who knew them.
On a Saturday afternoon, if I am not mistaken it was on Decoration Day, May 30, 1905, I was on the lower East Side in New York, attending the place of worship of our Boiberker landsleit. I saw a man sitting at a table and reading the Psalms of David. As I looked at the man he lifted up his eyes and recognized me, although I hadn't seen him since I left the town of my birth. It was Simche the water carrier. He earned a meager living by carrying water to the house wives of Boiberke from morning to late in the night, six days a week.
I sat near him, and in reply to my question, he told me he arrived in New York several years ago. One of his sons (If I am not mistaken was a pants operator,) who came to this country some years previously, sent for him and the other members of the family. He told me that he did not lack for food and clothing and could even spare a few cents for the poor, but that he was praying constantly to God to forgive him his sins. What sins could you have committed in your life, I asked, slaving from morning to night in Boiberke merely for a dry piece of bread? This you call sinning? Oh Joel (this is my name), you do not understand, he told me; the sin is to eat the bread your son earned by desecrating the Sabbath. Simche lived to a ripe old age, respected by all who knew him.
Here is an interesting story which my late brother Samuel, who was older than I, told me some years ago. One Saturday afternoon, he came to the lower East Side in New York to observe the Yahrzeit of our mother, (this must have been the year 1900.) On Rivington Street he encountered a fellow Boiberker who used to be a cattle driver in Boiberke. In the winter he used to drop in to our house to warm up. When my brother met him on Rivington Street, he was dressed in a dark suit and a dirby hat and his chest was ornamented with a golden watch and chain which in those days was usually purchased from a pedler on payments of a dollar a week. When my brother asked him, Mordchy Hersh, how are things with you, you look 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, complim