing there with nothing on.
Another was relieved of his Bar
Mitzva watch, and still another
one was forced to surrender a
brand new leather wallet with a
hard-earned Lincoln fiver in it.
Now we really moved on and
hustled.
The blocks were long and you
couldn’t negotiate them just like
that. We really hurried, faster
and faster. Then we did a very
smart thing. We got out in the
middle of the street, right where
the trolley ran on Washington
Street. We figured we might at
tract attention or scare off that
tzu-chepenish or something. But
this particular night traffic was
literally nonexistent. They were
fixing the tracks or replacing
them and the street was abso
lutely deserted.
The blocks between Richard
son and Crumbley and Glenn
were pitch black, and we both
began running real fast. As they
say in track circles, we sprinted.
We raced with a man who was
chasing us and we ran for dear
life. Once or twice I thought he
was gaining and might catch up
and that made the adrenalin run,
too. As I said, both of us were
young and we did have a head
start. So, finally, here comes
Glenn Street and we both knew
that it was just one more block to
home plate—to the drug store at
the corner of Washington and
Georgia Avenue with all the lights,
where everyone hung out. We
turned to take a look and this
time the man was gone.
We had outrun him. We had
beaten him. We stopped to catch
our breath right in front of that
notorious emporium, in the light,
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Rabbi Epstein: Young man on the run.
the whole world standing there
just like always, and everyone
kept looking and staring at us.
The rabbi—me, I was just inci
dental—all dressed for shul, in
front of that irreligious hang-out
with all the rest of those drug
store cowboys on, Friday night
yet.
I’ll say this much, everybody
tried to act nonchalant. They kept
on talking loud and arguing. Some
tried to hide their cigarettes and
held off from smoking. They knew
something was wrong but they'
didn’t ask. They figured they’d
find out later.
And we both just stood there,
uncomfortable enough to be sure,
but we just had to. We had to
regain our composure, you might
say. Actually, it wasn’t more than
five or 10 minutes, but it seemed
like an hour or two. 1 remember
thinking to myself how lucky we
were. That fellow might have
gotten us. 1 had every bit of,
maybe, a dollar on me, and the
rabbi most likely had nothing
because he didn’t carry money on
Shabbat. I hat’s when they really
get mean, isn’t it?
The rest of the way was easy.
The Kulbershes, the Princess
Apartments, the Freedmans from
Comfort Furniture on one side
and Milton’s family on the other,
and finally, to the right, to the
house on Washington Terrace
where the rabbi lived in the
downstairs—left apartment. My
uncle Moishe Baum and Aunt
Reize Liebe lived there too, and of
course, that whole wonderful
Rubin family. Me, I lived on
Ormond Street, only a minute or
two away, and I got home in no
time. Safe.
You think this stopped us from
going to shul, me or the rabbi?
Absolutely and positively not.
Violence, shmiolence, whatever
you choose to call it, the very
next week I was right back there
on the very last row with my
whole club, as usual. All over
again...whispering, talking and
having a good time. The rabbi
was there too, naturally. Except
he was way up front by the steps
near the bima, where they led up
to the Oren HaKodesh.
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