Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

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, Opening a Retail Store, or Thinking About it? Have a Million Questions? THE CONSULTANTS “A Total Retail Concept Company” • Store Planning • Visual Merchandising • Window Display • Promotion Planning 256-5839 ...We've Got The Answers NOWON ATLANTATV the SHALOM SHOW * • \ a / n • i n ri i Shalom Show Host We Bring the Best ot Israel to You! Richard Peritz WVEU-TV—CH. 69 Sunday 6:30 a.m. .ENTERTAINMENT .TRAVEL • DISCUSSIONS • RELIGION For local advertising information call (404) 455-1493 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. A SOME OF THE BEST THINGS IN LIFE ARE FREE Cost-free Cataract Surgery for Medicare-B Patients. Lhe Citron Eye C linic and Atlanta Hospital have begun an innovative program that permits a patient to have outpatient cataract surgery with no hospital charge. Special Benefits Include: Free Consultation free Post-Operative Check-ups free Transporation when needed To enhance the quality ot your vision, call the Citron Eye Clinic for a f REE booklet on cost-free cataract surgery. In Atlanta call: 892-0005 or Georgia toll free: 1-800-282-3884 CITRON EYE CLINIC 705 Juniper St., N.E. Suite 100