prosperous? his reply was, everything would be all right but the food isn't as good as in Boiberke. The meat, isn't meat, the beer isn't beer. My brother looked at him and thought, here is a man who perhaps had a piece of meat once a week on the Sabbath in Boiberke and a glass of beer only if by chance someone treated him, and here he has plenty of everything but is complaining. Nevertheless, he lived out his years as a successful fruit pedler in New York. Not only did he have plenty of food and clothing, he also could spare a dollar for the poor.
I have already mentioned that among the founders and officers of the strictly Sabbath observing Jews Am Kedoshim of Boiberke who immigrated in the early 1890's, was one Abraham, or as he used to be called, Avromele Paget. He was known as the ablest Mohel among the Boiberker as well as among other Galicians on the lower East Side in New York. It was a real pleasure to meet him on Saturdays and Holidays walking with his high hat to the Synagogue. On the high holidays he prayed Musaf in one of the outstanding small Shuhls and worshippers even from other Shuhls would come to hear his fine voice. He was respected and loved by all who knew him.
Abraham Paget attained a ripe old age and was buried among the Boiberker landsleit on the Mount Zion cemetary in Long Island, New York.
I have also mentioned Moishe Gottlieb, who had to flee from Boiberke, the town of his birth, never to return. There was another Moishe from Boiberke in America who also had to flee never to return for fear of arrest. This was Moishe Yaaker. He on orphan grew up in our town at the home of a relative by the name of Malke Greenblatt. Moishe Yaaker was by trade a house painter, but a good one, whose work was always appreciated. In 1897, several weeks before Pesach, he was engaged by Rochel Erden, the wife of the wealthiest Jew in our town, David Erden, to paint her rooms, for a certain set price. Moishe made a good job and finished it three days before Pesach. Rochel Erden, satisfied with his work, complimented him and handed him the pay, but Moishe found that she had taken off a dollar from the price they had agreed upon. When he asked her for the additional dollar, she began to shout, called him names and threatened him if he didn't leave her house she would have him arrested. Whereupon he took his pail of paint and splashed it over the new painted walls. He was smart to leave town at once. Rochel screamed and cried. Here it was three days before Pesach, and there were no painters to do the job over. I recall during the entire Pesach Holiday, the town had nothing else to talk about except the Rochel Erden-Moishe Yaaker incident. When I met him several years later in New York and reminded him of the incident, Yaaker told me that if she only insulted him by calling him names, he probably would have left the house with a course on his lips. But when she also cursed his relatives where he grew up, that was more than he could bear.
In the years from 1890 to the outbreak of world War I in 1914, the immigration of Jews from Eastern Europe was at its peak. Every day ships loaded with new Immigrants arrived at the port of New York. No wonder that countless Benevolent societies were emerging from the newly arrived element. The immigrants were eager to organize societies in the name of the townships from where they stemmed. Most of them made sure that before the name of the township the words The first, appeared. But when the younger set of Boiberker gathered to organize, they preferred under the guidance of Rubin Graebel, to put in front of the name of the town, the word Progressive and thats how the name was given on the 17th of May 1908, when a group of Boiberker boys organized the Progressive Boiberker Young Mens Benevolent Society.
They approached me to be one of the founders but when I learned the purpose, I was reluctant because at that time a cousin and business partner of mine, Louis Kratter, and I were members of the then outstanding Zionist society in greater New-York, The Austro-Hungarian Zionists of greater Ne